desertskies said:
KeithE4 said:
jamdeib85 said:
Link? Inside info? Speculation? Anything from Belo, Meredith, Fox, Gannett, or Scripps? All stations are for sale for the right price.
I remember when CBS wanted to buy KPHO many, many, many years ago.
Meredith was asking high and CBS was offering low.
If this time is true, I could see KTVK going hard for the offer to put them back in the race as an affiliate again and the powers on Black Canyon Hwy drooling to be a CBS O&O.
CBS would probably be required to shuffle some stations to the liking of either Meredith or Belo.
But alas, when I see a story confirming the OP's post, I'll be a believer.
First, any post from someone who's made a total of two posts and cites "CBS New York" as a source needs a lot more confirmation.
Desertskies, I think you may be mixing together what happens in a sale with an affiliate deal (and I speak as a survivor of the one in the 90s).
If...IF...Belo were to want to sell KTVK, it wouldn't be to put them back in the race as an affiliate again. Belo wouldn't be involved once the deal closed. It would be because they'd rather have the money than the TV station.
Same with Meredith and KPHO. There wouldn't be a lot of drooling on Black Canyon, apart from maybe some of the talent, who could list a CBS O&O on their resumes. But the suits at the stations tend to dread stuff like this because there's no guarantee they'll survive. Ron Bergamo was out at KSAZ the day FOX got the keys.
Station shuffles? That happens in affiliate negotiation deals in extreme circumstances. The mid-90s affiliate swap was started by FOX, which bought a bunch of CBS affiliates. CBS tried to fill as many of those markets with multi-station deals as possible and the chains they dealt with saw the opportunity to put their other stations into play. In Phoenix, the dominoes fell because CBS wanted to fill their holes in Cleveland and Detroit with Scripps' ABC affiliates (WEWS and WXYZ). ABC heard about it, threw a fit and Scripps told them if they wanted to keep those stations as affiliates, they'd have to give affiliation deals to the Scripps stations in Tampa and Phoenix.
If...again IF...CBS bought a station in Phoenix other than KPHO, that could put affilations into play again. But absent that, it'd most likely be a straightforward purchase and Meredith would walk away counting their money.