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Sinclair Broadcast Group - General Discussion


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7 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Seeing as how they already provide news for WUHF, unless they have an alternate studio space and control room, they would have to be pre-taped.

 

Syracuse is a possibility since they produce both WSTM and WTVH's newscasts, and only the CW has a 10pm show, i'm assuming it's done on the WSTM side?  That leaves the WTVH's side open for doing newscasts for Buffalo, potentially.

 

It's gonna be Syracuse. I read that on the article. 

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... waiting for Sinclair to build one or more regional "News Hubs" with multiple studios to be able to provide simultaneous newscasts with one set of infrastructure for the group of stations... Each would have its own set of anchors (not the NewsCentral idea), but those same anchors can server multiple stations across time zones...  Taking their existing "shared news operations" up a notch...

 

Jim

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On 3/16/2021 at 11:53 AM, TheRob said:

The land is more valuable than the operation, unfortunately.

 

I feel badly for the people at KFDM, but it is a small market. It is a rare situation for people to work at that market size for a long time.

 

It basically gives Tegna full control of the market.

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17 hours ago, compubit said:

... waiting for Sinclair to build one or more regional "News Hubs" with multiple studios to be able to provide simultaneous newscasts with one set of infrastructure for the group of stations... Each would have its own set of anchors (not the NewsCentral idea), but those same anchors can server multiple stations across time zones...  Taking their existing "shared news operations" up a notch...

 

Jim

Now these arrangements seem to be under the radar as these "new newscasts" are being done in another station's "spare time and space".  South Bend's WSBT seems to have additional capacity since they not only do their own shows, but shows for WNWO and WOLF (which can be done in the same space and with the same crew).  The others I"m aware of include Macon doing news for Albany, Myrtle Beach doing news for Savannah, and of course San Antonio doing WXLV's newscasts.

 

Decommissioned news operations (like in Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Champaign, St. Louis, Tallahassee) could be put into play as well with the proper upgrades as well.

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23 hours ago, mrschimpf said:

Seems like a contractual requirement of the LMA agreement or to fulfill some well-hidden public affairs remit as part of their license. It seems likely Spectrum also isn't happy to be carrying a Dabl station with main-channel two-digit carriage and asked them to air something local on that station.

 

They can't have a Dabl station on a plum channel number but ION can just keep on doing what they do...

 

Edited by channel2
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On 3/28/2021 at 12:57 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

Now these arrangements seem to be under the radar as these "new newscasts" are being done in another station's "spare time and space".  South Bend's WSBT seems to have additional capacity since they not only do their own shows, but shows for WNWO and WOLF (which can be done in the same space and with the same crew).  The others I"m aware of include Macon doing news for Albany, Myrtle Beach doing news for Savannah, and of course San Antonio doing WXLV's newscasts.

 

Decommissioned news operations (like in Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Champaign, St. Louis, Tallahassee) could be put into play as well with the proper upgrades as well.

 

I don't have a problem with any of this. They have local reporters and weather people on the ground, so what if the presenters are presenting from a remote location? (Using a little British lingo there.) It's not that much different from hiring out professional voiceover talent versus the old days when you had a booth announcer that was actually a station employee.

 

I question why they would use a small market station in South Bend to do newscasts in Toledo, however. The other two stations have pretty good newscasts so I think they need more polished talent to compete. WSYX or WKRC should be doing the Toledo newscasts. (I just watched a South Bend newscast last week and the lighting seem to accentuate all the imperfections in the female anchor's face. I felt like Austin Powers focusing on the wart above her nose.)

 

I don't know what the economics are of having a competitor producing a newscast for your station, but I would toy with the idea of using WTOV in the same way for WPGH. Maybe if you could share expenses that way, you could upgrade WTOV over and above what you could normally afford.

 

I was watching WTOV news a few days ago and I really like their newscast for what it was. It was like a small town newspaper where they were reportin what was going on at the vfw. WTOV seems to have decent people in the studio, but some of the young reporters can barely get out a sentence.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by DirtyHarry
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Logistics plain and simple.  Also, the cost of doing business in a smaller market may be much cheaper than a major market, especially if an area is more business-friendly tax wise.

 

Let's say an ABC station that doesn't have a duopoly partner does a full slate of newscasts (AM 5-7, midday, 5,6, 10/11) They then have the time and space to do a Fox/CW newscast from 7-9 and a 9/10 show.   Factoring in time zone changes, there are other windows to keep the crew and studio in use for other markets in different time zones.

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  • 1 month later...

The National Desk is already getting a prime time edition. Sinclair has announced it will add an evening version of the program (airing live from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. ET) starting September 27, primarily airing on the 68 CW and MyNetworkTV stations already showing the morning edition as well as on STIRR and Sinclair station websites. It will likely act to compliment existing prime time newscasts on some of the slated carrier stations.

 

It should be noted that some of the CW stations slated to carry the evening National Desk are in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones, where it will air from 7:00-9:00 PT/8:00-10:00 MT; this means, since parts of the program will fall into The CW’s designated prime time slot, Sinclair’s Pacific Time CW affiliates will only be able to air the first hour (as hour #2 runs into the first hour of the network’s prime time lineup there) and its Mountain Time CW affiliates will only be able to carry the second hour (as hour #1 runs into the second hour of the network’s prime time lineup there).

 

Ironically, The CW Plus (from which a few of the company’s small-market CW affiliates source the network’s programming) doesn’t currently allow local programming opt-outs for news on weekdays. (It does have an early evening local news opt-out slot on weekends.) Something might have to be worked out there, given Sinclair’s CW Plus stations in the Pacific Time Zone will be carrying it as a network prime lead-in.

Edited by T.L. Hughes
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5 minutes ago, T.L. Hughes said:

It should be noted that some of the CW stations slated to carry the evening National Desk are in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones, where it will air from 7:00-9:00 PT/8:00-10:00 MT; this means, since parts of the program will fall into The CW’s designated prime time slot, Sinclair’s Pacific Time CW affiliates will only be able to air the first hour (as hour #2 runs into the first hour of the network’s prime time lineup there) and its Mountain Time CW affiliates will only be able to carry the second hour (as hour #1 runs into the second hour of the network’s prime time lineup there).

From what I’ve read, the format of the evening edition will be structured so that stations can choose to carry either 30 minutes, an hour or all 2 hours of the program.

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On 4/1/2021 at 7:38 PM, DirtyHarry said:

I was watching the WLOS news and was surprised that they are still using the old set WBFF and WSYX were using. I thought that station was important to Sinclair. I would have thought that they would have gotten a makeover by now.

WEAR still has theirs as well (complete with the fish tank from the old set).  They're probably due for an upgrade in the next several years.

Over in Mobile, WPMI's set is nearing a decade.  It was a Devlin set put in by Newport Television, much like the one installed at WHP in Harrisburg, also a Newport station at the time.

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2 hours ago, T.L. Hughes said:

The National Desk is already getting a prime time edition. Sinclair has announced it will add an evening version of the program (airing live from 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. ET) starting September 27, primarily airing on the 68 CW and MyNetworkTV stations already showing the morning edition as well as on STIRR and Sinclair station websites. It will likely act to compliment existing prime time newscasts on some of the slated carrier stations.

There's no way this goes further than a few months. Some of these stations have been carrying double-blocks of The Simpsons, Friends, Family Guy, and Seinfeld in these timeslots since the minute they went into syndication, and have been dealing with MNTV becoming nothing and The CW now being out-rated by the Spanish nets and Ion. I know that the first-run sitcom market is beyond anemic at this point, but risking the last steady local ratings for a national newscast likely to be ignored feels like such a dangerous risk to take, especially in markets where SBG doesn't have a sister Big Four station.

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On 5/7/2021 at 6:29 PM, Yankees4life said:

I doubt this will go anywhere...

Tell that to Rosenworcel. Even Carr today called on the FCC to dismiss this complaint with prejudice "by the end of the day today"

 

Sadly Rosenworcel and the D's will see this and use this to RKO Sinclair out.

 

I can't believe I'm saying this but I actually feel bad for many of Sinclair stations that had absolutely nothing to do with this and yet they will ultimately be punished because of what WBFF "did" and I even feel bad for WBFF itself because they were doing its job of asking questions and holding people accountable and yet Mosby "felt rubbed the wrong way" and is asking the FCC to possibly take away its license to broadcast from WBFF.

 

I definitely agree this shouldn't go anywhere but unfortunately this will likely be the topic for awhile.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Sinclair Broadcast Group is getting out of the radio business. They are selling its four Seattle radio stations - all-news KOMO-AM ("KOMO NewsRadio") and its FM simulcast, hot adult contemporary KPLZ-FM ("Star 101.5") and conservative talk KVI-AM ("570 KVI") - to Lotus Broadcasting for $18 million.

 

Lotus Broadcasting Acquires Sinclair's Four Stations In Seattle - RadioInsight

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Sinclair has been names to the Fortune 500 list for the first time.

https://sbgi.net/pr-news/sinclair-broadcast-group-named-to-fortune-500-list/

 

In the 1000, Nexstar is about 60 steps below and other groups like Gray, Tegna, Graham and Meredith make appearances as well.

 

Of course, the media giants like Comcast, Viacom and Disney are much higher on the list.

 

Here's the 2021 list:

https://fortune.com/fortune500/2021/search/

 

Edited by tyrannical bastard
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8 hours ago, Adam MadMan said:

Sinclair is giving a big push for its diginets Comet, Charge, and TBD, and apparently it's been doing well for them.

 

The same article suggests that Stirr is being used as a testing ground for future diginets.

It also said that Sinclair now totally controls Comet and Charge, and that MGM looks to be out of the picture, especially with their impending sale to Amazon.

 

Jukin Media has operated TBD for a while now. I still don't see why TBD is an over the air broadcast diginet.  If anything it should be exclusively OTT.  

 

They also didn't mention anything about Stadium, so it's hard to tell where it sits in Sinclair's plans especially now with the Bally's RSN venture.   If anything it should be used as a tool to lure viewers into the RSNs and make them available DTC to the non-cable customers.

Edited by tyrannical bastard
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....and while Sinclair is pushing their OTA "Stack", they're readying an attempt to create a streaming service for their RSNs...

https://nypost.com/2021/06/10/sinclair-raising-250m-for-new-sports-streaming-service-sources/

 

The cost is projected to be $23/month for a viewer to watch a team in their own territory, and possibly a way to watch out-of-market teams for a little more $$$ down the road.

 

Bring it on, it it's going to help kill the bundle and stop the runaway bills thanks to sports. 

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On 6/3/2021 at 12:38 PM, tw-804 said:

Sinclair Broadcast Group is getting out of the radio business. They are selling its four Seattle radio stations - all-news KOMO-AM ("KOMO NewsRadio") and its FM simulcast, hot adult contemporary KPLZ-FM ("Star 101.5") and conservative talk KVI-AM ("570 KVI") - to Lotus Broadcasting for $18 million.

 

Lotus Broadcasting Acquires Sinclair's Four Stations In Seattle - RadioInsight

 

RadioInsight added an update to the June 3rd article on Lotus' purchase of KOMO-AM-FM, KVI and KPLZ. The FCC filing revealed a number of "unique quirks" to the deal...

 

Quote

At closing Lotus will pay just $5 million in cash for the stations. The remaining $13,058,604 will come at Lotus’ choice in either cash or advertising made available to Sinclair owned properties on 21 of Lotus’ English language stations in Bakersfield, Boise, Fresno, Las Vegas, Reno, Seattle and Tucson. If Lotus sells any of those 21 stations, Lotus can transfer the obligations of that station to carry the Sinclair advertising with it.

 

Lotus will not receive the rights to the KOMO and KOMO-FM call letters as Sinclair will retain exclusive rights to them for their KOMO-TV.

 

The deal also includes a Transition Agreement allowing Lotus to utilize Sinclair’s traffic systems, IT and web services, human resources, and microwave for up to 18 months as needed for a share of the costs. The company can also sub-lease the station’s current studios during that term if needed.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I think that CW7 will just air 30 minutes of The National Desk after 10PM news just my opinion. Maryland AG is butt hurt and sour grapes that WBFF reports on them all the time I doubt The FCC will do anything about it just my opinion.

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