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Spectrum Auction Results


tyrannical bastard

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Surprised that Sinclair didn't sell the WWHO (Channel 48) frequency. Sinclair has three signals in Columbus. How many do you really need?

 

Surprised that THE Ohio State University would sell WPBO. $8 million is a pittance for them. I think it's worth having a signal there just for the sake of having a presence for the State of Ohio and for the university. Portsmouth itself is on the western edge of Kentucky/West Virginia PBS signals, but north and west of there is no PBS between there and the Cincinnati, Dayton and Columbus fringes.

 

All the shell companies associated with Sinclair (of course, allegedly ;)), including Armstrong Williams's didn't do much in the auction either. At this point I don't understand hoarding spectrum unless SBG is starting even more multiple subchannel nets like Charge that seem like responses to other networks.

 

And I think Ohio State is justifying that most viewers in SE Ohio have dishes or the area just doesn't make pledge money at all/has any pledge programming that works for them. Consider in that area you have plenty of competition from KET and WVPB which seems to know the area more too.

 

I wonder which subchannels Weigel will give up in the Milwaukee area.

This TV, definitely. It's declining, and with Tribune/Sinclair it might not even be a going concern next year or just merged into Charge or Comet (and even if it is kept, it's been a waiting game to see it move to WITI-DT3 anyways). Bounce to a much lesser extent, but it has loyal viewership going for it. I could see the WYTU simulcast being dropped too or Weigel just going head-on into ATSC 3.0 and keeping the whole lot on WDJT because they have seemed to master the 1.0 standard well with 1080i, along with three other 480i widescreen signals currently.

 

I am sad to see the traffic-cam channel going though on Milwaukee PBS. It would work if they merged the loop onto the weather channel. And the jazz and classical channels aren't really going anywhere besides losing their channel slots; the audio for both is also available on the weather channel's SAP feeds already, so they can easily just add a scroll about what's playing there (if their version of Local AccuWeather allows those hooks to be added in).

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In advance of WDCA's spectrum being sold, FOX is rebranding My20DC as FOX 5 Plus on July 17th...

 

This includes a new 8pm newscast that will preempt an hour of MyNetwork programming.

 

I wonder if FOX will roll this out to their other O&Os, especially those who cashed out in the auction...

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/mobile/index/article/id/103316

Guess WMYT could go to Fox 46 Plus, or wait til the changeover to 46.2 and go with My46.

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For the FOX/MyTV duopolies (like in Charlotte), a lot of them are going to be crammed on subchannel space, aren't they? Both WMYT and WJZY have four subchannels, so they may just put FOX on 46.1, MyTV on 46.2 and shed a few of the smaller .X networks.

 

I could see Movies! going to 46.3, ION staying on 46.4 and Buzzr, H&I and Lite TV finding a new home. Believe the religious channel is leaving broadcast anyway.

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True so it may work in other markets. I can see WNYW, KTTV, KDFW, KRIV, WOFL, KMSP and KSAZ (especially KSAZ to some extent) do something for its MyTV stations.

 

KUTP did not go in the auction. Honestly, KUTP hasn't been a priority for anyone since the Suns put all their games on Fox Sports Arizona.

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True so it may work in other markets. I can see WNYW, KTTV, KDFW, KRIV, WOFL, KMSP and KSAZ (especially KSAZ to some extent) do something for its MyTV stations.

Not sure WNYW would do the same with WWOR. It gets complicated because of the Jersey license of WWOR and agreements Fox made not to absorb it all into WNYW. There are legislative issues that require WWOR to maintain the NJ studio and have a separate news show. Fox has ruined the station (WNYW news is unwatchable too) and replaced news with Chasing News but it is distinct from Fox5. It may be one reason they did not give up the spectrum.

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Seeing as how Fox still has to keep a separate license and channel for WWOR, why don't they rebrand it and focus on Jersey much more? Maybe have newscasts at odd times a la KCAL. It would at least keep the New Jersey politicians happy.

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Eventually they'll downgrade it and make it resemble WACP and WMGM, which will pretty much be Jersey siding contractors and car dealers fulfilling the content. And now with a certain friend in the White House (along with 'no regs' Pai), the license renewal process for WWOR will not be seven years this time. If not for the Jersey contingent to Congress being majority Democratic and continuing to pressure the FCC, WWOR would have been stunted to the point KCOP is today.

 

The news issue is complicated by the existence of Spectrum NY1, News 12 and FiOS 1; KCAL/KCBS is as close to a 24/7 TV news service LA can have. I could have seen WWOR/WNYW sharing working in 2002, but not now when WWOR is pretty much a starved budget line.

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Seeing as how Fox still has to keep a separate license and channel for WWOR, why don't they rebrand it and focus on Jersey much more? Maybe have newscasts at odd times a la KCAL. It would at least keep the New Jersey politicians happy.

 

If Newscorp cared about keeping the NJ politicians happy, they would've never dropped the newscast from the station a few years ago.

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My undersstanding is that the idea behind channel sharing is to carve up the 6mHz to create two separate 3mHz stations. I think WKBN will technically be a separate station with its own virtual channel and 3mHz instead of 6mhz, or do I have this wrong?

 

The carving up of one station into two will only happen virtually. Each TV channel will still occupy 6 MHz of spectrum, but for stations that are channel-sharing, two licenses will now be associated with one 6 MHz block.

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Here's a list of the post spectrum auction channel assignments. I mentioned this in the shoutbox a while back that WJZ and WBAL are changing physical frequencies. WBAL is going to channel 12 from 11 and WJZ is going to 11 from 13.

 

I wonder if they'll do a situation where during the DTV transition where I believe WMAR and WJZ swapped transmitters.

 

https://storage-ec2-420.sharefile.com/download.ashx?dt=dt5acdc027d91b4e9fa3e3819ace1e7834&h=qu94Uwi%2b%2fnkGB%2fxthrhmlG3dR8Bg3n7Y3RARGJfOXkc%3d

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Here's a list of the post spectrum auction channel assignments. I mentioned this in the shoutbox a while back that WJZ and WBAL are changing physical frequencies. WBAL is going to channel 12 from 11 and WJZ is going to 11 from 13.

 

I wonder if they'll do a situation where during the DTV transition where I believe WMAR and WJZ swapped transmitters.

 

https://storage-ec2-420.sharefile.com/download.ashx?dt=dt5acdc027d91b4e9fa3e3819ace1e7834&h=qu94Uwi+/nkGB/xthrhmlG3dR8Bg3n7Y3RARGJfOX

 

I checked but it said the file was expired?

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Here's a list of the post spectrum auction channel assignments. I mentioned this in the shoutbox a while back that WJZ and WBAL are changing physical frequencies. WBAL is going to channel 12 from 11 and WJZ is going to 11 from 13.

 

I wonder if they'll do a situation where during the DTV transition where I believe WMAR and WJZ swapped transmitters.

I'm curious why didn't WBAL stay on 11 and WJZ move to 12?

 

Jim

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Some spectrum auction news out of California. LocusPoint and the San Mateo County Community College District, the owner of KCSM in San Mateo, have filed lawsuits against each other over the failed sale of KCSM in the auction.

 

http://current.org/2017/04/kcsm-licensee-and-spectrum-speculator-trade-lawsuits-over-failed-fcc-auction-bid/

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The biggest surprise for me was that WNVC and WNVT (both in northern Virginia) are going off the air as a result of the auction. I actually watched some of their programs when I first came here (though I don't watch as much anymore)

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If Newscorp cared about keeping the NJ politicians happy, they would've never dropped the newscast from the station a few years ago.

Remember that WWOR dropped their newscasts after Sen. Frank Lautenberg passed away. The timing was rather... convenient.

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The biggest surprise for me was that WNVC and WNVT (both in northern Virginia) are going off the air as a result of the auction. I actually watched some of their programs when I first came here (though I don't watch as much anymore)

I suspect it was the cash... (if someone offered you over $180,000,000 for your stations, and you can keep part of it going on another channel...)

 

They've been promoting their online MHz Choice package and regular MHz-1 channel of foreign language programming for about 2 years now, and most of the programming is available online. I'm wondering if they're going to continue that stream (several other stations around the US air MHz programming). In the D.C. area, NHK is on MPT.

 

Adding: they have Post Auction CSA as Yes, so, look for the programming stream to continue in some form or fashion.

 

Jim

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Some spectrum auction news out of California. LocusPoint and the San Mateo County Community College District, the owner of KCSM in San Mateo, have filed lawsuits against each other over the failed sale of KCSM in the auction.

 

http://current.org/2017/04/kcsm-licensee-and-spectrum-speculator-trade-lawsuits-over-failed-fcc-auction-bid/

 

Funny that LocusPoint contracted with Price Waterhouse...yup the same folks that messed up at the Academy Awards.

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I suspect it was the cash... (if someone offered you over $180,000,000 for your stations, and you can keep part of it going on another channel...)

 

Well, this is on their FAQ:

 

The Northern Virginia area is served by other public media stations, including

multiple PBS-member stations, and it was determined that there was no long-term

strategic value for CPBC to maintain a continued over-the-air presence in

Northern Virginia, especially given the opportunity to monetize the assets in

order to strengthen our core mission to use the power of media to educate,

entertain and inspire.

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Well, this is on their FAQ:

 

In other words to MHz on WNVC/WNVT... bye! From DC to around the world, we never really cared. Joyce? (Kinney; Family Guy reference)

 

 

Just kidding, but in all seriousness, MHz did provide a great service to the DC area for international programming and it will be missed.

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WFMZ will be channel sharing with KJWP. It was part of the asset purchase agreement. The agreement called for WFMP to enter and accept a "go off the air" bid the buyer and seller will be splitting the proceeds. The agreement also called for WFMZ to enter into a channel sharing agreement with KJWP acting as "host". So, both WFMZ and KJWP will exist just like today with the only change being they will share the KJWP transmitter/antenna..

 

With WFMZ purchasing KJWP why would there need to be a channel sharing agreement? FMZ could do want it wanted as it would own the license of KJWP. The agreement was for KJWP not to enter the auction, and WFMZ using its proceeds to close on the sale of KJWP.

WFMZ and WLVT are expected to channel share with WBPH. An Allentown licensed station would not be able to move its main transmission site to Roxborough . KJWP will be used for most of WFMZ's subchannels as there won't be much room left within WBPH's spectrum after FMZ and LVT piggyback onto BPH. It's possible FMZ's 69.1 programming will also appear on KJWP's subchannels.

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Some spectrum auction news out of California. LocusPoint and the San Mateo County Community College District, the owner of KCSM in San Mateo, have filed lawsuits against each other over the failed sale of KCSM in the auction.

 

http://current.org/2017/04/kcsm-licensee-and-spectrum-speculator-trade-lawsuits-over-failed-fcc-auction-bid/

 

It's interesting it at least looks like they've gone back to a more varied schedule. For a while, KCSM was a 24/7 simulcast of France 24 English.

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What if two stations were in a CSA and one of the stations got sold into a duopoly with another station other than the one in the CSA? Would the FCC allow them to transfer to another partner?

 

Based on the two contracts I've seen I believe the FCC would allow the sale provided the station that's being hosted has the opportunity to purchase the station that was just sold into a duopoly. I imagine when ATSC 3.0 gets approved three stations could share spectrum.

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