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ABC moves from WPLG to WSVN in Miami

david said:
Scott... Actually in 1985 there were 6,600 cable systems serving more than 41.5 million households (nearly 50 percent of US households). Today, over 60% of US households prefer streaming over traditional cable. As such, the situation was MORE favorable for relying on cable delivery in 2025. Take my house for example, where we cord-cut a decade ago and have been relying on streaming plus over the air (OTA) via a rooftop antenna. The picture quality of the primary channel of the OTA signals is FAR superior for the main channel than it is for a signal's side channel(s). The subpar picture quality of the supplemental digital signals (less pristine and clear) causes a clear bias to somewhat avoid viewing those side channels. Also, for some OTA signals the primary station comes in quite okay but the side channel sometimes is pixelated or does not display at all.

THUS, it literally is NOT the exact same. Moreover, to your comment about streaming filling the gap... ABC does NOT stream its stations live on Hulu. CBS does on Paramount+, but the issue here is ABC... and thus for that network and for WSVN is there going to be degradation in the Miami/Dade/Broward market? My sense is yes, which I think will be borne out by the loss of no longer having ABC on Channel 10's primary signal.
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There's no such thing as a "primary" signal. All that "10.1" is, is a label applied in the encoder.

ABC has standards for its affiliates about how much bandwidth its channel gets on an OTA signal. 7.2 OTA won't look any worse than 10.1 does right now.

Most of the other subchannels do indeed look worse OTA, not just because they're encoded at lower bit rates but because they arrive at the station in lower quality. Many of them originate in 480i or from older SD source material, unlike the pristine 720p that ABC sends its affiliates. That's not going to change when the label on the stream changes from 10.1 to 7.2.

And the rest about ABC not streaming its affiliates' signals? It's all exactly the same right now for WPLG as it will be for WHDH 7.2.

You're getting hung up on the ".2" in the label without a full understanding of how it's all going to work.

And yes, the number of households using actual "cable" is falling fast. I cut that cord a couple of years ago and have been very happy with YouTube TV. There won't be any significant change for viewers on ANY of those services.
 
Also, it's important to remember that there's a very sharp affiliate relations department managing this on the ABC end.

Not only do they enforce things like the minimum bitrate and picture quality, they also will be working with Sunbeam on branding and marketing - AND they'll be right there ensuring that the new WSVN-ABC gets good channel placement on cable and prominent positions on all the streaming services, including Hulu+Live TV.

As I have noted elsewhere, it's actually WPLG as an independent that may find its signal getting dropped from some of the streamers if they don't think it's a must-have for viewers.

Bottom line, though: anywhere in the Miami DMA that currently sees ABC on WPLG will get an equally high quality WSVN-ABC come August.
 
The other part of this is that Bob Iger has already weighed in on this subject. Linear TV is not the future. There will be a day Disney is no longer in the network business, when it's instead owned by a larger station owner like Tegna or something like that. So this really isn't top priority for them. We see how that's affected Warner Media. We're about to see how this will play out for Comcast/NBC Universal and Paramount Global CBS. All of these companies are looking past all this.
 
fybush said:
As I have noted elsewhere, it's actually WPLG as an independent that may find its signal getting dropped from some of the streamers if they don't think it's a must-have for viewers.

Bottom line, though: anywhere in the Miami DMA that currently sees ABC on WPLG will get an equally high quality WSVN-ABC come August.
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1) Yes. But hotels and motels will also need to replace WPLG with WSVN 7.2 to continue carrying ABC in some form. That will be a to-do for sure. And more than likely, they'll carry WSVN-ABC but drop WPLG-Ind. Yikes.
2) Yes. That'll be true. WSVN is good at what they do and they'll equally establish it very well.
 
This is a big, big win for WSVN.

Will 7.1 and 7.2 share some local newscasts, or will the two stations' newscasts be mutually exclusive (similar to CBS 4 and Fox 59 in Indianapolis)?
 
itsTheRolyPoly said:
1) Yes. But hotels and motels will also need to replace WPLG with WSVN 7.2 to continue carrying ABC in some form. That will be a to-do for sure. And more than likely, they'll carry WSVN-ABC but drop WPLG-Ind. Yikes.
2) Yes. That'll be true. WSVN is good at what they do and they'll equally establish it very well.
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I'm sure there will be some glitches in some specialized settings like motels... but when I was just down in Miami a few weeks ago, everywhere I stayed was connected to one of the big providers, either DirecTV or Comcast, as seems to be the way these days. So those places will get WSVN-ABC as a matter of course.

And I would be very surprised if there's a separate news branding on ABC, for two reasons. First, the 7 News brand is so strong that it would make sense to capitalize on it across two networks. And second, at least until WSVN moves, the facility it's in on the 79th Street Causeway is small, old and cramped and doesn't have room for a second newsroom and studio.
 
MarkW said:
This is a big, big win for WSVN.

Will 7.1 and 7.2 share some local newscasts, or will the two stations' newscasts be mutually exclusive (similar to CBS 4 and Fox 59 in Indianapolis)?
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Share some local newscasts. There's no way they can do two separate news operations at their current cramped studios.

fybush said:
I'm sure there will be some glitches in some specialized settings like motels... but when I was just down in Miami a few weeks ago, everywhere I stayed was connected to one of the big providers, either DirecTV or Comcast, as seems to be the way these days. So those places will get WSVN-ABC as a matter of course.

And I would be very surprised if there's a separate news branding on ABC, for two reasons. First, the 7 News brand is so strong that it would make sense to capitalize on it across two networks. And second, at least until WSVN moves, the facility it's in on the 79th Street Causeway is small, old and cramped and doesn't have room for a second newsroom and studio.
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Don't worry, there won't be two separate brands because 7 News is too strong to give up. Also, you were in Miami?! Where was the invite?! 😜😅🤣😂 JK.
 
itsTheRolyPoly said:
Share some local newscasts. There's no way they can do two separate news operations at their current cramped studios.



Don't worry, there won't be two separate brands because 7 News is too strong to give up. Also, you were in Miami?! Where was the invite?! 😜😅🤣😂 JK.
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I may be back the first week of August! I actually didn't get south of Broward except for one baseball game and a visit to WINZ before it powers down.
 
fybush said:
In what way? It's literally on the exact same RF signal (WPLG and WSVN channel-share), and it will be on every cable, satellite and streaming service just like it is now.

It's 2025, not 1985.
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??? I see that WPLG is on RF 10 with 156 kW and WSVN is on RF 9 with 158 kW. They seem to share a transmitter site but not an actual channel. They are both high VHF so if you are receiving one you are very likely receiving the other.
 
In Charleston, SC, ABC is on 36.2 while MyNetworkTV is on 36.1. I'm very surprised ABC never moved to 36.1 even when said station picked up the calls discarded by the former ABC affiliate.

I wonder if WPLG will at least attempt to pull a KTLA and go nearly full day news (with some in Spanish and/or Haitian Creole)
 
ftballfan said:
I wonder if WPLG will at least attempt to pull a KTLA and go nearly full day news (with some in Spanish and/or Haitian Creole)
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If they do anything in languages other than English, they'll need to hire more people, especially those who excel in those languages.
 
ftballfan said:
I wonder if WPLG will at least attempt to pull a KTLA and go nearly full day news (with some in Spanish and/or Haitian Creole)
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The idea of mixing language, as far as I know, has never worked anywhere. And there is no reliable source for Kreyol content, other than doing it locally. Spanish is amply covered by people who know how to do it very well.
 
DavidEduardo said:
The idea of mixing language, as far as I know, has never worked anywhere. And there is no reliable source for Kreyol content, other than doing it locally. Spanish is amply covered by people who know how to do it very well.
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I certainly wouldn't want to go up against WLTV or WSCV with one or two newscasts a day.

There is, however, an interesting case up the coast in West Palm Beach, where there's no local newscast in Spanish on Univision or Telemundo, just simulcasts of Miami. So Sinclair's WPEC offers an evening newscast in Spanish on one of its LPTVs that's otherwise in English.

I don't know if it gets much in the way of ratings, but it seems like a useful service for a community that otherwise wouldn't have one.
 
I didn't see WPLG losing ABC and I'm surprised that Scripps didn't swoop in to get ABC on WSFL and put the Panthers on DT2. Huge get for WSVN to get ABC in Miami.
 
Megatron said:
I didn't see WPLG losing ABC and I'm surprised that Scripps didn't swoop in to get ABC on WSFL and put the Panthers on DT2. Huge get for WSVN to get ABC in Miami.
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It's not 1989 or 1995. Scripps is not going to spend money building up an Anglophone news department in what is predominantly a Spanish-language market.

WSFL is best-served as a sports-heavy indie with no news.
 
fybush said:
I certainly wouldn't want to go up against WLTV or WSCV with one or two newscasts a day.

There is, however, an interesting case up the coast in West Palm Beach, where there's no local newscast in Spanish on Univision or Telemundo, just simulcasts of Miami. So Sinclair's WPEC offers an evening newscast in Spanish on one of its LPTVs that's otherwise in English.

I don't know if it gets much in the way of ratings, but it seems like a useful service for a community that otherwise wouldn't have one.
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The WPB Hispanic market is interesting. To the far west, it is mostly Mexican farm workers and folks in service businesses catering to them. In the coastal cities and the Palm Beaches themselves there is a huge community of more affluent South Americans, particularly Colombians and Venezuelans who are not likely to be watching local TV in Spanish as they can get local news from the English language stations and use the internet for news from "back home".
 


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