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Scripps to acquire Cordillera


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I definitely didn't expect Scripps to be the buyer, especially considering how small some (all?) of the MTN markets are. I wonder if Scripps will be eying a certain station in the one Montana market they won't have stations in...

 

Also: TWO TRANSACTIONS! See, Tribune? It's not that hard.

It's not Tribune that's making things complicated, it's Starboard Value that's making things complicated by pushing this garbage about wanting everything in one transaction or else. I get it it's for tax purposes but still, you and I both know that Tribune can't be acquired all at once, but Starboard Value just doesn't give a crap about what we think and they will do any transaction involving Tribune in one deal and not multiple deals because that's exactly what Starboard Value wants

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It's not Tribune that's making things complicated, it's Starboard Value that's making things complicated by pushing this garbage about wanting everything in one transaction or else. I get it it's for tax purposes but still, you and I both know that Tribune can't be acquired all at once, but Starboard Value just doesn't give a crap about what we think and they will do any transaction involving Tribune in one deal and not multiple deals because that's exactly what Starboard Value wants

 

Starboard Value is a hedge fund that's interested in one thing only: to make money. Selling Tribune in one piece rather than piecemeal has the potential to make them the most money.

 

It's really that simple.

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Starboard Value is a hedge fund that's interested in one thing only: to make money. Selling Tribune in one piece rather than piecemeal has the potential to make them the most money.

 

It's really that simple.

Of course, they're all about the almighty dollar.

 

That's just how business works nowadays

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Interesting to see a news sharing agreement between an NBC and ABC station.

 

It's not that weird of a thing. There are all kinds of formal and informal news sharing agreements between stations in adjacent markets. When there are no common owners in two given markets, generally stations will cooperate with stations of the same affiliations. But when there are common owners, the alliances get a little shaken up. I'm sure KUSA is now trying to strike some sort of deal with KRDO or KKTV.

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Interesting to see a news sharing agreement between an NBC and ABC station.

 

This happens all the time among co-owned stations.

 

If there's no co-ownership, affiliation usually determines adjacent-market news-sharing, but arrangements even exist among stations that otherwise have nothing to do with each other. Some exist out of necessity because they're the odd stations out of a mixed-affiliation co-ownership and some seem like just because.

 

KTRK-KEYE and KTBC-KSAT comes to mind, as do WTMJ-WISC-WKBT, WMTW-WABI, WKYT-WDRB, WWL-WBRZ, KCCI-KCRG, etc.

 

Oftentimes there will still be some degree of informal cooperation between the co-affiliated station even if they primarily share with others.

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Didn't WWL's agreement with WAFB end when WVUE came under common ownership/management with it?

 

I doubt there was any sort of official "agreement" (they just happened to be co-affiliated), but I'm sure that's what took place.

 

If you think about it, it's mutually beneficial. WWL isn't left out of Baton Rouge coverage, and when WBRZ needs NOLA coverage, it isn't stuck having to rely on the laggard WGNO.

 

It's kind of the same thing with the others. Although I believe the WISC/WTMJ arrangement predates the affiliation switches in Milwaukee, it probably paid particular dividends in the 90s, when WDJT was a fledgling station and WISC was a lot more dominant.

 

Same for KCCI and KCRG. KGAN was a distant third for a while and IIRC wasn't running a full slate of newscasts for a time during the 90s/2000s, while WOI has always been a terrible station. Therefore it made sense for the two longtime #1s to partner.

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The main reason news sharing happens across all the lines is because it's now easy to do so.

 

In the days before most of you were born... TV stations relied on the network affilates via network news services is because that's all stations had to chose from.

 

Film and tape news stories came into your station via your own camera crews,network coax feed, the bus,airplanes, trains, satellite, a-news,newsone and newspath and microwave backhaul and live remotes.

 

You stayed within the network news loop because you didn't have access to anything else quickly. Now all you do is call the source and FTP or email the news clips.

 

30 years ago it was quicker and cheaper to fly or bus tape between local markets when exchanging with other stations. Every network had special mesh bags that displayed "ABC NEWS URGENT...or KNBC NEWS RUSH... Those bags made really cool laundry and beach bags because they were durable and held a lot of film and tapes.

 

I have never seen or heard of any formal agreement dictating a network or local affil "MUST" stay within the" network systems". Mo0st the time you never had to venture outside the network news feeds because there was always plenty of stuff available from your net feeds.

 

During the 1990's, California FOX affil (KCBA) even even allowed shooters to sell local news tape to larger non FOX stations and reality clip shows as an added perk, those photogs did quite well with the arrangement and the station NEVER had an issue getting the usually lazy photogs out in the middle of the night for local breakers that had local and regional impact.

 

The photogs would just fire up one of the stations microwave trucks and point the dish to Mt Loma Prieta where all the SF/SJ and Oakland stations had ENG receive sites. KCBA just re-racked the tape, and changed microwave channels for each station. KCBA was able to fill tape orders faster than KSBW could uplink to KRON and NBC...it was not uncommon to see"breaking" KCBA news tape on KRON.

 

For some stupid reason KSBW has never figured out how to feed KNTV via microwave truck.

 

The rule of a good news desk is...

Grab the video from WHATEVER source you legally can obtain it from.

 

Don't wait for YOUR network to bail you out.

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During the 1990's, California FOX affil (KCBA) even even allowed shooters to sell local news tape to larger non FOX stations and reality clip shows as an added perk, those photogs did quite well with the arrangement and the station NEVER had an issue getting the usually lazy photogs out in the middle of the night for local breakers that had local and regional impact.

 

Huh. TIL KCBA had its own news operation; always thought it was combined with KCCN/KION.

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Personally, I'm surprised that Scripps is now investing in small markets in this deal, which are as follows:

 

Lexington: 63

Green Bay: 67

Omaha: 69

Tucson: 73

Waco: 89

Colorado Springs: 91

Boise: 100

Lansing: 110

Tallahassee: 112

Lafayette: 121

Bakersfield: 122

Santa Barbara: 124

Corpus Christi: 128

Missoula: 164

Billings: 168

Twin Falls: 189

Great Falls: 192

Helena: 205

 

Current Scripps Station

Coming from Graycom

As for Quincy, they're moving up to DMAs 73 & 88 as they already occupy the following DMAs:

 

86, 87, 99, 104, 113, 130, 134, 139, 144, 149, 154, 160, 163, and QMI's home market 174

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Another thing this does is it prevents Gray from having every market in Louisiana covered, although from the sense of it all they probably weren't even a serious bidder for Cordillera (due to having to divest the three largest stations). It appears to be bad timing on their part.

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Personally, I'm surprised that Scripps is now investing in small markets in this deal, which are as follows:

 

Lexington: 63

Green Bay: 67

Omaha: 69

Tucson: 73

Waco: 89

Colorado Springs: 91

Boise: 100

Lansing: 110

Tallahassee: 112

Lafayette: 121

Santa Barbara: 124

Corpus Christi: 128

Missoula: 164

Billings: 168

Twin Falls: 189

Great Falls: 192

Helena: 205

 

Current Scripps Station

Coming from Graycom

As for Quincy, they're moving up to DMA 73 as they already occupy the following DMAs:

 

86, 87, 99, 104, 113, 130, 134, 139, 144, 149, 154, 160, 163, and QMI's home market 174

 

You forgot Bakersfield, which had been the smallest Scripps market (not counting the Twin Falls satellite station) since the McGraw-Hill deal. Pre-2012, I don't think Scripps had anything in markets smaller than 60.

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You forgot Bakersfield, which had been the smallest Scripps market (not counting the Twin Falls satellite station) since the McGraw-Hill deal. Pre-2012, I don't think Scripps had anything in markets smaller than 60.

If I'm correct, Tulsa was the smallest market Scripps owned prior to the 2012 McGraw-Hill acquisition

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Huh. TIL KCBA had its own news operation; always thought it was combined with KCCN/KION.

 

The KCBA news operation was built from scratch in Aug of 1990 by Ackerley and FOX as the first real FOX News affiliation. KCBA was one of the models that FOX financed when Rupert insisted that the FOX affils have news departments. KTVU did NOT cooperate with FOX as far as the news building operations. KTVU didn't want anything to do with the Murdoch news idea.

 

KCBA got a brand new huge studios and equipment that only major markets could afford like $70,000 Sony Betacams and all 4WD news trucks, and a fully computerized newsroom which was a big deal back before the internet....and even a bigger deal in the 110th TV market.

 

They even had cell phones....

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

 

 

KCCN/KION LMA came in 1995(?)...

That was one of the very first lease management agreements in the industry.

 

The KCBA experiment paid off...

In the first ratings book in 1990 they had giant numbers at 10pm.

 

When Ackerly sold KCBA the whole thing went into the trash.

Alex Witt was a reporter and weekend anchor....and Craig Kilborn also did sports.

Kirstie Wilde from LA anchored the weekdays and her husband was the ND.

 

 

kcbapromo.jpg.836d2301a7422ebd6027518522e57c0d.jpg

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Personally, I'm surprised that Scripps is now investing in small markets in this deal, which are as follows:

 

Lexington: 63

Green Bay: 67

Omaha: 69

Tucson: 73

Waco: 89

Colorado Springs: 91

Boise: 100

Lansing: 110

Tallahassee: 112

Lafayette: 121

Santa Barbara: 124

Corpus Christi: 128

Missoula: 164

Billings: 168

Twin Falls: 189

Great Falls: 192

Helena: 205

 

Current Scripps Station

Coming from Graycom

As for Quincy, they're moving up to DMA 73 as they already occupy the following DMAs:

 

86, 87, 99, 104, 113, 130, 134, 139, 144, 149, 154, 160, 163, and QMI's home market 174

 

it's a numbers game. The publicly owned companies want to own as many stations as they can get their hands on, which is why you're seeing Scripps get into small markets and Gray into big ones.

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You stayed within the network news loop because you didn't have access to anything else quickly. Now all you do is call the source and FTP or email the news clips.

.....

The rule of a good news desk is...

Grab the video from WHATEVER source you legally can obtain it from.

 

Don't wait for YOUR network to bail you out.

 

FTP/Wetransfer/Hightail/etc. etc. are great, and if the other station is helpful and cooperates, then everybody wins. But you're still at the mercy of hoping and praying that the desk editors at the other station will maybe possibly get around to thinking about sending you video if they have time after lunch.

 

You still need the network wire services for a lot of the out of market video, and the best scenario is if the network has already pulled what you wanted and put it up on wires so you can download it yourself without having to irritate the other station. I have a feeling that wire editors are a little less aggressive about pulling video now that they know how much stations just share among themselves, which means stations in smaller groups suffer.

 

it's a numbers game. The publicly owned companies want to own as many stations as they can get their hands on, which is why you're seeing Scripps get into small markets and Gray into big ones.

 

It was interesting to hear in the Scripps conference call that all but one of Cordillera's stations are #1 in their markets, and the Cordillera group has a higher profit margin than the existing Scripps stations. This was a quality station group to add to any company's portfolio.

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it's a numbers game. The publicly owned companies want to own as many stations as they can get their hands on, which is why you're seeing Scripps get into small markets and Gray into big ones.

 

I thought Scripps was a "hybrid" though, with the bulk of the stock held by the family?

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FTP/Wetransfer/Hightail/etc. etc. are great, and if the other station is helpful and cooperates, then everybody wins. But you're still at the mercy of hoping and praying that the desk editors at the other station will maybe possibly get around to thinking about sending you video if they have time after lunch.

 

You still need the network wire services for a lot of the out of market video, and the best scenario is if the network has already pulled what you wanted and put it up on wires so you can download it yourself without having to irritate the other station. I have a feeling that wire editors are a little less aggressive about pulling video now that they know how much stations just share among themselves, which means stations in smaller groups suffer.

 

You are almost spot on with this, except in the case of wire editors being a little less aggressive. Working for a couple NBC stations and having to deal with the pushy NBC News Channel editors, I’d say they’re pretty damn aggressive, especially during crunch time and during their conference calls. They would prefer you drop everything and feed video to them five minutes ago.

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You are almost spot on with this, except in the case of wire editors being a little less aggressive. Working for a couple NBC stations and having to deal with the pushy NBC News Channel editors, I’d say they’re pretty damn aggressive, especially during crunch time and during their conference calls. They would prefer you drop everything and feed video to them five minutes ago.

 

Yeah, if they really want something from you, then they'll be pushy, but I'm always a little disappointed with what content actually does end up on VOD. It seems like NBC will pull about a half dozen stories in each region, feed them out as PKGs on satellite, and then cut them up into sad little VOSOTs on VOD about eight hours later. ABC and Fox at least put up on VOD a few full PKGs from their O&Os every single day in addition to a decent amount of content from everyone else.

 

I just wonder whether the wire editors at all networks used to pull more from all the affiliates back when there was a greater need to rely on the network pre-broadband internet. I get the sense that the wire editors don't bother pulling stories anymore that don't have any national interest even if the other affiliates in the region might want them. That might be fine if you're O&O, in a big station group, and/or have lots of sister stations in nearby markets, but it's not ideal if you are in a smaller group.

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