Fox looking to acquire more stations

[crackedscreen]

http://variety.com/2013/tv/news/fox...ation-acquisitions-in-nfl-markets-1200579687/

The two stations in Charlotte, N.C. that Fox Television Stations Group gobbled up in January may have only been the appetizer.

The station arm of 21st Century Fox is sniffing around acquisition targets in several major markets, including Seattle, St. Louis and San Francisco. The push is part of a larger strategy to add to its station holdings in NFL markets, particularly markets with NFC teams, the conference for which Fox has a TV rights package. Fox at present has O&Os in 11 of the 16 NFC markets.

Industry sources say Fox is actively looking at stations in the Seattle market. where Tribune owns the existing Fox affiliate, KCPQ-TV. There’s speculation that Fox has its eye on Cox Enterprises-owned KIRO-TV, a CBS affiliate. But sources cautioned that Fox is “turning over a lot of rocks” right now in the market and hasn’t zeroed in on a specific acquisition target.

Seattle-Tacoma is the nation’s 12th-largest TV market. The Seattle Seahawks are seen as an NFL franchise on the rise, which is only fueling Fox’s interest in the market.

The chatter about Fox moving into Seattle has to be some cause for concern at Tribune, as Fox’s affiliation deals typically give the network flexibility to yank the affiliation if the parent company acquires a station in the market. On the other hand, Tribune is about to become the largest outside owner of Fox affiliates in the nation, with 14 outlets, through its pending $2.7 billion acquisition of Local TV Holdings.

Tribune is also poised to own the Fox affil in St. Louis through the Local TV buy. Cox Enterprises also owns the Fox affiliate in the San Francisco market, KTVU-TV.

Fox was quick to yank its affiliation from Bahakal Communications’ WCCB-TV in Charlotte when it bought two stations in the market from Raleigh-based Capital Broadcasting. WCCB had been a Fox affil for 27 years. The move raised eyebrows in the station community and was seen as proof of 21st Century Fox prexy Chase Carey’s determination to add market share in cities with NFL teams. Football rights are not lucrative for local and national advertising sales, but they enhance the station’s bargaining power in retransmission consent negotiations with cable, satellite and telco operators.

In the past two years, TV stations have emerged as attractive acquisition targets again because of the windfall of retransmission consent fees (which Fox blazed the trail for a few years ago) from distribs and ever-increasing political advertising expenditures in key regions.

Fox’s ambition to add stations may be curbed by the FCC’s regulatory limit on station ownership, which bars a single entity from owning stations that cover more than 39% of U.S. TV households (with certain allowances are made for UHF stations). But there’s a groundswell among broadcast heavyweights to fight the FCC’s current station cap as an outmoded regulation given the size and scope of the largest cable operators and satcasters and the broadening of the media landscape in general.

Fox at present owns 28 stations in 18 markets covering nearly 37.28 % of TV homes.

Reps for 21st Century Fox and Tribune declined to comment.

 

[bpatrick]

Theoretically, Fox could pick up two Cox-owned stations
in NFC markets; besides KIRO there's KTVU Oakland/San
Francisco (49ers), and Fox is the only one of the big four
networks without an o&o in San Francisco.

Any idea what their plans are for New Orleans and Green Bay?

 

[nathannah]

Theoretically, Fox could pick up two Cox-owned stations
in NFC markets; besides KIRO there's KTVU Oakland/San
Francisco (49ers), and Fox is the only one of the big four
networks without an o&o in San Francisco.

Any idea what their plans are for New Orleans and Green Bay?

WVUE is owned by the owner of the Saints and naturally broadcasts their pre-season games, so safe to say they're staying with Fox even without the network buying them. Same with WLUK; they switched based on getting Packers games in 1995 after 12 listless years with NBC and are comfortably in second place, and they aren't letting that go at all (the NBC affiliate is a complete afterthought in the market).

 

[mjlarochelle]

Whatever happened to the recent stories about FOX wanting out of OTA broadcasting? They can't want out of it that badly if they want more OTA O&Os.

 

[arnoldevns]

Fox has never said it wants out of OTA broadcasting. What it has said is that if companies like Aereo can charge for their signals without paying Fox, they may be forced to provide a seerate feed of their stations to cable companies and remove the network shows (like the NFL) from OTA.

 

[Morgan Wick]

Theoretically, Fox could pick up two Cox-owned stations
in NFC markets; besides KIRO there's KTVU Oakland/San
Francisco (49ers), and Fox is the only one of the big four
networks without an o&o in San Francisco.

Any idea what their plans are for New Orleans and Green Bay?

WVUE is owned by the owner of the Saints and naturally broadcasts their pre-season games, so safe to say they're staying with Fox even without the network buying them. Same with WLUK; they switched based on getting Packers games in 1995 after 12 listless years with NBC and are comfortably in second place, and they aren't letting that go at all (the NBC affiliate is a complete afterthought in the market).

As is, of course, NBC itself...

Fox has never said it wants out of OTA broadcasting. What it has said is that if companies like Aereo can charge for their signals without paying Fox, they may be forced to provide a seerate feed of their stations to cable companies and remove the network shows (like the NFL) from OTA.

In other words, it doesn't want out of OTA broadcasting, it's just willing to destroy OTA broadcasting to save it.

What are the schedules of the old New World stations like, as well as the schedules of those stations CBS and other networks got kicked to when the New World deal happened? KIRO has Judge Judy and ET, KOMO has Wheel and Jeopardy, and KING was Oprah's old home and still has a lot of talk shows (and pairs locally-produced Evening Magazine with Inside Edition). KCPQ's non-net schedule is more like KONG, KSTW, or sister KMYQ with reruns of shows like The Big Bang Theory, just with newscasts mixed in. What sort of schedule would KIRO and KCPQ end up with if Fox bought the former? And how would Fox run KIRO beyond that? Would CBS go to KCPQ, or would it just convert KSTW into a CBS affiliate?

 

[1069_KIFR]

If they really want a station in the Bay Area, KRON should be snatched up.

 

[e-dawg]

FOX can negotiate tribune to buy KCPQ/KZJO Seattle/Tacoma and KTVI/KPLR St. Louis. As for San Francisco, they can negotiate either KTVU/KICU or KRON. Just a curiosity, why did FOX give away KTVI FOX 2 St. Louis? If KTVI is the station for the St. Louis Rams.

 

[Morgan Wick]

Is Fox really that hard up on trying to get a Bay Area O&O that it would buy KRON if Cox isn't willing to sell, and what would Cox do with KTVU in that case? Conversely, if Fox bought the Cox stations and moved the MyNet affiliation to KICU, wouldn't that basically murder KRON?

Speaking of MyNet, if Fox bought the Tribune stations would they cancel KZJO's 9 PM news and have it show MyNet programming in pattern?

 

[nomadcowatbk]

FOX can negotiate tribune to buy KCPQ/KZJO Seattle/Tacoma and KTVI/KPLR St. Louis. As for San Francisco, they can negotiate either KTVU/KICU or KRON. Just a curiosity, why did FOX give away KTVI FOX 2 St. Louis? If KTVI is the station for the St. Louis Rams.

KTVI and the others Fox sold were just a single stations

 

[Morgan Wick]

FOX can negotiate tribune to buy KCPQ/KZJO Seattle/Tacoma and KTVI/KPLR St. Louis. As for San Francisco, they can negotiate either KTVU/KICU or KRON. Just a curiosity, why did FOX give away KTVI FOX 2 St. Louis? If KTVI is the station for the St. Louis Rams.

KTVI and the others Fox sold were just a single stations

It owns a single station in Boston, which is an AFC market. It owns single stations in Memphis and Austin, markets too small to have NFL teams at all (and Memphis could be considered primarily an AFC market).

 

[bpatrick]

Austin, though, could be considered an NFC market; the Cowboys
are a bigger draw than the Houston Texans (AFC).

My suggestion that Fox buy KTVU is simply hypothetical, based on
the fact that Cox owns both KTVU and KIRO, both of which are located
in NFC markets, and perhaps Fox could swing a deal for both. That's not
to say that if Fox made a better deal with KRON, it wouldn't take it.

Those, however, would be the only Cox stations I think would be in play.
Fox already owns stations in Atlanta (where ABC affiliate WSB is owned
by Cox), Charlotte (ABC affiliate WSOC is owned by Cox), and Orlando
(ABC affiliate WFTV is owned by Cox). Pittsburgh (NBC affiliate WPXI)
is an AFC market; Dayton (CBS affiliate WHIO) is surrounded by AFC
teams, namely the Bengals, Browns, and Colts.

Then again, I wonder if KIRO wants to go through the affiliation change
again; remember that for about two years it was the UPN affiliate in Seattle,
then went back to CBS. And I haven't even heard KSTW come up.

 

[liradioisbad]

FOX can negotiate tribune to buy KCPQ/KZJO Seattle/Tacoma and KTVI/KPLR St. Louis. As for San Francisco, they can negotiate either KTVU/KICU or KRON. Just a curiosity, why did FOX give away KTVI FOX 2 St. Louis? If KTVI is the station for the St. Louis Rams.

KTVI and the others Fox sold were just a single stations

And that also included WITI in Milwaukee. By the logic in the original post, they shouldn't have given that away with the widespread popularity of the Packers.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

FOX can negotiate tribune to buy KCPQ/KZJO Seattle/Tacoma and KTVI/KPLR St. Louis. As for San Francisco, they can negotiate either KTVU/KICU or KRON. Just a curiosity, why did FOX give away KTVI FOX 2 St. Louis? If KTVI is the station for the St. Louis Rams.

KTVI and the others Fox sold were just a single stations

And that also included WITI in Milwaukee. By the logic in the original post, they shouldn't have given that away with the widespread popularity of the Packers.

those stations were outside the Top 20 markets

 

[Morgan Wick]

FOX can negotiate tribune to buy KCPQ/KZJO Seattle/Tacoma and KTVI/KPLR St. Louis. As for San Francisco, they can negotiate either KTVU/KICU or KRON. Just a curiosity, why did FOX give away KTVI FOX 2 St. Louis? If KTVI is the station for the St. Louis Rams.

KTVI and the others Fox sold were just a single stations

And that also included WITI in Milwaukee. By the logic in the original post, they shouldn't have given that away with the widespread popularity of the Packers.

those stations were outside the Top 20 markets

...and Memphis and Austin are even further outside...

 

[e-dawg]

Austin, though, could be considered an NFC market; the Cowboys
are a bigger draw than the Houston Texans (AFC).

My suggestion that Fox buy KTVU is simply hypothetical, based on
the fact that Cox owns both KTVU and KIRO, both of which are located
in NFC markets, and perhaps Fox could swing a deal for both. That's not
to say that if Fox made a better deal with KRON, it wouldn't take it.

Those, however, would be the only Cox stations I think would be in play.
Fox already owns stations in Atlanta (where ABC affiliate WSB is owned
by Cox), Charlotte (ABC affiliate WSOC is owned by Cox), and Orlando
(ABC affiliate WFTV is owned by Cox). Pittsburgh (NBC affiliate WPXI)
is an AFC market; Dayton (CBS affiliate WHIO) is surrounded by AFC
teams, namely the Bengals, Browns, and Colts.

Then again, I wonder if KIRO wants to go through the affiliation change
again; remember that for about two years it was the UPN affiliate in Seattle,
then went back to CBS. And I haven't even heard KSTW come up.

If fox gets Kirov tv I can see Kstw 11will become a CBS affiliate again since CBS owns Kstw and kcpq will be the cw affiliate.

 

[Brother]

FOX can negotiate tribune to buy KCPQ/KZJO Seattle/Tacoma and KTVI/KPLR St. Louis. As for San Francisco, they can negotiate either KTVU/KICU or KRON. Just a curiosity, why did FOX give away KTVI FOX 2 St. Louis? If KTVI is the station for the St. Louis Rams.

This is the info I've found thanks to a few quick Google searches and website perusals:

Fox sold KTVI (and WITI and others) to Local TV LLC to provide News Corp. with a bit of cash to buy the Wall Street Journal. KTVI and WITI were sold off instead of KTBC and WHBQ primarily because: Austin and Memphis were markets too small for Local TV to consider; St. Louis and Milwaukee were deemed large enough for Local TV's liking, yet small enough that Fox felt they could afford to sell off those stations.

As far as Fox buying any of these stations in St. Louis, San Francisco, and Seattle - I'll believe it when I see it. NFC market or not, I don't see Fox being terribly interested in St. Louis anymore - it's years removed from the Top 20 TV markets, and though it may be larger than Charlotte, it's not perceived as an up-and-coming market comparatively.

 

[AKA]

If Fox did end up buying KIRO, would it make more business sense for CBS to turn KSTW into a CBS O&O, or to strike up an affiliation deal with KCPQ, which already has an established news department?

If KSTW turns out to be the best course of action, does CBS build a Channel 11 news department, or do they pull a WWJ and go with no local news at all?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out—if it ends up happening at all.

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

FOX can negotiate tribune to buy KCPQ/KZJO Seattle/Tacoma and KTVI/KPLR St. Louis. As for San Francisco, they can negotiate either KTVU/KICU or KRON. Just a curiosity, why did FOX give away KTVI FOX 2 St. Louis? If KTVI is the station for the St. Louis Rams.

This is the info I've found thanks to a few quick Google searches and website perusals:

Fox sold KTVI (and WITI and others) to Local TV LLC to provide News Corp. with a bit of cash to buy the Wall Street Journal. KTVI and WITI were sold off instead of KTBC and WHBQ primarily because: Austin and Memphis were markets too small for Local TV to consider; St. Louis and Milwaukee were deemed large enough for Local TV's liking, yet small enough that Fox felt they could afford to sell off those stations.

Not quite accurate. WHBQ-Memphis wasn't spun off to Local TV because they already had a station in the market, WREG (The New York Times station group, of which WREG belonged, was the basis for Local TV) and they would not be able to operate both as a duopoly because both rank in the top 4, ratings wise. Fox kept KTBC-Austin because it is complimentary to the other O&Os in Texas (Dallas and Houston) and it is a growing market.

I'm sure in hindsight, FTSG wishes they had kept hold of KTVI and possibly WITI as well. But I believe the decisions for that were made in the NewsCorp executive offices, which was desperate to get its hands on the Wall Street Journal.

I honestly don't see Cox parting with KTVU period. The station is a cash cow. And even if Fox buys KRON and moves the affiliation there, the station still would make money in the market.

 

[arnoldevns]

Fox sold KTVI and several othes to raise cash for a very complex deal to get John Malone and his Rainbow Media out of Fox. It worked and now that they've had a chance to let the dust settle and pile up some more cash, they're looking to buy again.

One aspect of these rumors makes no sense to me: Cox selling KTVU. I know Fox could yank the affiliation if it bought KRON, but the impact on KTVU would not be like what happened when NBC left KRON. KTVU is strong throughout the day with only the 2 hours of prime being supplied by Fox. Fox would have a hard time competing against what is now arguably its strongest affiliate. Cox could probably find some decent programming to fill the prime time hole, or just add more news and cruise along without too much lost revenue. It's not like KRON that had to find a way to fill 12+ hours daily that had been supplied by NBC.

Cox won't part with KTVU unless Fox offers a huge amount of money or some kind of ownership stake in Fox. Maybe that's the negotiation going on now.