Let's calm this, please. Each is allowed their own opinion.
-
Get involved.
We want your input!
Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.
After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.
After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/
Thanks in advance and have fun!
RadioDiscussions Administrators
Iger floats possibility of Disney selling ABC
- Thread starter michael hagerty
- Start date
- Status
An anchor is certainly an admirable position at the local station level, but it is nowhere near the administration level of a network or, in this case, the network's owner's CEO position.
OTA TV is a no-growth part of television overall. Most stations derive the money left over after expenses from cable carriage fees, and these are falling. This is a steady but somewhat gradual process and every year, stations lose value.
Rights fees for local major league teams have increased so much, it is hard to make money from play-by-play. Some stations keep them for image and relations, but the bag of gold is turning into a sack of lead.
That’s fine. Just don’t ever insult my experience. No one on this board knows what I’ve done in my career. I don’t care if you’re the ceo of a company, i don’t owe anyone respect who insults me.
As has been mentioned, rights fees have increased so much that regional sports networks are failing and local stations are not seeing the profits they realized in the past.
Local media, radio, TV and even what is left of print, is having a hard time with the recession-like cuts in ad budgets. Getting out of all over-the-air systems is likely on the table at board meetings for all content provides who have a network or even cable channels.
You were being corrected. Happens all the time here... some of us view that as a positive and I am often glad that Scott Fybush and Lance Venta and Michi are here to correct me when I get something wrong or come to a poorly based decision.
Or, as that wonderful and delightful song said, "Don't worry, be happy" (tongue firmly inserted in cheek and sustained with crazy glue).
My feelings hurt? Not sure where you got that impression. What you were claiming made no sense, so I was trying to get you to explain what you meant by ABC should be more like Fox.
To say nothing of the fact that pro sports clearance rights aren't up for grabs---they're negotiated years in advance. FOX has the most desirable NFL and MLB games sewed up. Even if the picture were as rosy for FOX (again, we're talking about the FOX broadcasting network---not FOX News) as loverofradio paints it, it's not like all another network has to do is decide "we're putting sports in weeknight primetime too."
I appreciate you sir!
And now that we've established that you're a local TV news anchor (I was one myself from 1981-2000), we can also expect you to understand that your lead-in, whether you anchor the midday, early evening news or late news, isn't anything to write home about, especially compared to years past. Unless you're anchoring late news at a FOX O&O or affiliate, in which case, on game nights, you're benefitting from a bigger than normal lead-in.
Last edited:
That's great. Now are you going to quantify your comments about ABC becoming more like Fox, or why you think it would be a mistake for Disney to sell off ABC and their O&O's? Or are you going to continue acting all butt-hurt trying to deflect because you aren't able to quantify your comments?
Mr. Hagerty, unless there’s something else I’m not seeing, isn’t Sunday Night Football always ranked #1 in primetime ratings across the board? when I anchored at an nbc, the main team anchored sunday nights because we were getting 30-40 shares following SNF for our newscast. This is as recent at 2019! We benefitted financially and used the competition like a tool! As we’ve seen with the Suns deal, OTA tv and sports is becoming a marriage once again. What did Nexstar add to the CW? Live sports and sports related programs? Has anyone noticed how CBS broadcasts soccer during the day now? Why are other ota networks seemingly adding more live sports to their lineup, but Disney (a company who owns espn) needs to sacrifice abc?
Stay classy, Kelly.
Yes, but every night isn't Sunday, the contracts aren't up for grabs, and the more networks doing that, the greater the fragmentation in audience and revenue.
Maybe ABC should have beaten FOX to this approach, but it didn't. So now, Iger has a choice. He can sound out interested parties for the network, the cable channels apart from ESPN and the station group today or he can wait until Comcast and Paramount reach the same conclusion about CBS and NBC and settle for less money when there are far more assets for sale than there are interested and qualified buyers.
Last edited:
Much of the issue here is the decline of OTA local television as more and more people watch, since about 40 years ago, cable channels and now, since the most recent 10 years or so, streaming video channels.
There is less and less audience for local OTA channels. When we look at "shares" of audience we need to know that a 50 share today is about 30% of the number of people it was 20 years or so ago.
Of course, the reason why shows or movies that make fun of a respected profession are successful is the unexpected opposite behaviour of a character in a show about that profession.
In fairness, there were quite a few Ron Burgundys in that era---and the real-life Southern California anchor Will Ferrell and Adam McKay modeled Ron on was absolutely one of them.
But there were many, and certainly more, who were real journalists and who took an interest in the presentation of news. For every Burgundy there are a bunch of local equivalents of Cronkite, Huntley, Brinkley, Chung, Walters and Reid.
Heck, even unusual personalities like Dewey Hopper in Phoenix were actually talented people who just put a bit of flair into their presentations.
Last edited:
And the problems of digital TV are probably adding to that.
I knew of someone online who actually believed when digital TV replaced analog that cable was the only place to see those channels.
Oh, absolutely---Joseph Benti, Bob Abernethy, Jack Perkins, Keith Morrison, Tritia Toyota, Jess Marlow, Nick Clooney and Warren Olney in L.A., Pete Wilson, Bill Schechner, Dave McElhatton, Jerry Jensen and Van Amburg in San Francisco, Vince Leonard and Cameron Harper in Phoenix---where I had the honor and the fun of working with Dewey Hopper.
- Status