Some stations would have a separate "production control" room for live events and news, and master control would simply take a finished feed from there as if it were something coming off a satellite. KTXL was one example from an engineer I knew there ages ago. Not sure whether KTLA would have had such an arrangement, or simply a very deluxe master control with full live production capabilities built-in ... obviating any need for a stand-alone production control room.
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Kimmel returns Tuesday
- Thread starter michael hagerty
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You were right. I read an article about that someone else. Now I’m more annoyed over the fact Nexstar/Sinclair didn’t learn any lessons from this. They just got their arms twisted.
It’s possible that threat got Nexstar and Sinclair to cave.
We may never know if that was a Disney bargaining chip or not.
I hope it was!
Scott Jones posted this morning of rumblings (albeit unverified) that ABC threatened to withhold SEC and MNF outright from both chains if Kimmel wasn't restored. Which caused both to cave immediately.
I guess we have to wait for the Bill Carter book in a year or two.
SEC probably. I wonder if the NFL would allow ABC to do it though.
But would withholding those perhaps have put ABC in breach of their end of the affiliation contract? Just saying.
Neither company is renewing with ABC anyway next year, so it’s a case of immediate disaffiliation or waiting a few months.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
And both Nexstar and Sinclair have lowered the odds on an affiliation renewal. I would be very surprised if ABC isn't already talking with the other stations in those markets.
That's a lot of stations in a lot of markets. Get ready for some affiliation musical chairs, such as happened with Fox back in the 1990s.
Viewers hate that.
The Fox situation in the 90s was due to Fox picking up the NFC and wanting top-tier stations in NFC markets.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I actually had a solution for that way back when OTA was converting to digital, and filed comments with both the FCC and the ATSC which were rejected.
Give all the major networks a nationwide primary PSIP channel number and require affiliates to encode the streams of those networks by that PSIP. Then, when affiliations change, it's a matter of stations changing the encoder and viewers rescanning, and voilá! The networks are still on the same "channels".
I also suggested that cable systems should shuffle channels when there are affiliation changes, so that at least those people still subscribing to cable would find their network programs in the same place, but it's probably too late for that to happen since that market is dwindling. (Come to think of it, if NAB and the stations have their way regarding encryption, ATSC 3.0 is likely to shrink the OTA viewing market as well.)
So where will they go, Nexstar will just go independent in a bunch of markets? How’s that going to help their bottom line.
Does it matter? Fewer people are watching broadcast TV. I never watch.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
They (Sinclair as well) should have thought of that before they pulled this stunt so close to their affiliation contract renewal, less than a year away. Pissing off your network is not a good bargaining chip.
And the problem with what they did and how it was resolved will make the other networks hesitate before taking them on in markets where they lose an affiliate to ABC. So your hypothesis that they may have to go independent in those markets is certainly within the realm of possibility, and it will hurt their ad rates from lower viewing, as well as increase programming costs.
So why are they merging then.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Personally, I still prefer my television set, but I do admit to watching nearly everything I do time-shifted by TiVo, which is a parallel to the concept of streaming.
But aside from ABC7 Eyewitness News, ABC World News Tonight, The Rookie, and Weakest Link (which just moved, in celebrity contestant format to Fox, causing my first viewing of KTTV/11 in years), most of what I watch is reruns from the digital subnetworks ... I have been watching a lot of H&I recently.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Economies of scale. With declining viewership, they get a little strength back by owning more stations, getting a bigger chunk of what national ad revenue there is, and (as @fybush has mentioned) master control hubs where several stations at a time are managed.
The alternative is going dark and surrendering the license, since there are no willing buyers, and that results in lower revenue and a higher operating cost for the remaining stations.
I would have thought the answer was obvious, but perhaps I have higher expectations about people actually understanding how big business works.
That sounds kind of like the situation in Australia, where if I'm understanding it correctly, the major networks (Seven, Nine, and Ten) appear everywhere as being on PSIP channels... 7, 9, and 10.
But how would that work with US network affiliates? Would the affiliates use their own PSIP channel number for local and non-network programming, then shift over to the network's PSIP channel number for network programming? That would be massively confusing. And if affiliates would be required to use the network's PSIP channel 24/7, that would be at odds with the stations' channel-number identities that are (if I'm understanding correctly) the reason for PSIP in the first place.
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