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Gray to acquire Quincy Media.


CircleSeven

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  • CircleSeven changed the title to Gray to acquire Quincy Media.
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37 minutes ago, hfiles said:

I'm curious to see who gobbles up the WI stations. The amount of stations that would need to be divested made me think Gray wouldn't have been a good fit, but obviously they saw things differently.

 

Scripps and Tegna can cleanly acquire them, along with KWWL. Scripps would own in every Wisconsin market if it did so. WSIL works for anyone.

 

KVOA is a really tough one to figure out, since the companies that have nearby stations (in Phoenix) are either also in Tucson (Tegna, Scripps) or for sale itself (Meredith). If Hearst wanted a station, this is a good opportunity. Otherwise, I don't know.

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35 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

Scripps and Tegna can cleanly acquire them, along with KWWL. Scripps would own in every Wisconsin market if it did so. WSIL works for anyone.

Hey Scripps, I have a million dollar idea for you. Acquire all the WI Stations and do the following:

  • New Newscast - Wisconsin Tonight (6:30pm) - Yeah, I know. You've tried it before and it didn't work. Now you have 3 markets more worth of stories to tell in 30 minutes. Make it a deeper look at stories from across the state. Anchor it out of either WTMJ or WKOW. Model it after KARE11's Breaking the News. Make sure it's not just a Milwaukee/Madison-focused newscast. Air it state wide. Replay it on the sub channels at 9:30pm.
  • Merge "Wake Up Wisconsin Weekend" with "TMJ4 Today Saturday/Sunday." Add the new newscast to WGBA. Or, if you deem Milwaukee too important for a shared newscast, just do this to WGBA. 
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2 hours ago, CircleSeven said:

I am stunned.

To say you’re stunned is an understatement at this point. It truly is shocking, but expected considering they were on a buying spree these past few years. 

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1 hour ago, GoldenShine9 said:

Big surprise!! I am stunned too. Byron Allen has to be mad right now.

 

I'm sure he will pursue the Quincy stations that Gray has to divest.  Unlike most deals, this one firmly has Gray passing on the conflicts instead of choosing one or the other.

 

This firmly establishes Gray's hold in West Virginia, the only in-state market they don't have a station in is Wheeling-Steubenville (of which WTRF used to be a Benedek station).

 

You have to wonder if WIFR going low-power was part of the plan all along.  It's free and clear to now be merged into the full-powered WREX.  Perhaps their plan to launch a VHF station there was a backup plan?

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1 minute ago, tyrannical bastard said:

 

I'm sure he will pursue the Quincy stations that Gray has to divest.  Unlike most deals, this one firmly has Gray passing on the conflicts instead of choosing one or the other.

 

This firmly establishes Gray's hold in West Virginia, the only in-state market they don't have a station in is Wheeling-Steubenville (of which WTRF used to be a Benedek station).

 

You have to wonder if WIFR going low-power was part of the plan all along.  It's free and clear to now be merged into the full-powered WREX.  Perhaps their plan to launch a VHF station there was a backup plan?

 

True, but there are other options that Allen could get snakebit. It also means WOAY has one less place to go if it decided to sell away from local ownership. I do expect WREX and WIFR will get merged though...

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29 minutes ago, CircleSeven said:

Before you go overboard, Scripps can't acquire anymore stations. They're capped out after they completed the Ion deal last month.


Wouldn't this be remedied by selling some of the more puzzling Ion markets that Scripps kept to Inyo? I'm sure that they could make the room for the W?OW stations by leaving a few of them - Syracuse, Portland (ME), Scranton, Roanoke, and Greenville (NC) scream Inyo bait.

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4 minutes ago, scrabbleship said:


Wouldn't this be remedied by selling some of the more puzzling Ion markets that Scripps kept to Inyo? I'm sure that they could make the room for the W?OW stations by leaving a few of them - Syracuse, Portland (ME), Scranton, Roanoke, and Greenville (NC) scream Inyo bait.

A few of them, if money permits, could be traded to Gray in a market where Gray could gain a duopoly legally.

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Gray passed on all of the Quincy conflicts because they didn't want to "dissect" them....

Get it? 🤣

 

 

 

 

(Every time Quincy Media comes up, I can't not think of the Jack Klugman series from the 70s where he plays a medical examiner)

 

With Gray being so standardized, it's a wise move, they're still trying to digest WVIR in Charlottesville (even though they've added a simulcast in Harrisonburg to fill out the market).  Meanwhile, their Lockwood cast-offs still look like Gray stations and will probably be that way for a good while.

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5 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Gray passed on all of the Quincy conflicts because they didn't want to "dissect" them....

Get it? 🤣

 

 

 

 

(Every time Quincy Media comes up, I can't not think of the Jack Klugman series from the 70s where he plays a medical examiner)

 

With Gray being so standardized, it's a wise move, they're still trying to digest WVIR in Charlottesville (even though they've added a simulcast in Harrisonburg to fill out the market).  Meanwhile, their Lockwood cast-offs still look like Gray stations and will probably be that way for a good while.

 

A couple of the now-Lockwood stations they gave up in the Raycom deal - in Panama City and Dothan - I believe are now working with the Nexstar ABC affiliates in those markets.

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23 minutes ago, jd285 said:

Get ready for Rockford News Now. 

Thinking of that... for KDLH/KBJR and WPTA/WISE, The singular branding was tried on both when owned by Granite (Northland's NewsCenter and Indiana's NewsCenter). It feels like, when watching the Duluth stations, they have had some successes with separate newscasts (to the point that when Quincy remodeled the Duluth building, each station got it's own studio). Is Gray going to try to consolidate newscasts/branding again?

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11 minutes ago, GodfreyGR said:

Thinking of that... for KDLH/KBJR and WPTA/WISE, The singular branding was tried on both when owned by Granite (Northland's NewsCenter and Indiana's NewsCenter). It feels like, when watching the Duluth stations, they have had some successes with separate newscasts (to the point that when Quincy remodeled the Duluth building, each station got it's own studio). Is Gray going to try to consolidate newscasts/branding again?

 

It's very likely they will. Rockford is probably the big loser here.

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A lot of these Quincy markets were ones that Gray passed on initially back in 2003 when they merged with Benedek. 

In Duluth, they're finally getting KDLH, even though it's a shell of its former self and it's former CBS affiliation is on KBJR/KRII. 

 

Other markets like Peoria and Quincy had the market flipped, where Gray is getting the OTHER station that they could have owned in the Benedek merger.

(WEEK over WHOI....WGEM over KHQA)

 

 

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2 minutes ago, TexasTVNews said:

With Gray acquiring Quincy Media, what's the future for WSJV? Are they going to drop H&I and become an independent station or thinking about rejoining ABC.

They might pick up circle if it’s not carried in the market already. Most likely it will stay in its current form.

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28 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

 

It's very likely they will. Rockford is probably the big loser here.

I have no idea if Gray will carry on with their plans for a new transmitter near Freeport or will they just put the CBS channel on a sub channel of WREX. Either way, it really marks the end of an era for television in that area.

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