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Retransmission Consent squabbles


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On 9/23/2017 at 2:03 AM, tyrannical bastard said:

Unless you're an Xfinity Customer (who seems to never have this issue, and simply jacks up a user's rate when a company wants more $$) blackouts are more and more common.

Speaking of Xfinity, get ready for Starz vs Comcast...

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/starz-comcast-xfinity-subscribers-lose-access-power-outlander-episodes-1248153

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5 hours ago, NEOMatrix said:

Touche....

 

Since Starz is a premium service, it's already available by itself and likely costs the same no matter how you get it.

 

My old Xfinity package had the StarzEncore channels and HBO, so I might be a little peeved if this would have happened on my watch....

 

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One more thing with Sinclair, with the mothership on board with AT&T, will this lead to the sidecar companies signing a new agreement after a months long blackout?

Edited by JCB4TV
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10 hours ago, JCB4TV said:

I read in the article that the agreement includes the RSNs, including Marquee, which give the following questions:

 

Will Ohio fans get full time HD feeds of what is now FSOH & FSOH-CIN on DIRECTV?

Where will DIRECTV place Marquee, channel 664 or 666? NBCS-CHI is on 665.

How will this go over with our west coast sports fans who don't have SNLA, NBCSNW, or Pac12N?

Depends on how Chris Ripley wants to do with the feeds and subfeeds of the RSNs and judging by what I saw on both Fox Sports Wisconsin and Fox Sports North programming wise that should tell you which direction Sinclair needs and should go with the RSNs, as far as the channel location for Marquee, probably 664, DirecTV better not do the 666 number.

 

Quite frankly it wouldn't surprise me if neither the Pac12 Network, NBC Sports Northwest or SportsNet LA ever see the light of day on DirecTV based on how Dish has been treating the RSNs as of late and as I've addressed in an another thread I think Charlie Ergan has a legitimate case regarding the RSNs

Edited by oknewsguy
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On 10/17/2019 at 9:46 PM, JCB4TV said:

One more thing with Sinclair, with the mothership on board with AT&T, will this lead to the sidecar companies signing a new agreement after a months long blackout?

 

Doubtful.  If this goes on much longer, I'd question Stephen Mumblow (and the others) ability to hold a broadcast license.  It's like they don't care and there's nothing Sinclair can do about it.

Edited by tyrannical bastard
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3 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

 

Doubtful.  If this goes on much longer, I'd question Stephen Mumblow (and the others) ability to hold a broadcast license.  It's like they don't care and there's nothing Sinclair can do about it.

Can the FCC step in and tell Sinclair to server any and all ties to Stephen Mumblow and sell the stations owned by Deerfield or no?

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3 minutes ago, oknewsguy said:

Can the FCC step in and tell Sinclair to server any and all ties to Stephen Mumblow and sell the stations owned by Deerfield or no?

Unfortunately, it's likely the other way around. 

The licensee contracts with the SSA partner to do their bidding (sales, operations, newscasts, etc..), and the licensee is ultimately responsible for the successful operation and majority of programming of the station.

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1 minute ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Unfortunately, it's likely the other way around. 

The licensee contracts with the SSA partner to do their bidding (sales, operations, newscasts, etc..), and the licensee is ultimately responsible for the successful operation and majority of programming of the station.

So the only thing Sinclair can do is sell the stations owned by Deerfield

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53 minutes ago, oknewsguy said:

So the only thing Sinclair can do is sell the stations owned by Deerfield

No, Deerfield holds the option to sell.  The only way is if they are stripped of their license, or someone is able to buy them out of it.  Chances are, Sinclair would walk away with their people and facility  (pretty much ALL of the employees except for the ones employeed by the licensee directly, not to mention the facility, equipment and other "non-license assets") so it's a lose-lose situation where the new owner would essentially have to rebuild from scratch with a new staff and facility.

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1 minute ago, tyrannical bastard said:

No, Deerfield holds the option to sell.  The only way is if they are stripped of their license, or someone is able to buy them out of it.  Chances are, Sinclair would walk away with their people and facility  (pretty much ALL of the employees except for the ones employeed by the licensee directly, not to mention the facility, equipment and other "non-license assets") so it's a lose-lose situation where the new owner would essentially have to rebuild from scratch with a new staff and facility.

Chances are it'd be the former of the two options you mentioned in this post because I don't see Deerfield selling anything unless they get an offer that they can't resist

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Sinclair could be nice about it, where they could be willing to sell a working station with staff, but it seems much more likely they could be difficult, choosing to lay off their employees and liquidate the equipment, and hopefully let the affected employees re-apply with the new owner.  Such a situation would be notable as it would be a public case on how they conduct themselves as a company.

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1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Sinclair could be nice about it, where they could be willing to sell a working station with staff, but it seems much more likely they could be difficult, choosing to lay off their employees and liquidate the equipment, and hopefully let the affected employees re-apply with the new owner.  Such a situation would be notable as it would be a public case on how they conduct themselves as a company.

They could be nice about it and everything but as Sinclair proven time after time they're not gonna do things the nice way

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8 minutes ago, DirtyHarry said:

You guys are living in some kind of alternate reality the way you are talking. Sinclair controls Mumblow, Deerfield and all the other sidecar entities they use. Maybe not directly, but believe me they hold all the cards.

If you have a solution for how Sinclair can force Deerfield into coming together with AT&T to get their stations back on the AT&T systems please let us know. 

 

So far the only solution I could justify it happening is a sale of the Deerfield stations, there's no chance in hell the Deerfield licenses gets pulled just because of a blackout.

 

Something has to give, you cannot be blacked out of the cable systems forever, ask Northwest how well their 8 month blackout on AT&T went. Yes, it's two totally different situations here but so far it might be after the new year before the Deerfield stations return and that's a very bad look on not just Mumblow, but Sinclair as well.

Edited by oknewsguy
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10 minutes ago, oknewsguy said:

If you have a solution for how Sinclair can force Deerfield into coming together with AT&T to get their stations back on the AT&T systems please let us know. 

 

So far the only solution I could justify it happening is a sale of the Deerfield stations, there's no chance in hell the Deerfield licenses gets pulled just because of a blackout.

 

Cunningham is owned by a trust that benefits the Smith family. I would bet almost anything the same thing is going on with the Mumblow stations. Or like that station Tegna just bought. I would be very surprised if everything wasn't locked down tightly where Mumblow is the legal owner, but Sinclair is somehow the ultimate beneficiary. Whatever the reason is for this situation, there is a reason.

 

Why just last week, the Fox 28 (Cunningham) 10 pm news was running live on WWHO (Manhan) because of Thursday night NFL on Fox. And the ABC 6 (Sinclair) news repeats at midnight. They operate in sync without skipping a beat. In fact, the WWHO tower is moving from Williamsport to the WSYX/WTTE tower after the repack. 

Edited by DirtyHarry
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1 minute ago, DirtyHarry said:

 

Cunningham is owned by a trust that benefits the Smith family. I would bet almost anything the same thing is going on with the Mumblow stations. Or like that station Tegna just bought. I would be very surprised if everything wasn't locked down tightly where Mumblow is the legal owner, but Sinclair is somehow the ultimate beneficiary. Whatever the reason is for this situation, there is a reason.

 

Why just last week, the Fox 28 (Cunningham) 10 pm news was running live on WWHO (Manhan). They operate in sync without skipping a beat.

If that's the case then why hasn't Sinclair stepped in to resolve this carriage dispute? I mean this Deerfield blackout is getting to be just as stupid as the Northwest Broadcasting blackout albeit it is totally different

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1 minute ago, oknewsguy said:

If that's the case then why hasn't Sinclair stepped in to resolve this carriage dispute? I mean this Deerfield blackout is getting to be just as stupid as the Northwest Broadcasting blackout albeit it is totally different

 

Just speculating here, but since the current model is to think in terms of "program streams" instead of traditional "stations," I wonder if Manhan/Deerfield just owns spectrum and the "program streams" are owned by Sinclair. Sinclair then "leases" channel space from Mumblow, just like they do with LPTV's. Home Shopping Club ... CW ... at the end of the day, what's the difference? I wonder if that's what's going on here.

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Just thinking about this some more ... I think that HAS to be what's going on.

 

I bet this whole thing is structured as a JSA/SSA of a station that does nothing other than lease its signal out. It would then meet all legal requirements because the station does nothing. Sinclair or an affiliated company then turns around and leases the signal for CW Columbus just like the Home Shopping Club would.

 

Mumblow might indeed be trying to squeeze out more money out of AT&T. 

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Programming legally has to be "controlled" by the licensee.  The only exception are in house programs like newscasts (or others run by the SSA partner), and such programming cannot exceed 15 percent of the weekly schedule of a station that is being managed while under common ownership of other owned stations in the market.  WPMI (and likely others) had to dump newscasts as a result of it, so they canned their 4:30 am show. 

 

These Deerfield arrangements (especially WPMI and WJTC) got in at a time when they were not under scrutiny, and it was under the same divestiture that saw their former sister stations KLRT and KASN absorbed into Nexstar's KARK and KARZ.  Subsequent deals would see Sinclair getting creative with their existing spectrum and selling off stations outright to their buddies like Armstrong Williams to comply with the rules.

 

Now under the JSA/SSA, at one time, Sinclair exercised some influence in negotiations, but subsequently got their hands slapped over it, and was forced to let the licensees do it themselves.

 

It's a vicious cycle since virtually ALL of these licensees have ties to Sinclair.  Mumblow was a lender to Sinclair.  Armstrong Williams did political commentary work for Sinclair.  And what came about from the failed Sinclair-Tribune merger was that Steven Fader, a major advertiser of Sinclair's would have been handed WGN on a silver platter at a bargain basement price in order to appease the FCC.  

 

Now since the licensees legally can't deal with Sinclair, they are essentially dead in the water unless they actually know how to run a tv station.  If they are holding out for money, eventually it's going to catch up with them and they'll be forced somehow to end this charade.

Edited by tyrannical bastard
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1 hour ago, DirtyHarry said:

 

Just speculating here, but since the current model is to think in terms of "program streams" instead of traditional "stations," I wonder if Manhan/Deerfield just owns spectrum and the "program streams" are owned by Sinclair. Sinclair then "leases" channel space from Mumblow, just like they do with LPTV's. Home Shopping Club ... CW ... at the end of the day, what's the difference? I wonder if that's what's going on here.

It's possible that Sinclair set it up with the stations owned by Cunningham, Deerifled and the like to tie in all of the program streams and AT&T apparently doesn't like that idea that maybe DirecTV pre-AT&T did.

1 hour ago, DirtyHarry said:

Just thinking about this some more ... I think that HAS to be what's going on.

 

Mumblow might indeed be trying to squeeze out more money out of AT&T. 

And that last sentence might prevent stations like WPMI and others from returning to AT&T anytime soon. AT&T isn't going to cave into demands of someone who's ownership is basically in-name only with Sinclair basically running the show on everything else.

8 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Programming legally has to be "controlled" by the licensee.  The only exception are in house programs like newscasts (or others run by the SSA partner), and such programming cannot exceed 15 percent of the weekly schedule of a station that is being managed while under common ownership of other owned stations in the market.  WPMI (and likely others) had to dump newscasts as a result of it, so they canned their 4:30 am show. 

 

These Deerfield arrangements (especially WPMI and WJTC) got in at a time when they were not under scrutiny, and it was under the same divestiture that saw their former sister stations KLRT and KASN absorbed into Nexstar's KARK and KARZ.  Subsequent deals would see Sinclair getting creative with their existing spectrum and selling off stations outright to their buddies like Armstrong Williams to comply with the rules.

 

Now under the JSA/SSA, at one time, Sinclair exercised some influence in negotiations, but subsequently got their hands slapped over it, and was forced to let the licensees do it themselves.

 

It's a vicious cycle since virtually ALL of these licensees have ties to Sinclair.  Mumblow was a lender to Sinclair.  Armstrong Williams did political commentary work for Sinclair.  And what came about from the failed Sinclair-Tribune merger was that Steven Fader, a major advertiser of Sinclair's would have been handed WGN on a silver platter at a bargain basement price in order to appease the FCC.  

 

Now since the licensees legally can't deal with Sinclair, they are essentially dead in the water unless they actually know how to run a tv station.  If they are holding out for money, eventually it's going to catch up with them and they'll be forced somehow to end this charade.

If you read what @DirtyHarry said on that last sentence that right there might kill Deerfield and their shell partners in the long haul. It may not be neccessarily killing them but wait a few months and it likely will.

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1 hour ago, oknewsguy said:

Programming legally has to be "controlled" by the licensee. 


Look at the LPTV's in most markets: Home Shopping, preacher creatures and a whole host of diginets. They don't really originate anything, they only pass programs through. The LPTV does "control" programming by deciding who they're going to lease channel space to.

 

Who says you can't think of CW Columbus in the same light as Grit, HSC, Court TV, GetTV, COZI, etc? In fact, if things are as controlled as you say, this would be a far better way to do it. Put some guy like Mumblow in business, lease channel space from him for 50 years.

Edited by DirtyHarry
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The simple solution may be for Sinclair to walk away from the Deerfield stations they provide services for, and shoehorn their programming onto their owned stations. 

 

In Mobile/Pensacola's case, as long as Sinclair can wrangle away the NBC affiliation from WPMI,  it could live on as a subchannel of WEAR or WFGX.  Same goes for WJTC, which is an independent station that is mostly second runs and the usual low-budget daytime TV drivel..  This way, Sinclair is back to having a "legal" duopoly, since WFGX is far outside of the top 4.  Deerfield can make WPMI (and WJTC) repositories of all of the subchannels that could be displaced in such a move.

 

Half the Deerfield issue may lie in their botched partnership with Duane "Doppler Dead Zone" Lammers, and his alleged misappropriation of retrans data in an attempt to negotiate with AT&T on Deerfield's behalf.

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17 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

The simple solution may be for Sinclair to walk away from the Deerfield stations they provide services for, and shoehorn their programming onto their owned stations. 

 

In Mobile/Pensacola's case, as long as Sinclair can wrangle away the NBC affiliation from WPMI,  it could live on as a subchannel of WEAR or WFGX.  Same goes for WJTC, which is an independent station that is mostly second runs and the usual low-budget daytime TV drivel..  This way, Sinclair is back to having a "legal" duopoly, since WFGX is far outside of the top 4.  Deerfield can make WPMI (and WJTC) repositories of all of the subchannels that could be displaced in such a move.

 

Half the Deerfield issue may lie in their botched partnership with Duane "Doppler Dead Zone" Lammers, and his alleged misappropriation of retrans data in an attempt to negotiate with AT&T on Deerfield's behalf.

The only station where programming wouldn't move to the subchannel would be WPMI and WHAM, the rest of the Deerfield chain could assume their respective affiliations or in the case of WJTC, independent status.

 

Send WPMI to either Gray, Hearst, or Tegna while WHAM could go to either Cox or Tegna.

 

I think it'd be more appropriate to address the future of the Deerfield stations in the Speculatron thread and perhaps in it's own thread.

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1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Whatever the outcome is between the Sinclair shells and AT&T, it's probably going to bite them come license renewal time...even though it's a pay TV issue.  If they have indeed been dealing with bad faith, that could be bad news...

And all signs point to negotiations being in bad faith which I think we all can agree that this is a bad look for Sinclair itself

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