Potential Fox - Ion deal?

[brianpr3 173]

for those that fox stations that own mytv stations what happens to them?

[NEOMatrix 1295]

IIRC, I read an old Beacon-Journal story that WAKR/WAKC was run into the ground long before ValueVision and Paxson:

 

https://www.ohio.com/akron/entertainment/20-years-after-wakc-s-news-ended-its-makers-remember-it-fondly

 

The way it's being described, the Youngstown stations (YES, even lowly WYTV) had better production values than WAKR/WAKC.

[elfuego35 89]

My only concern about this is the markets where Fox/Ion overlap. Fox will not pull affiliation from their self, but in a certain market* it may be advantageous to drop their current MyTV station for the Ion Station.

 

But outside of that market, will Ion stay as-is, or will they sell to another owner?

 

* Obviously talking about the NYC Market... Fox doesn't have to do news for a WPXN MyTV like they have to for WWOR, but Chicago will also benefit, since they will not have to share time with The CW on WPWR

[Rusty Muck 4164]

IIRC, I read an old Beacon-Journal story that WAKR/WAKC was run into the ground long before ValueVision and Paxson:

 

https://www.ohio.com/akron/entertainment/20-years-after-wakc-s-news-ended-its-makers-remember-it-fondly

 

The way it's being described, the Youngstown stations (YES, even lowly WYTV) had better production values than WAKR/WAKC.

WAKR-TV was a money loser for the longest time. Allegedly the profits from 1590 WAKR and 97.5 WAEZ/WONE were funneled into channel 23 as early as the 1960s.

 

The writing really was on the wall when Group ONE Broadcasting was broken up in 1986. The Berk family - which had controlled Group ONE - retained channel 23, but without that revenue from the radio stations. That they held onto channel 23 for as long as they did before giving up and selling to ValueVision is still a head-scratcher.

[tyrannical bastard 3443]

Definitely, the split of Group ONE was the beginning of the end of WAKC's news department. It was this split that necessitated the change from WAKR-TV to WAKC since the radio stations were sold.

 

Some feared that ValueVision would strip the station of everything and turn it into a 24/7 shopping channel. (ValueVision later became ShopNBC...then ShopHQ and is now Evine) They only ended up running shopping during late night hours and everything else was kept. However, they made some interesting moves of their own, including a half-hearted attempt to reach Cleveland by introducing a new logo and branding themselves as the "North Ohio News Station". I would have to dig into the Beacon Journal archives to document this, but I do recall the feud brewing between them and their station manager that would ban the newspaper from the WAKC newsroom and Bob Dyer writing scathing columns about WAKC for the rest of the department's existence.

 

Then, when WAKC was purchased by Paxson, the new boss walked into the newsroom and said "News ceases at this moment." That was the abrupt end of WAKC's news department.

The next day, the Beacon Journal had a front page headline stating "WAKC KILLS NEWS". It was either that day, or the next day that Bob Dyer came up with a list of the top 10 things he would NOT miss about WAKC's news. The old station manager was at least 4 or 5 of those reasons alone.

 

If I could find a way to post these articles, I would...they're just buried under the NewsBank archive that requires a library card to access...I think I even saved the paper from that day. I was in 8th grade and VERY interested in television at the time, and this hit me like a ton of bricks, since WAKC was the only station that cared about the Akron area and would have been a great place for me to learn the tricks of the trade.

[NEOMatrix 1295]

I wonder if WAKC could've been saved had WEWS bolted for CBS. Granted, ABC wouldn't be too concerned about Cleveland since WAKC had a decent analog signal, but I think ABC was more concerned about Detroit and WXYZ, since there would be no viable replacement.

[Samantha 2878]

Good grief, this is sad.

 

Dean Goodman, president of Paxson Communications Corp., gave a brief interview yesterday in the lobby of the WAKC-TV building on Copley Road. Two armed guards prevented any other access to the building or its employees. Though Goodman said it would take "months" to decide when, or if, local news would return, the station will continue ABC network news programming, and "we may return with local news programming."

 

... According to Robert Tayek, news vice president at WAKC since joining the station in June 1994, Goodman entered the station newsroom at 1:40 p.m. yesterday and simply said, "News ceases at this moment."

[tyrannical bastard 3443]

Were there any other network affiliates that Paxson owned?

WPBF was owned by them, but they were sold to Hearst-Argyle in order to fund the PAX network and buying stations for it.

 

Paxson's station strategy was almost like a budget airline. Instead of focusing on the major cities, they would buy fringe stations that were rimshots of the market, and in some places, purchased multiple stations to cover a given area.

[ColDayNews 437]

Were there any other network affiliates that Paxson owned?

WPBF was owned by them, but they were sold to Hearst-Argyle in order to fund the PAX network and buying stations for it.

 

Paxson's station strategy was almost like a budget airline. Instead of focusing on the major cities, they would buy fringe stations that were rimshots of the market, and in some places, purchased multiple stations to cover a given area.

 

 

Yes - Pax operated WBDT in Dayton through an LMA up until 2004 ... long after the stations were sold to ACME and became de-facto WB O&Os.

 

Pax kept a secondary affiliation on the station and handled some of the operations while ACME handled others. Pax programming such as Touched by an Angel, Diagnosis Murder, etc. was aired in the mornings while WB programming aired at night.

[mrschimpf 2051]

Yes - Pax operated WBDT in Dayton through an LMA up until 2004 ... long after the stations were sold to ACME and became de-facto WB O&Os.

 

Pax kept a secondary affiliation on the station and handled some of the operations while ACME handled others. Pax programming such as Touched by an Angel, Diagnosis Murder, etc. was aired in the mornings while WB programming aired at night.

 

WPXG/WIWB/WCWF in Suring/Green Bay ran the same way after their sale from Pax to ACME; they kept Pax stuff on late night but eventually let go once ACME had enough programming, with the 'i for Infomercial' era basically ending their involvement completely. And back then that Green Bay station was literally a rimshot; it was meant as a religious station that couldn't attract an audience in a sparsely-populated area.

[Samantha 2878]

Were there any other network affiliates that Paxson owned?

WPBF was owned by them, but they were sold to Hearst-Argyle in order to fund the PAX network and buying stations for it.

 

Paxson's station strategy was almost like a budget airline. Instead of focusing on the major cities, they would buy fringe stations that were rimshots of the market, and in some places, purchased multiple stations to cover a given area.

 

Paxson owned WNAL/WPXH, which was a CBS affiliate between 1996 and 1999.

 

This station and market were in a strange situation. Fant, who we talked about above, owned the station, and it could very well have been an LMA partner to WVTM had Outlet not sold to NBC. It almost was LMA'd to Allbritton for its ABC project, but that fell through and they purchased WJSU instead. WNAL had been part of a Fox trimulcast prior to 1996 and also held a WB secondary affiliation for most of that year.

 

CBS picked it up as an affiliate for two reasons:

 

-WBMG was not running a full 5 million watts until 1997 (when Media General realized it needed to do something with this station), and

-Anniston/Gadsden remained a separate market until the summer of 1998 (when Nielsen consolidated the central Alabama DMAs)

 

Essentially, WNAL as an affiliate made sense because of the nominal separation of the markets, and because the network wanted to be assured that in losing WJSU, it could still be seen in that DMA.

 

As soon as Paxson could, which turned out to be either January or May 1999, they dropped CBS, but Pax did not launch on the station until August 1.

 

WNAL/WPXH aired 42 Daily News from WIAT between its February 1998 launch and the end of its CBS affiliation, which was a good move for WIAT as it assured them and their new news effort of all the CBS viewers in the expanded market.

[oklahomanewsman 210]

I think this is another bluff by Fox but actually them telling Sinclair either sell some of the Fox-affiliated stations or some stations would face disaffiliation from the network might be effective When the new Sinclair-Fox affiliation pact is signed expect to not include these stations:

 

KCPQ/Seattle (likely going to Fox)

KSTU/Salt Lake City

KOKH/Oklahoma City

WXMI/West Michigan

*WXIN/Indianapolis

 

The reason why KSTU and *WXIN won't be included in the affiliation pact is because in those markets there apart of the new Sinclair-CBS affiliation pact that was signed this past June (includes the current Tribune stations) so if Sinclair has to divest any Fox-CBS stations in those markets, the Fox stations will be shown the door

 

*= Possible getting sold depending upon where both WXIN and WTTV rank

[ColtFromGulfcoast 695]

I haven't had Pax in my market since Paxson cashed out on KPXJ in 2003. It became a UPN/Pax dual affilate afterward and is now our CW affiliate. I would expect what is now Ion to come back as a subchannel on one of our Nexstar stations or KPXJ again but who knows.

[ABC 7 Denver 1552]

Are we saying that in Denver, the Fox station would become KPXC (PSIP 59.1)? I don't even get signal for that station and I live inside the metro area. Probably Newsweb's KCDO is a better open (PSIP 3.1).

[ColtFromGulfcoast 695]

Are we saying that in Denver, the Fox station would become KPXC (PSIP 59.1)? I don't even get signal for that station and I live inside the metro area. Probably Newsweb's KCDO is a better open (PSIP 3.1).

 

Hell, would KTVD be willing to take it?

[ABC 7 Denver 1552]

Hell, would KTVD be willing to take it?

 

TEGNA could not own 2 Top 4 stations. So legally, no.

[C Block 1487]

Are we saying that in Denver, the Fox station would become KPXC (PSIP 59.1)? I don't even get signal for that station and I live inside the metro area. Probably Newsweb's KCDO is a better open (PSIP 3.1).

 

If KDVR is one of the Tribune Fox affiliates with affiliation deals expiring next year, then yes!

[Darius22 120]

For FTS its possible that they might make KTXL (tribune example) theirs if their affiliation doesn't expire. the logos that Tribune has for most fox affiliates have the O&O Style (even KPTM as a graphics package without the O&O style logo.) and then what happens to national feeds of ION Television on cable/satellite? Fox already has FX Networks. KPTM might even have to be 100% a fox Owned station as well. for KSPX we don't know what happens to them.

[Rusty Muck 4164]

Good grief, this is sad.

This is the same Dean Goodman who tried to buy most of Clear Channel's small-market stations in 2006, but that collapsed when he failed to get the proper financing.

 

He later founded Digity, who acquired the bankrupt NextMedia chain before flipping it to Alpha Media.

 

As for the old WAKC studios, it's now a church with no visible trace of the stations existence... beyond a "WAKC Employees Only" parking lot sign Scott Fybush photographed not long ago.

[Rusty Muck 4164]

Hell, would KTVD be willing to take it?

TEGNA could not own 2 Top 4 stations. So legally, no.

**cough** WXIN and WTTV/WTTK **cough**

[Rusty Muck 4164]

Were there any other network affiliates that Paxson owned?

WPBF was owned by them, but they were sold to Hearst-Argyle in order to fund the PAX network and buying stations for it.

 

Paxson's station strategy was almost like a budget airline. Instead of focusing on the major cities, they would buy fringe stations that were rimshots of the market, and in some places, purchased multiple stations to cover a given area.

The long-defunct WJTV in Johnstown, New York (fringe between Buffalo, Rochester and Elmira) was Paxson's first station in the late 1960s. And it tried to be a CTV affiliate.

 

I was shocked and surprised to find out that this was a failure... unless I wasn't.

[compubit 670]

TEGNA could not own 2 Top 4 stations. So legally, no.

TEGNA already owns KTVD. Is there anything preventing them from snagging the Fox affiliation? I thought, assuming enough voices in the market, the owner of a top-4 station could not purchase another top-4 station, but stations 5 and down are fair game. If the number 5 (or 6 or 7) becomes a top 4 station, the duopoly doesn't have to be broken up.

 

J

[ColtFromGulfcoast 695]

TEGNA could not own 2 Top 4 stations. So legally, no.

 

If KTVD took on the affiliation now they could, but if in a couple of years, KTVD overtook KDVR in the ratings and Tegna got bought by someone (for example, Nexstar) , then there'd be a problem. KUSA would go to Nexstar and KTVD would go either to someone like Meredith or Cox, or to (insert Nexstar shell corporation name here).

 

Jacksonville, Norfolk, Fresno, Indianapolis, El Paso, San Antonio, Meridian & formerly Albuquerque and Boise are examples of Big 4 duopolies legally existing. Affiliates of big 4 networks don't always (or didn't at the time) constitute the 4 largest stations in a market.

[ColtFromGulfcoast 695]

For FTS its possible that they might make KTXL (tribune example) theirs if their affiliation doesn't expire. the logos that Tribune has for most fox affiliates have the O&O Style (even KPTM as a graphics package without the O&O style logo.) and then what happens to national feeds of ION Television on cable/satellite? Fox already has FX Networks. KPTM might even have to be 100% a fox Owned station as well. for KSPX we don't know what happens to them.

 

 

I wouldnt count on KPTM becoming a Fox O&O. Maybe Raycom but not Fox.

[MXSans2 64]

I don't think a lot of these to become Fox affiliates will be operated by the same company who owns WNYW, KTTV, etc.