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Sinclair Broadcast Group - General Discussion


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I hope Sinclair has their direct-to-consumer model ready to roll when baseball season starts, because that's the ONLY way cord-cutters and those dumping cable will be able to watch their games.  I could see some sort of resolution eventually for this to some degree, but this guarantees them viewership and maybe some additional subscriber fees to start filling in the massive hole they've dug themselves into.

 

Even if full capacity levels won't be realized for a while in the stadiums and arenas, the more fans and eyeballs they can get, the better.

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6 hours ago, Myron Falwell said:

The likeliest outcome does not involve the mass selling of stations, but is twofold:

 

1.) The holding company for the RSNs goes bankrupt and taken over by creditors who can resolve debts. In fact, that happened with Comcast’s ill-fated Houston RSN. If Sinclair were to offload their stake now, they would be getting hosed big-time.

 

2.) Sinclair winds up like Granite, but in too big to fail mode. (Actually, a better comparison would be iHeart and Cumulus when they entered Chapter 11. You’ll note that there was never a fire sale of stations for either radio operator but it killed off whatever M&A mindset existed for the radio industry.) But indeed, there are multiple stations that Sinclair can cut to the bone like Granite did to WKBW.

 

Sure, a white knight investor like Byron Allen could swoop in, but only if the Smith family is stripped of control of the company. But by then, would it be worth it for Byron?

On that 1st one, I think Sinclair would deserve to be hosed by the same people who hosed them for buying the RSNs in the first place.

 

On the 2nd one I see it as a mix of Granite and Clear Channel/iHeart however I see it as more like Granite than Clear Channel as I think Sinclair is way too big for one owner to take on all 160+ stations, I see it as more like the type of deals they just recently made with KBSI/WDKA.

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3 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

Were any big names laid off? I know high-level news positions don't come along very often (i.e. News Director, Evening Anchor, Chief Meteorologist).

Keith Taylor (a big name in the Tulsa market) got the axe, WZTV's sports department wasn't the only ones that got hit hard, the Sports department at WTVC was all but pretty much wiped out, Heather Mills, Gerard Ramalho, Jerry Brown and Amber Dixon all of KSNV all of them victims of the layoffs.

 

There's so many of them it will be difficult to A. Mention all of the ones laid off. B. It would become a list thread. I may need to create a new message thread with you about this discussion.

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On 3/4/2021 at 2:11 PM, Kenneth Kissel said:

For Raleigh: I could also see WLFL or WRDC go with Nexstar/Mission as well. It is very unlikely that Disney would want a duopoly. The other station could get bought by Bahakel Communications and have their master control in Charlotte at WCCB. 

WRDC to Nexstar would fit like a glove. They could run the station a la WCTX with an expanded morning news and a primetime block with MNTV going to late nights.

 

Bahakel would be too big to re-enter Raleigh (they owned WKFT before selling it to Univision). The company I'm thinking that would be a better fit for WLFL would be, oddly, Tegna. Owning a standalone CW would be a bit unconventional but their approach would stand out in this market and would give the market the fourth OTA outlet it should have. Also, it would be able to draw from and benefit WFMY and WCNC so a win-win of sorts.

Hey, it can't be any different than the WZDX's, WATN's, and WOI's of the group. With enough work they could reach WPMT/WTIC tier.

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15 minutes ago, scrabbleship said:

Hey, it can't be any different than the WZDX's, WATN's, and WOI's of the group. With enough work they could reach WPMT/WTIC tier.

We can consider many Sinclair stations to be in that category.

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6 hours ago, scrabbleship said:

 

Sinclair is a bit different. They built themselves on Fox and netlets, not the other way around.

Actually what I meant to say is that there are at least several Fox affiliates owned by Sinclair that fits into the WZDX type of stations I consider KDNL/WXLV to be Sinclair's equivalent of WATN/WOI without a full scale news department. 

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20 hours ago, JCB4TV said:

I wonder whether this will lead to more Sinclair newscasts being centralized.

The ones to watch are in San Antonio and Mobile/Pensacola.  San Antonio is easier since it's all in one place, despite the recent addition of WXLV's newscasts.

 

Mobile and Pensacola each got a taste of it last year thanks to COVID shutting down each station.  WPMI did WEAR's newscasts for a few days when they had an exposure and the opposite happened when WPMI had a case...WEAR produced the news for both stations and WPMI personnel filled in where they could have in the field.

 

It's probably safe to say that the days of a market Mobile/Pensacola's size having four distinct news operations (2 of which Sinclair runs) is numbered.

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1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

The ones to watch are in San Antonio and Mobile/Pensacola.  San Antonio is easier since it's all in one place, despite the recent addition of WXLV's newscasts.

 

Mobile and Pensacola each got a taste of it last year thanks to COVID shutting down each station.  WPMI did WEAR's newscasts for a few days when they had an exposure and the opposite happened when WPMI had a case...WEAR produced the news for both stations and WPMI personnel filled in where they could have in the field.

 

It's probably safe to say that the days of a market Mobile/Pensacola's size having four distinct news operations (2 of which Sinclair runs) is numbered.

 

I thought that keeping WEAR/WPMI separate was a condition of the FCC approving the sale of WPMI from Newport, outside of emergency situations?

 

Especially since IIRC, Sinclair used the argument of one station targeting Mobile, and one Targeting Pensacola as grounds to convince the FCC to let Deerfield acquire the license of WPMI.  

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18 minutes ago, elfuego35 said:

 

I thought that keeping WEAR/WPMI separate was a condition of the FCC approving the sale of WPMI from Newport, outside of emergency situations?


The FCC greenlighted the Newport deals without any conditions.

 

Nexstar surely didn't keep KARK & KLRT separate in Central Arkansas.......

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22 hours ago, JCB4TV said:

I wonder whether this will lead to more Sinclair newscasts being centralized.

I will say yes and no.

 

It will all depend on the level of cuts Sinclair makes at the stations, I will say the ones that suffers the biggest cuts will in all likelihood see newscasts being hubbed elsewhere, those that doesn't see the biggest cuts will probably see their news department remain in tact.

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52 minutes ago, dman748 said:

I will say yes and no.

 

It will all depend on the level of cuts Sinclair makes at the stations, I will say the ones that suffers the biggest cuts will in all likelihood see newscasts being hubbed elsewhere, those that doesn't see the biggest cuts will probably see their news department remain in tact.

same thing happened in 2006.

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45 minutes ago, Kenneth Kissel said:

same thing happened in 2006.

Much of that was the end of the "News Central" experiment, which actually gutted some existing newsrooms before (like WPGH), but added newscasts to their other netlet stations with content from Baltimore.

WLFL did shutter theirs around the same time....were they ever NewsCentral-ized?

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1 hour ago, Kenneth Kissel said:

same thing happened in 2006.

 

13 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Much of that was the end of the "News Central" experiment, which actually gutted some existing newsrooms before (like WPGH), but added newscasts to their other netlet stations with content from Baltimore.

WLFL did shutter theirs around the same time....were they ever NewsCentral-ized?

I smell something similar to this happening this time around. I don't think its impossible for somebody at a Sinclair station to suffer what WPGH suffered.

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The Sinclair cuts claimed WOAI 5p anchor Delaine Mathieu. Her last time on the desk was Tuesday. Didn’t get to give a farewell. Interestingly enough, she did reappear briefly on Friday during a prerecorded montage for longtime anchor Randy Beamer, who retired. 
 

https://mikemcguff.blogspot.com/2021/03/delaine-mathieu-exits-news-4-san-antonio-woai.html
 

Elsewhere in Texas, KFDM/KBTV in Beaumont cut 10 buildingwide, which is way more than the stated 5% of their workforce. 

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On 3/5/2021 at 5:34 PM, dman748 said:

Keith Taylor (a big name in the Tulsa market) got the axe, WZTV's sports department wasn't the only ones that got hit hard, the Sports department at WTVC was all but pretty much wiped out, Heather Mills, Gerard Ramalho, Jerry Brown and Amber Dixon all of KSNV all of them victims of the layoffs.

 

There's so many of them it will be difficult to A. Mention all of the ones laid off. B. It would become a list thread. I may need to create a new message thread with you about this discussion.

Keith wasn't the only one at KTUL that got the axe 9 other KTUL staff got axed as well but Keith was the only on air talent that got it compared to the new on air talent.  And Keith had just celebrated 20 years at 8 in December of 2020.

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To add further insult to injury for Sinclair, Moody's just downgraded its Diamond Sports unit yet again

 https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2021/03/09/moodys-downgrades-sinclairs-sports-networks-again.html

 

And the most troubling part of all is this quote

Quote

The agency also warned that Sinclair's RSNs could be downgraded again if the company fails to meet the higher end of its guidance.

"A failure to renew key distributor relationships in 2021 could lead to concerns over the sustainability of the capital structure," according to Moody's.

The fact that Dish will be dropping the NBC RSNs does not give me full confidence that the Sinclair RSNs will ever be back on Dish even if Sinclair and Dish came to terms on the local stations side of things.

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24 minutes ago, newsbot said:

Portland, Maine's Sinclair station found itself in an ethical dilemma when it allowed a police negotiator to pose as a WGME reporter in a hostage situation
https://www.adweek.com/tvspy/police-pose-as-local-reporter-in-hostage-situation/228780/

Hmmm....this is rather tame tho. In the end, that actually helped solved that situation so I give it a pass. 

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12 hours ago, Yankees4life said:

Hmmm....this is rather tame tho. In the end, that actually helped solved that situation so I give it a pass. 

Perhaps the outcome colors perception of the ethics of the situation, but it things had ended badly for the hostages...meanwhile, the media chin-stroking continues...
https://www.pressherald.com/2021/03/11/police-posed-as-reporter-in-phone-call-with-hostage-taker/

Edited by newsbot
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I'm not sure if this was mentioned already, but WVAH is now a affiliate of Decades. Fox programing moved to WCHS DT-2. According to Wikipedia (I know there not a reliable source) Sinclair didn't give a reason for the change at all. This happened in the beginning of February.

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41 minutes ago, Jakob said:

I'm not sure if this was mentioned already, but WVAH is now a affiliate of Decades. Fox programing moved to WCHS DT-2. According to Wikipedia (I know there not a reliable source) Sinclair didn't give a reason for the change at all. This happened in the beginning of February.

Interesting. Decades has lost ground to newer netlets like StartTV which replaced Decades on the CBS O&Os. Maybe there's hope for Decades after all!

Edited by newsbot
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