I would think it's more likely to be moved wholesale to a new 4.3. Not that the programming is pulling in viewers 24/7, but split time on a subchannel when you've got room to add another is a little absurd.
Not to mention that CBS is the "C" in "CW." If they're moving CBS affiliation to a station that is currently a primary CW affiliate, it would make sense to hold on to that CW affiliation and put it on a subchannel. CBS wins, Tribune wins, everyone's happy. Except LIN, of course.
I agree, if that's the case, I see KTLA, WGN, WPIX, and the rest of The CW affiliates except for KPLR (I will touch that in a second) all going independent, I anticipate KPLR going to ABC, and KFOR going to Fox for the same reason why WTTV in Indy is going to CBS, Football. Tribune wanted WTTV to be a CBS station because of The Indianapolis Colts, being in the AFC (and CBS has the AFC Package), same thing with KFOR, I think Tribune would want OU Football games (that airs on Fox) to be on KFOR, and also I'm in Dallas Cowboys country, keep in mind The Cowboys are in the NFC, (Fox carries NFC games) so it would make sense by having the cowboys on Sunday afternoons, than on Sunday Nights, and additionally, for the newscasts that airs on KFOR by going to Fox the only changes to the schedule would be, moving the KAUT newscasts to KFOR, and moving the 6:30pm Newscast to 5:30pm, and have the early evening newscasts run from 4-6pm, that 6:30pm slot would be replaced by syndicated programming also, they would take the 9pm news on KAUT, move it to KFOR, expand it to 60 minutes, and fill in the weekend morning slots where the today show is at, and replace it with news. So I'm sure KFOR would want OU Football games and Dallas Cowboys NFL games (Sunday afternoons) now KOCO also shows OU football games but the only difference is if KFOR were to affiliate with ABC they would not have Dallas Cowboys games on Channel 4 anymore, so for me I would a lot rather see KFOR go with Fox than ABC for the same reason why WTTV went to CBS. NFL games on Sunday afternoons.
I doubt if WISH is even interested in The CW, I saw one report off of tvspy.com that WISH-TV would end up becoming an Independent station. Also as far as any other Tribune-Owned CW stations go, I think KPLR would end up affiliating with ABC, and KDNL ends up being The CW station, but outside of that. I think the rest of the Tribune owned-CW stations will go independent.
negative, WCWJ in Jacksonville is owned by Nexstar
. What I can see happening though with WTTV is the same arrangement Trib has with their Fox and MyNet stations in Seattle; KCPQ broadcasts from the west shore of Puget Sound on the Olympic Peninsula (licensed to Tacoma), so they use KZJO to rebroadcast KCPQ on their .2, which broadcasts from north of downtown to provide the center of town and northern suburbs a clean Fox signal in some way. With WTTV, they could easily use their satellite WTTK (licensed to Kokomo, but broadcasting from the WXIN tower in the digital age) to provide a full-HD CW signal for antenna viewers on their 29.2 and a reduced 720p/480i signal for CBS on 29.1, while the reverse occurs with WTTV; HQ HD for CBS on 4.1, 480i widescreen for CW on 4.2 (On cable/sat, they'll just get 1080i via fiber to the headend, no doubt, so it's just a matter of bumping over a public access channel or infomercial pipe for whatever new channel CW 4.2 gets). Both WTTK and WTTV have a big overlap in the digital age, so however they do it for now it should still work out for CBS and CW viewers over the air.With Sinclair among the top three ABC affiliate groups now that they have Allbritton, this seems a little less likely, a 50/50 proposition now. A couple of years ago I could have seen it much more, though Trib only had WGNO back then as an ABC affiliate, and even now only has three ABC's after the Local TV LLC merger. At this point ABC can't find any reason to get SBG's ire; the days of the Nightline war dead list being aired despite Sinclair's objections are long over and you never hear about any ABC/Sinclair skirmishes any longer since they know it's a good chunk of their viewership. I would keep a watch on how that St. Louis renewal pans out, though if KDNL has to go CW, at least they have the Nielsen scratch-filled schedule already as an ABC affiliate to go with it.
I have seen little mention of what's going on with WTTK though in all of this, especially with the CW/CBS split and the bandwidth fun to come for the engineering department
The CW is capable of surviving a Tribune exodus. There will be stations in the affected markets that will gladly take it. Case in point, MyNet station WKTC jumped at the CW affiliation when ION bought WZRB.
A likely scenario is Fox trading KRIV/KTXH to Tribune for KCPQ/KZJO, and possibly throw in KTBC to sweeten the deal. Tribune would have to sell KIAH, though.
