Eight CBS Stations to Ditch CW and Go Independent This Fall

[AKA 33]

https://deadline.com/2023/05/cbs-stations-eight-drop-cw-go-independent-this-fall-1235357388/
 

Not a shock, but interesting in the cases of Seattle and Atlanta. I wonder what Paramount has planned for those stations. 

[TVLurker 150]

how will the independents perform in this type of market? that's what I'm curious about.

[AKA 33]

8 minutes ago, TVLurker said:

how will the independents perform in this type of market? that's what I'm curious about.

I assume most will become news-heavy, a’la KCAL.

[mightynine 241]

Quote

“We look forward to reimagining these stations as independents while leveraging the considerable value of their prime-time real estate in each of the markets,” said Wendy McMahon, President and Co-Head, CBS News and Stations. “It’s an exciting time to look at new opportunities to add local programming, including live sports, and shows from across the Paramount Global brands. We are also grateful to have been part of The CW for 17 memorable years and wish our partners at Nexstar continued success.”

 

Clearly positioning for potential local sports opportunities as RSNs fail, and also I wonder if we could see some simulcasts of CBS Sports HQ or CBS News Streaming?

 

Even better question - are there options for the CW in those markets?

[tyrannical bastard 3188]

On 5/5/2023 at 10:52 AM, mightynine said:

 

Clearly positioning for potential local sports opportunities as RSNs fail, and also I wonder if we could see some simulcasts of CBS Sports HQ or CBS News Streaming?

 

Even better question - are there options for the CW in those markets?

Philly, SF, Seattle, Tampa and Sacramento all have Nexstar stations that could snatch up the affiliation and put it in house.  

 

In Atlanta, this could be another step in CBS moving off of WANF and onto its own station.   If they started a news department from scratch in Detroit, they could very well do the same in Atlanta with a "Digital-first" mentality.

 

And if such a move ever happens, WANF or WPCH could be the new home of the CW in Atlanta.  It'll be sad if WPCH got it because that would basically be the end of the WTBS to WPCH run as a superstation and local Independent.

 

Another group to watch will be Sinclair, All of their CW affiliations are up this year as well.  Which could make it interesting in places like Pittsburgh where you would think a station like WPNT would snatch it up.

Edited May 6 by tyrannical bastard
Forgot about the Seattle-Milwaukee for Charlotte swap between Fox & Nexstar

[Drew 129]

Seattle does not have a Nexstar station. They briefly had Q13 until FOX purchased it. 

[T.L. Hughes 639]

41 minutes ago, Drew said:

Seattle does not have a Nexstar station. They briefly had Q13 until FOX purchased it. 

Not just KCPQ, KZJO was offloaded, too. The CW’s best option in Seattle is to cut an affiliation deal with Tegna for KONG.

 

Sacramento is an awkward situation as Nexstar only has KTXL, meaning that The CW’s only options in that market are being relegated to a subchannel of KTXL, cutting a deal with Hearst to put the network on KQCA, or buying a low-power station.

 

Detroit has two options, WADL or WMYD, though I’m not sure about the latter as Scripps may be angling to acquire rights to the Pistons, Red Wings and/or Tigers from Bally Sports Detroit should either or all or them bail from that network. That creates awkwardness for MyNetworkTV as well as WJBK is the only station Fox owns in Detroit, meaning there’s a possibility that, unless WMYD were to somehow take MNTV back (uncertain for the same reasons for why it might hold off on trying for the CW affiliation), The CW and MyNetworkTV may end up sharing airtime on WADL. (Pittsburgh may be in the same boat, if WPNT were to affiliate with The CW,.)

 

KRON taking over the CW affiliation in San Francisco would give Fox credence to finally move MNTV to KICU. Philly, in the case of MyNetworkTV, is a major question mark; Fox only has WTXF there, and there aren’t many good options for the service to move (other than maybe Fox buying WMCN), once The CW moves to WPHL, meaning the same issue with Detroit applies here.

Edited May 5 by T.L. Hughes

[MD TV 107]

40 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

 

 

Another group to watch will be Sinclair, All of their CW affiliations are up this year as well.  Which could make it interesting in places like Pittsburgh where you would think a station like WPNT would snatch it up.

Or Baltimore where Sinclair runs all the non-big 3 stations. Cable-wise they could pipe in WDCW, but that's an even tighter situation otherwise.

[tyrannical bastard 3188]

I really think there could be some .2 situations, especially in Nexstar markets where they don't already have the CW.

 

[nycnewsjunkie 1214]

40 minutes ago, T.L. Hughes said:

Not just KCPQ, KZJO was offloaded, too. The CW’s best option in Seattle is to cut an affiliation deal with Tegna for KONG.

 

Sacramento is an awkward situation as Nexstar only has KTXL, meaning that The CW’s only options in that market are being relegated to a subchannel of KTXL, cutting a deal with Hearst to put the network on KQCA, or buying a low-power station.

 

Detroit has two options, WADL or WMYD, though I’m not sure about the latter as Scripps may be angling to acquire rights to the Pistons, Red Wings and/or Tigers from Bally Sports Detroit should either or all or them bail from that network. That creates awkwardness for MyNetworkTV as well as WJBK is the only station Fox owns in Detroit, meaning there’s a possibility that, unless WMYD were to somehow take MNTV back (uncertain for the same reasons for why it might hold off on trying for the CW affiliation), The CW and MyNetworkTV may end up sharing airtime on WADL. (Pittsburgh may be in the same boat, if WPNT were to affiliate with The CW,.)

 

KRON taking over the CW affiliation in San Francisco would give Fox credence to finally move MNTV to KICU. Philly, in the case of MyNetworkTV, is a major question mark; Fox only has WTXF there, and there aren’t many good options for the service to move (other than maybe Fox buying WMCN), once The CW moves to WPHL, meaning the same issue with Detroit applies here.

If I had to guess, WPHL, KQCA, and KRON are almost certain to pick up the CW. Two hours in prime time plus LIVGolf on weekends doesn’t drastically alter the schedules of those stations.

 

As far as MyNet is concerned, would Fox even bother to look for another affiliate if they lose WPHL? They already don’t have an affiliate in Miami, and it’s not as though MyNet is much of a network anyway.

[tyrannical bastard 3188]

Gray's stock price has been dragging the last month or so.   Could it be that their now-hometown flagship station is in imminent danger of losing CBS to WUPA?

 

When WISH lost CBS to WTTV, it took out several million dollars from the value of LIN's stations going into Media General.

[mre29 1247]

So, when do the affiliation deals for KIRO, WANF, and WTSP expire?

 

 

[atlnews2 530]

KRON has a 3 hour prime time News block from 8 to 11. 

 

KONG has a 2 hour news block at 9pm 

 

WPCH has a 2 hour news block at 9pm 

 

WATL has a 3 hour News block at 8pm 

 

WTTA has a 2 hour block of news at 8pm

 

The question these stations need to ask is if low rated CW programming is more profitable that what they are already doing. With the election next year and the political spending going to be really high having complete ownership of your advertising is very significant (especially for the Atlanta stations considering Georgias swing state status). 
 

Personally I could only see KRON and WTTA adding CW, and that’s simply because nexstar will make them 

Edited May 5 by atlnews2

[AdamTheJ 87]

Will the CW in Tampa be on WFLA’s spectrum or WTTA’s?

[Drew 129]

4 minutes ago, mre29 said:

So, when do the affiliation deals for KIRO, WANF, and WTSP expire?

 

 

I thought jurors owners just renewed a year ago but I could be wrong 

 

[AdamTheJ 87]

9 minutes ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

If I had to guess, WPHL, KQCA, and KRON are almost certain to pick up the CW. Two hours in prime time plus LIVGolf on weekends doesn’t drastically alter the schedules of those stations.

 

As far as MyNet is concerned, would Fox even bother to look for another affiliate if they lose WPHL? They already don’t have an affiliate in Miami, and it’s not as though MyNet is much of a network anyway.

Nor does Boston. Needless to say MNTV should Never have been a network to begin with.

[T.L. Hughes 639]

22 minutes ago, nycnewsjunkie said:

If I had to guess, WPHL, KQCA, and KRON are almost certain to pick up the CW. Two hours in prime time plus LIVGolf on weekends doesn’t drastically alter the schedules of those stations.

 

As far as MyNet is concerned, would Fox even bother to look for another affiliate if they lose WPHL? They already don’t have an affiliate in Miami, and it’s not as though MyNet is much of a network anyway.

KRON and WPHL are kinda givens (as is WTTA to answer @AdamTheJ’s question), since Nexstar owns 75% of The CW and owns those stations.

 

You also left out the Hearst-leased One Magnificent Morning block.

Edited May 5 by T.L. Hughes

[GoldenShine9 1469]

27 minutes ago, Drew said:

I thought jurors owners just renewed a year ago but I could be wrong 

 

 

I honestly have a hard time seeing those stations losing the CBS affiliation, and their owners will probably try to package them to prevent it.

 

The smartest move IMO for CBS is to sell the stations in those markets.

[nickp 272]

Gray Television, based here in Atlanta and owner of WANF will fight tooth and nail 

[SFTV 459]

2 hours ago, AKA said:

I assume most will become news-heavy, a’la KCAL.

KPIX will need to ramp up and hire more staff including at least 2 more meteorologists and will be competing heavy with KRON of PIX decides to go the KCAL route.

[nycnewsjunkie 1214]

1 hour ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Gray's stock price has been dragging the last month or so.   Could it be that their now-hometown flagship station is in imminent danger of losing CBS to WUPA?

 

When WISH lost CBS to WTTV, it took out several million dollars from the value of LIN's stations going into Media General.

Correlation does not imply causation. Nearly every media company’s stock price has been dragging for the last month. The local TV business in general isn’t doing great right now. While this move definitely makes it easier for CBS to move the network in house in Atlanta and Seattle if it wanted to, I highly doubt that’s happening this fall. The Deadline article would’ve mentioned it, and CBS has affiliation contracts to fulfill.

EDIT: If those agreements expire in 2024, I suppose things could potentially get interesting. Stay tuned, I guess.

Edited May 5 by nycnewsjunkie

[tyrannical bastard 3188]

19 minutes ago, nickp said:

Gray Television, based here in Atlanta and owner of WANF will fight tooth and nail 

Gray renewed all their current CBS affiliates in the fall of 2021.  However, this was before the Meredith merger and those stations are likely on a prior agreement.

[mrschimpf 1785]

A little less important thing here is with the 'Columbia' part of the 'Columbia-Warner Network' out of the equation (at least station-wise), do we see a rebrand coming for the network itself like The NX, NexTV, or SookNet (I'm not serious on the last one)?

 

As for the ratings outside whatever Nexstar keeps out of this year's schedule (so far just All-American and the Saturday/Sunday night reality filler blocks), it doesn't really matter. Whatever Nexstar throws on, it's basically just going to be like Heartland, which fills any timeslot without a pulse on weekends and has no particular loyalty outside a small viewerbase that finds handholding to be a break of morals, or CanCon/international content that most anyone who was already a fan long ago found much easier/ad-free (or with more interesting ads) via a VPN. CBSNS will not only be fine, but likely to be glad to be rid of the branding yoke.

 

And Hearst will likely offer additional Go Time filler to help these stations, as CBS made the contract for OMM, not Nexstar.

[DirtyHarry 714]

3 hours ago, AKA said:

https://deadline.com/2023/05/cbs-stations-eight-drop-cw-go-independent-this-fall-1235357388/
 

Not a shock, but interesting in the cases of Seattle and Atlanta. I wonder what Paramount has planned for those stations. 

 

The big thing here is pro football. There is a lot of money to be made by owning both the local and national sides of that programming. And with CBS now being able to show more NFC games, they would be crazy to leave that affiliation with somebody else. Those two stations are going to be CBS. Why put money in other people's pockets?

 

Tampa too!

18 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Gray renewed all their current CBS affiliates in the fall of 2021.  However, this was before the Meredith merger and those stations are likely on a prior agreement.

 

They were doing 3-year affiliation agreements, so my read on this is that they expire in early 2024.

[DirtyHarry 714]

 

Besides, ratings are so pathetic these days. What are we talking about, ratings in the "3's"? If they go Indy and get ratings in the "1's", but get to keep all the profit, I bet they still come out ahead.