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WSFL to Launch News in 2021, produced by WPLG


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2 hours ago, Yankees4life said:

They can't. Too many conflicts in SW Florida and WPB on top of already being on the cap limit due to scooping up ION

 Berkshire Hathaway  helped Scripps to buy Ion, and I betcha that Scripps would gladly pawn the Ion Station in Mami on to Inyo if it meant getting WPLG from Berkshire Hathaway.

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2 hours ago, elfuego35 said:

 

 Berkshire Hathaway  helped Scripps to buy Ion, and I betcha that Scripps would gladly pawn the Ion Station in Mami on to Inyo if it meant getting WPLG from Berkshire Hathaway.

It's not just about the ION station. They own too many stations in the area in general. I don't see the FCC giving them a thumbs up unless BH wants to act like a sidecar for WPLG like Gray has for WFLX

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26 minutes ago, Yankees4life said:

It's not just about the ION station. They own too many stations in the area in general. I don't see the FCC giving them a thumbs up unless BH wants to act like a sidecar for WPLG like Gray has for WFLX

 

SW Florida and West Palm Beach are separate markets, so that wouldn't cause any issues with the FCC. The only thing they would have to do is sell the ION station in Miami and possibly another one elsewhere to comply with the national ownership cap.

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24 minutes ago, broadcastfan9751 said:

 

SW Florida and West Palm Beach are separate markets, so that wouldn't cause any issues with the FCC. The only thing they would have to do is sell the ION station in Miami and possibly another one elsewhere to comply with the national ownership cap.

 

You are talking about the Miami and WPB markets which are not only adjacent, but have overlap in Broward County.  A lot would need to be unloaded in both markets.

 

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On 3/11/2021 at 1:27 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

 

I wonder if this could be a prelude to Scripps buying WPLG from BH Media.  Given the Miami market, it's an easy duopoly to form.

I wonder that as well too and if WPLG gets under Scripps- WSVN running away #1-  NBC 6 & CBS 4 are bottom feeders in the market.

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Forgot about the ION station, so even with Berkshire Hathaway's investment, that alone could be construed as dual ownership with WPLG, even if they end up selling to Inyo.

 

WPTV is irrelevant in the scheme of things since West Palm Beach (and Palm Beach County) is a totally separate market from Miami Fort-Lauderdale.  Broward County is part of the Miami Fort-Lauderdale Market and any overlap is only because of existing cable carriage and broadcast signal penetration.

 

Back in the day, the overlapping made sense because of the pre-emptions that stations made in both markets, and the subsequent affiliate swaps due to the signal contours being different.

 

So unless we hear otherwise, looks like we have another good old-fashioned news share agreement...

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5 minutes ago, Megatron81 said:

Why didn't Scripps just use the West Palm Beach TV station they own to do the news for WSFL? They would've kept the money than having to pay WPLG and splitting the ad money just my opinion. 

 

That's a good question.  I would also be interested in knowing the reason for outsourcing when they had WPTV just one county north. 

 

I wonder if they would've been more willing to produce WSFL's newscasts at WPTV if not for their workload on producing newscasts for WFLX.

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19 minutes ago, Megatron81 said:

Why didn't Scripps just use the West Palm Beach TV station they own to do the news for WSFL? They would've kept the money than having to pay WPLG and splitting the ad money just my opinion. 

Yeah...some decisions Scripps make tend to be headscratchers for me

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Scripps probably was intending WSFL's news department to be a source of political ad revenue more than anything else. However, COVID created so many logistical hurdles (not to mention a sharp downturn in nonpolitical ad sectors) that, by the time the company could be more confident in planning, the election cycle had ended.

 

The decision being made in May was made at a time when it wasn't quite foreseen that things would not be as bad as worst-case scenarios on a full-year basis, but there was no way for Scripps to know that.

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9 hours ago, Megatron81 said:

Why didn't Scripps just use the West Palm Beach TV station they own to do the news for WSFL? They would've kept the money than having to pay WPLG and splitting the ad money just my opinion. 

 

Answer: WFLX.

 

There you go.

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  • CircleSeven changed the title to WSFL to Launch News in 2021, produced by WPLG

It appears the stations has assembled its on-air team for the new shows, which will start on June 1.

  • Gio Insignares (from WUSA) will join WPLG traffic anchor Alexis Frazier to anchor the 7-9am show.
  • Eden Checkol (from WISN) will join WPLG evening anchor Louis Aguirre to anchor the 10pm show. 
  • Andrea Martinez (from WTVJ/Telemundo) will be the traffic anchor for the new AM show.

Morning meteorologist Julie Durda will be on the new AM show. While evening meteorologist Betty Davis and sports anchor Will Manso will be on the 10pm. 

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On 3/11/2021 at 6:41 PM, NowBergen said:

You are talking about the Miami and WPB markets which are not only adjacent, but have overlap in Broward County.  A lot would need to be unloaded in both markets.

 

 

Sinclair owns or controls seven stations between Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati, and there is a lot of overlap, especially between the latter two sets of cities. The Columbus stations get their signal out to just outside of Dayton, at least theoretically.

 

Back in the old days, the FCC cared about signal overlap. They don't care anymore if you are in separate DMA's.

That said, the Federal Trade Commission and the doj might care if you have some kind of dominant market position because you own all of these stations. With WSFL, and an Ion station, that's not going to be the case, especially with all the signals in that region.

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It's funny how history repeats itself. NBC 6 produced WSFL's news for years up until late 2008. It's so hysterical because management made such a big deal about how they could make more money with paid programming and re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond. Fast forward 10 years and we're back in the same boat. At least they are not having a news paper run a TV news show. That was a disaster. No one cared. WPLG gives them street cred and an established news infrastructure already in place.

 

10pm Newscast only competition will be WSVN. Which will be tough. But I know a lot of people prefer WPLG newscasts than to WSVN. This could work

 

I worked at WSFL 11 years. 2008 - 2019. Seen the merge with the Sun Sentinel then separation, News Fix, multiple re-brands, Morning Dose, Eye Opener...list goes on. 

Really loved working at the station when we focused on Entertainment. When we tried news it was always forced. Mainly because the station never employed seasoned reporters. Honest to god, they would send a promo producer to produce news stories. That's how desperate sales was. 

 

I get the economics on how syndicated entertainment doesn't work anymore. But one of the things we tried to do was focus on info-tainment. Let the other stations do what they do best rather than try and compete. If you look at all the cable reality TV that is produced in Miami, why not have that stuff air on WSFL. 

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I didn't see WPLG becoming friends with E. W. Scripps Company... I too thought if anything it would go to WPTV considering it's already under the EW roof. Although makes sense given they're also doing Fox 29. If I recall correctly WPLG is part of Berkshire Hathaway 

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2 hours ago, kmetz said:

I didn't see WPLG becoming friends with E. W. Scripps Company... I too thought if anything it would go to WPTV considering it's already under the EW roof. Although makes sense given they're also doing Fox 29. If I recall correctly WPLG is part of Berkshire Hathaway 

You are correct. WPLG is a part of Berkshire Hathaway, but they still get the graphics from their former sister stations at Graham Media Group.

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16 hours ago, JosiahCubed said:

You are correct. WPLG is a part of Berkshire Hathaway, but they still get the graphics from their former sister stations at Graham Media Group.

Audio too? I can't find their music anywhere. 

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Just now, kmetz said:

Audio too? I can't find their music anywhere. 

Music, I believe so too. I can't remember off the top of my head.

 

But to be honest, it is nice to see a newscast on WSFL after so long.

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