TennTV1983 742 Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Anyone betting if WJLA becomes another station which Sinclair has to sell (possibly to ABC)? Not gonna happen at this point. You're wasting oxygen even suggesting that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Georgie56 3059 Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Anyone betting if WJLA becomes another station which Sinclair has to sell (possibly to ABC)? Sinclair giving up its presence in the most powerful city in the world? Dream on. Disney had their chance to buy WJLA years ago and they blew it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4159 Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Anyone betting if WJLA becomes another station which Sinclair has to sell (possibly to ABC)? Actually, I’m a little bit surprised that WDCW isn’t a part of their “divestiture” stunt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
T.L. Hughes 746 Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 Actually, I’m a little bit surprised that WDCW isn’t a part of their “divestiture” stunt. It technically couldn't be included any way it went. WJLA and WDCW are permitted to be a legal duopoly as a result of the "eight-voices test" being repealed from the duopoly regs. I'm not sure if they could be without it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4159 Posted February 28, 2018 Share Posted February 28, 2018 It technically couldn't be included any way it went. WJLA and WDCW are permitted to be a legal duopoly as a result of the "eight-voices test" being repealed from the duopoly regs. I'm not sure if they could be without it. That’s kinda the point... putting stations like WGN-TV and WPIX are sham moves, just like if WDCW was included. In theory, they could acquire either one of those three stations outright. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scrabbleship 427 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 It technically couldn't be included any way it went. WJLA and WDCW are permitted to be a legal duopoly as a result of the "eight-voices test" being repealed from the duopoly regs. I'm not sure if they could be without it. They could have even under the old regs: NBC: 4 Fox: 5/20 Sinclair: 7/50 TEGNA: 9 Univision: 14 Nexstar: 25 (Hagerstown) WETA: 26 MPT: 31 (Hagerstown) + 62 (Frederick) Howard University: 32 WVPT: 42 (Front Royal) Commonwealth Public Broadcasting (MHz): 53/56 Ion: 60 (Martinsburg, WV) + 66 Entravision: 68 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CircleSeven 1944 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 The first two new apps regarding their updated plans have been posted tonight. First, WGN will being assigned to a new entity WGN TV LLC for $60M. Sinclair will operate WGN through a JSA/SSA. And WPIX will be assigned to Cunningham Broadcasting for $15M. Sinclair will operate WPIX through an MSA. Both have option agreements between the proposed assignees & Sinclair. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Samantha 2876 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Here's the actual link to the WGN TV LLC application. The president and sole member of WGN TV LLC is Steven B. Fader; Michael Fader is the vice president. The listed address is 1 Olympic Place Suite 1200 in Towson, Maryland. Steven B. Fader has a Bloomberg profile which reads as follows: Mr. Steven B. Fader, also known as Steve, J. D., serves as the Chief Executive Officer and President at Atlantic Automotive Corp. Mr. Fader served as Founder and Chairman at Atlantic Capital Group, Inc. In addition to planning the strategic direction for Atlantic Capital Group, his activities included deal origination and structuring and negotiation of transactions. He served as the Chief Executive Officer at Hall Automotive, LLC. He serves as a Director at Remedi SeniorCare. Mr. Fader has been a Private Equity and Real Estate Investor for more than 15 years. He received a J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1983 and his B.A. from Western Maryland College in 1979. Atlantic Capital Group is a PE firm with some notable investments including Honest Tea, though none are in broadcasting. There is also a family foundation in his and his wife's name. The automotive company trades as MileOne Autogroup and sells new and used cars; its corporate address is the same Olympic Place address is Towson. Also sharing the address is a concern called Caves Valley Partners, which describes itself as a real estate developer in the Baltimore area. The one broadcasting connection to Caves Valley is in the Towson City Center project, which houses the studios of station WTMD (88.7 FM). However, Towson City Center has something different: a restaurant on the first floor called Cunningham's, run by Bagby Restaurant Group. A look at the Bagby Restaurant Group website reveals that this is no coincidence. One of the pages talks about Cunningham Farms like this... (You might recall that this is the namesake of Cunningham Broadcasting, too.) In 2003, David Smith and his wife Jane began creating their concept for a home, formal garden and country farm on a 200 acre parcel of land in Cockeysville, Baltimore County. They named it Cunningham Manor, in honor of Smith's mother's Scottish maiden name. Cunningham Farms evolved after Mr. Smith created the Bagby Restaurant Group and recognized the importance of guest's interest in fresh, locally grown, healthy food. Currently it features 80 abundant acres, filled with planted fields including; 15 varieties of tomatoes, 18 other crops, 3 types of edible flowers, 13 herbs, and chicken coops. It is a source of flowers, as well as a large variety of other products such as eggs, herbs, produce and other seasonal greens used in Bagby Restaurant Groups' restaurants; Bagby Pizza Company, Fleet Street Kitchen and TEN TEN, and Cunningham's. Cunningham Farms' environment provides a beautiful, dynamic and wholesome farm spirit and product which provides the foundation for the restaurants. The president of Bagby Pizza Brands is Blake Smith, David Smith's son. A former CEO was ousted by Bagby last year. The Baltimore Business Journal reported at the time the company sued the ex-CEO that Bagby was owned by David Smith. David's nephew Alex is a partner in another restaurant venture, known as Atlas Restaurant Group, according to the BBJ report. So, WGN is now being owned by a new Sinclair shell master, one that serves as the landlord to a restaurant owned by another Smith family venture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rkolsen 1675 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 All very fascinating. I drive by 1 Olympic frequently and proudly have never died at any of those restaurants. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRolyPoly 1843 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Here's the actual link to the WGN TV LLC application. The president and sole member of WGN TV LLC is Steven B. Fader; Michael Fader is the vice president. The listed address is 1 Olympic Place Suite 1200 in Towson, Maryland. Steven B. Fader has a Bloomberg profile which reads as follows: Mr. Steven B. Fader, also known as Steve, J. D., serves as the Chief Executive Officer and President at Atlantic Automotive Corp. Mr. Fader served as Founder and Chairman at Atlantic Capital Group, Inc. In addition to planning the strategic direction for Atlantic Capital Group, his activities included deal origination and structuring and negotiation of transactions. He served as the Chief Executive Officer at Hall Automotive, LLC. He serves as a Director at Remedi SeniorCare. Mr. Fader has been a Private Equity and Real Estate Investor for more than 15 years. He received a J.D. from the University of Baltimore School of Law in 1983 and his B.A. from Western Maryland College in 1979. Atlantic Capital Group is a PE firm with some notable investments including Honest Tea, though none are in broadcasting. There is also a family foundation in his and his wife's name. The automotive company trades as MileOne Autogroup and sells new and used cars; its corporate address is the same Olympic Place address is Towson. Also sharing the address is a concern called Caves Valley Partners, which describes itself as a real estate developer in the Baltimore area. The one broadcasting connection to Caves Valley is in the Towson City Center project, which houses the studios of station WTMD (88.7 FM). However, Towson City Center has something different: a restaurant on the first floor called Cunningham's, run by Bagby Restaurant Group. A look at the Bagby Restaurant Group website reveals that this is no coincidence. One of the pages talks about Cunningham Farms like this... (You might recall that this is the namesake of Cunningham Broadcasting, too.) In 2003, David Smith and his wife Jane began creating their concept for a home, formal garden and country farm on a 200 acre parcel of land in Cockeysville, Baltimore County. They named it Cunningham Manor, in honor of Smith's mother's Scottish maiden name. Cunningham Farms evolved after Mr. Smith created the Bagby Restaurant Group and recognized the importance of guest's interest in fresh, locally grown, healthy food. Currently it features 80 abundant acres, filled with planted fields including; 15 varieties of tomatoes, 18 other crops, 3 types of edible flowers, 13 herbs, and chicken coops. It is a source of flowers, as well as a large variety of other products such as eggs, herbs, produce and other seasonal greens used in Bagby Restaurant Groups' restaurants; Bagby Pizza Company, Fleet Street Kitchen and TEN TEN, and Cunningham's. Cunningham Farms' environment provides a beautiful, dynamic and wholesome farm spirit and product which provides the foundation for the restaurants. The president of Bagby Pizza Brands is Blake Smith, David Smith's son. A former CEO was ousted by Bagby last year. The Baltimore Business Journal reported at the time the company sued the ex-CEO that Bagby was owned by David Smith. David's nephew Alex is a partner in another restaurant venture, known as Atlas Restaurant Group, according to the BBJ report. So, WGN is now being owned by a new Sinclair shell master, one that serves as the landlord to a restaurant owned by another Smith family venture. In other words... O&O by Sinclair. Goodbye WGN as we know it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrschimpf 2050 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 The first two new apps regarding their updated plans have been posted tonight. First, WGN will being assigned to a new entity WGN TV LLC for $60M. Sinclair will operate WGN through a JSA/SSA. Pretty much how Weigel runs most of their stations through individual LLCs outside of the JSA'ing (though most of the WMLW spectrum cash-in purchases are licensed under the "TV-49, LLC"). I'm surprised they didn't begin to pursue that earlier rather than top-loading Cunningham and Deerfield. Still makes me wonder how WGN Radio will be run, through the TV LLC or still through SBG directly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mardek1995 200 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Not gonna happen at this point. You're wasting oxygen even suggesting that.Yeah, given how duopolies work, no, they're not getting that one. Disney had its chance back in the 90s and even as late as 5 years ago. It blew it hard and now WJLA is practically Sinclair's second flagship. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4159 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 The first two new apps regarding their updated plans have been posted tonight. First, WGN will being assigned to a new entity WGN TV LLC for $60M. Sinclair will operate WGN through a JSA/SSA. And WPIX will be assigned to Cunningham Broadcasting for $15M. Sinclair will operate WPIX through an MSA. Both have option agreements between the proposed assignees & Sinclair. As expected. A total sham and an insult to everyone's intelligence. Funny thing is, this didn't help Sinclair's stock price, which fell by 5% yesterday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Georgie56 3059 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 The first two new apps regarding their updated plans have been posted tonight. First, WGN will being assigned to a new entity WGN TV LLC for $60M. Sinclair will operate WGN through a JSA/SSA. And WPIX will be assigned to Cunningham Broadcasting for $15M. Sinclair will operate WPIX through an MSA. Both have option agreements between the proposed assignees & Sinclair. The sunny days have clouded over at West Bradley Place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewsMaster 226 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Sinclair giving up its presence in the most powerful city in the world? Dream on. Disney had their chance to buy WJLA years ago and they blew it. I wouldn't say that they "blew it". Sinclair simply paid more for WJLA than Disney was willing to pay for it. That's how business works, people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
channel2 869 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 That and broadcast television simply isn't that important to Disney. In their view, they have bigger fish to fry. They were fresh off of shelling out a fortune for Lucasfilm and would rather spend the billions on things like BAMTech or, oh, 20th Century Fox. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonDonP1 113 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 That and broadcast television simply isn't that important to Disney. In their view, they have bigger fish to fry. They were fresh off of shelling out a fortune for Lucasfilm and would rather spend the billions on things like BAMTech or, oh, 20th Century Fox. And what remains of 20th's parent company 21st Century Fox, with the exception of the latter's American broadcasting, news and sport assets. My apologies for the off-topic and for the repetition. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mre29 1338 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 I wouldn't say that they "blew it". Sinclair simply paid more for WJLA than Disney was willing to pay for it. That's how business works, people. It didn't help that Allbritton was insisting on selling all of its stations as a group, something ABC-Disney has no interest in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oklahomanewsman 210 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 Are we sure that Sinclair is going to do anything with these stations other than take over the SSA? There's really no reason for them to be transferred to another shell company, they'll probably remain under Dreamcatcher "ownership". In fact, there's really no reason for them to be brought up in the merger at all because, again, Tribune doesn't actually own them. The whole reason Dreamcatcher exists is for Tribune to skirt around ownership rules anyways (it's funny how nobody seems to care when they did it, but when Sinclair tries to skirt around ownership issues it's the worst thing imaginable.) Do you really think the FCC is going to care that Sinclair owns WTVZ and has a SSA with WTKR-WGNT when they clearly don't care that Tribune (pre-split) owned the Daily Press and was providing services to these two stations? Dreamcatcher will probably stay Dreamcatcher and Ed Wilson will get his checks from Sinclair instead of from Tribune. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel here. That might explain why Sinclair didn't bring up the Dreamcatcher stations at all, I guess Sinclair should just "merge" Dreamcatcher into own of their shell companies (either Deerfield or Cunningham) that part can be discussed elsewhere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NowBergen 485 Posted March 1, 2018 Share Posted March 1, 2018 The ownershp regs were to control one local broadcaster from having too much share of voice basically. The fact that both of these are sidecar shells set up so Sinclair controls and runs both stations does not meet the smell test of the intent of the regulation. DOJ and the FCC should require Sinclair to sell both stations outright to third parties that will manage each station. Time for the voices of America to speak up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyrannical bastard 3442 Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 Surprise, surprise! Guess who owned a stake of Atlantic Automotive at one time? I'd be wary of ANY business that has had, or has ties to Sinclair in ANY form, aside from contracts and advertising.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToriElectra 291 Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 Surprise, surprise! Guess who owned a stake of Atlantic Automotive at one time? I'd be wary of ANY business that has had, or has ties to Sinclair in ANY form, aside from contracts and advertising.... Thankfully, as far as I know, Sinclair Oil isn't related in any way. That's good, because Sinclair stations have been opening up near us recently and I've wanted to stop and get gas at one of them so I can take a photo of their dino statue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CircleSeven 1944 Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 Thankfully, as far as I know, Sinclair Oil isn't related in any way. That's good, because Sinclair stations have been opening up near us recently and I've wanted to stop and get gas at one of them so I can take a photo of their dino statue. Shhhhh! Don't give them any ideas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rusty Muck 4159 Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 Surprise, surprise! Guess who owned a stake of Atlantic Automotive at one time? That must have been where this immortal WBFF outtake came from: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eat News 4738 Posted March 2, 2018 Share Posted March 2, 2018 That must have been where this immortal WBFF outtake came from: Or the "Sinclair Salute" created by the fun folks at KTLA... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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