Will WSVN lose Fox

[Rick Rose 2.0]

With Sinclair having to spin off some stations as its trying to buy Tribune, WSVN might be the station that is forced to go independent in the deal. Fox is picking up 13 of the Tribune spin offs and WSFL 39 is the only non Fox station that is set to be owned by that network. After the deal Fox would own Fox affiliates in 19 of the top 20 markets and in Miami they probably wont own a CW station so flipping 39 to Fox would give Fox all 20 top markets with o&o's.

I guess Ansin would add even more news to WSVN like he had to do in Boston when he lost NBC.

 

[itsTheRolyPoly]

With Sinclair having to spin off some stations as its trying to buy Tribune, WSVN might be the station that is forced to go independent in the deal. Fox is picking up 13 of the Tribune spin offs and WSFL 39 is the only non Fox station that is set to be owned by that network. After the deal Fox would own Fox affiliates in 19 of the top 20 markets and in Miami they probably wont own a CW station so flipping 39 to Fox would give Fox all 20 top markets with o&o's.

I guess Ansin would add even more news to WSVN like he had to do in Boston when he lost NBC.

If you ask me, WSFL will be FOX, WBFS will be The CW/MyTV combo and WSVN will be Indepedent with a more news-heavy schedule.

 

[seattlesarchiebunker]

Ed Ansin has always been willing to be more independent with his stations (prempting network feeds) and plays hardball with networks. He’s lost NBC twice (WSVN in 1988 and WHDH). WSVN when I was in South Florida in the 90’s was “if it bleeds, it leads” news stations, and they produced more news than anybody else in market. And zero mention of being a Fox affiliate.

They could go independent (or with a “second tier” net like CW) and besides football and a couple of weekday programs, there would be little for WSVN’s news audience to notice and probably wouldn’t hurt Ansin’s bottom line too much.

 

[nickp]

I think WSVN will, like WHDH be an Independent WSVN has been known to pre-empt large amounts of Fox Sports programming

 

[Markd]

WSVN could VERY WELL lose Fox. What I do not understand is why Ed Ansin did not just buy Channel 39 WSFL like he bought WLVI Boston. Then he would keep Fox and WSFL could be left an independent if WBFS wound up with CW and My Network TV. But WSFL would have been a good partner with WSVN. It could bring a couple stronger syndicated shows to WSVN, keep WSVN News intensive and WSFL could remain entertainment intensive. The young skewing news on WSVN goes well with Fox. I see Fox letting WSVN keep the affiliation. WSVN is far more an asset to Fox than WHDH was to NBC. CBS owns stations in several markets that they opted to keep independent/CW and affiliated with stations owned by other companies. Back when they initially did this signal mattered but today with digital the then- VHF stations are mostly UHF anyway with the same signal quality. Back in 2000 in Boston NBC NEEDED WHDH. But today WHDH has the same signal as WMFP and WLVI. They did go down in signal in Boston though. In Miami Fox needs WSVN less than they used to. Still WSVN was the influence on Fox to make their stations news intensive, to not have cartoons, to have morning and evening newscasts. Today's Fox O & O stations have a similar model that Ed ANsin started. SO Ansin had a huge influence in the direction of Fox, first with the new World Deal, then New World influenced Fox itself and Fox bought New World in the end.

I see Fox simply going to TV 39...But also I see a possible LMA happening as well where Ansin could manage TV 39 as well..or Ansin could do a Joint Sales agreement with TV 39. I see a possible partnership here as well. Or I see Fox keeping 39 an independent and letting WSVN keep Fox. But the prospect of Fox dumping WSVN is also real....I would like to see a partnership if possible....

 

[Markd]

Plus Fox only provides 2 hours a day of shows anyway so WSVN would not change that much. WSVN still calls itself an Independent rather than a Fox Affiliate. They say News Channel 7 WSVN rather than Fox 7 WSVN. They consider Fox supplimentary programming. The only thing that they will be missing is the sports stuff on weekends. The prime time programming is only 2 hours anyway. With NBC WHDH lost about 12 hours a day of programming. Still I hope to see Fox stay with WSVN. WSVN News still serves Fox well and WSVN is one of the top rated Fox affiliates. Plus as I said below Ansin influenced Fox to put more news on their own stations and affiliate with stations with news based formats. I say Ansin was a huge influence on how New World ran their stations that converted to Fox (Lots of news - No Fox Kids - low budget syndicated shows). Then when Fox bought new World in 1997 they kept the New World stations exactly the same except they did add a couple of stronger sitcoms to the mix in prime time access and in the 11 PM hour on the east coast stations and the 10 PM hour central and Mt zones. Other than that Fox moved their own stations in the news based direction. So WSVN has a few things going for it to keep Fox and two things against it...Those are Ansin being quick to preempt occasional shows from Fox and the fact WSVN with digital no longer has a superior signal to TV 39....

 

[itsTheRolyPoly]

Plus Fox only provides 2 hours a day of shows anyway so WSVN would not change that much. WSVN still calls itself an Independent rather than a Fox Affiliate. They say News Channel 7 WSVN rather than Fox 7 WSVN. They consider Fox supplimentary programming. The only thing that they will be missing is the sports stuff on weekends. The prime time programming is only 2 hours anyway. With NBC WHDH lost about 12 hours a day of programming. Still I hope to see Fox stay with WSVN. WSVN News still serves Fox well and WSVN is one of the top rated Fox affiliates. Plus as I said below Ansin influenced Fox to put more news on their own stations and affiliate with stations with news based formats. I say Ansin was a huge influence on how New World ran their stations that converted to Fox (Lots of news - No Fox Kids - low budget syndicated shows). Then when Fox bought new World in 1997 they kept the New World stations exactly the same except they did add a couple of stronger sitcoms to the mix in prime time access and in the 11 PM hour on the east coast stations and the 10 PM hour central and Mt zones. Other than that Fox moved their own stations in the news based direction. So WSVN has a few things going for it to keep Fox and two things against it...Those are Ansin being quick to preempt occasional shows from Fox and the fact WSVN with digital no longer has a superior signal to TV 39....

They just call themselves WSVN 7, not NewsChannel 7 WSVN or WSVN FOX 7. They've never called themselves like and never will be.

They never called themselves NBC 7 either during its NBC days.

 

[Ccook55]

With the Sinclair/Tribune deal now officially kaput, WSVN will likely remain with Fox and WSFL will stay with the CW.

 

[itsTheRolyPoly]

With the Sinclair/Tribune deal now officially kaput, WSVN will likely remain with Fox and WSFL will stay with the CW.

Yep. Unless if Tribune does want to sell them, expect WSVN and WSFL to keep their affiliations for the foreseeable future. This is a win for FOX especially since they get to keep one of the strongest affiliates (if not THE strongest) on the network.

 

[Y2kTheNewOldies]

Yep. Unless if Tribune does want to sell them, expect WSVN and WSFL to keep their affiliations for the foreseeable future. This is a win for FOX especially since they get to keep one of the strongest affiliates (if not THE strongest) on the network.

Currently Sinclair's biggest rival Nexstar (Owners of KRON San Francisco) has been talking about getting the Tribune stations but that's currently questionable given that Fox is waiting to get KTXL Sacramento and KCPQ Seattle.