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Media General, LIN TV to Merge

U

upstate29651

In Mobile, Sinclair owns 4 full power/full market stations including ABC, NBC and MyNet. LIN owns two full power/full market stations with Fox and CW. Media General owns only CBS with a MeTV digital sub channel.
LIN + Media General would only create a 3 station cluster in Mobile. Since Sinclair already has a 4 station cluster, why would Media General need to divest a Mobile TV station... unless Sinclair needs to divest two stations?
 
gregg75 said:
This article says it will be the 2nd largest broadcast group.

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/74947/media-general-lin-merging-in-16b-deal

Someone posted markets that will need to divest one or more stations are Green Bay, Lansing, Providence, Savannah, Birmingham, and Mobile.
Click to expand...

"Someone." Yes, wonder who that was.

And Lansing was wrong. They don't need to divest there. The others were correct.

To seedless, the FCC is looking at cracking down on things like the Sinclair situation in Mobile, so Media-General has already said they would sell something to make it work within proposed new rules.

- Trip
 
No Media General in Hartford/New Haven that I'm aware of. However, LIN is definitely here with ABC (8) and MY (59) in New Haven.
 
tripinva said:
To seedless, the FCC is looking at cracking down on things like the Sinclair situation in Mobile, so Media-General has already said they would sell something to make it work within proposed new rules.

- Trip
Click to expand...

So what's most likely to occur in Mobile?

Would Media General keep WKRG CBS 5 and WALA Fox 10 then divest CW 55, which would keep them kinda close to a level playing field with Sinclair?
Do you expect the FCC will eventually tell Sinclair they can't own both ABC and NBC while Media General can't own both CBS and Fox?

I *think* Sinclair bought WFGX under the "failing station" exception, so I would expect ownership of My35 to be grandfathered.
 
This is bad in Green Bay; WBAY is #1 in the market, with WLUK/WCWF pretty much #2 now with WFRV and WGBA/WACY constantly getting shot in the foot by their home offices from doing anything to increase their viewership. WBAY is easily the odd man out, which it already was in the Young/Media General merger as the northernmost asset (which outside of the minor Charter/MG carriage dispute settled at midnight, pretty much is still run as a Young-style station and still closes their newscasts with the Young logo).

Best case scenario; WLUK/WCWF is kept by LIN/MG and WBAY is bought by Hearst due to the heavy strings they already have with WISN in Milwaukee; it would be a natural fit as they're both high-ranked ABC stations with dominant news operations and Weigel would jump at the bit to see Me-TV through their Hearst deal on 2.3 and get back their GB/FRV cable distribution bumbled away by WGBA/Journal during the Time Warner debacle (Hearst would dump Live Well the moment they took control). Another possibility is WLUK/WCWF off to Tribune because of the same close connections with Milwaukee's WITI, plus guaranteed distribution of Antenna and This and a likely solidifying of the CW agreement if the network goes beyond September 2016. The third possibility sees WBAY going off to Quincy Newspapers; again very natural, and outside of WISN, QN would have full control of ABC distribution throughout the state of Wisconsin, and few if any employment changes there, which I hope for.

Worst case though; one of the fun station swaps that saw Nexstar do what they did in Salt Lake City, where they sell off WFRV, swap for WLUK/WCWF, LIN keeps WBAY and who knows who gets WFRV. I wouldn't see Sinclair move in as there's no real station network with them in Wisconsin and it would be awkward to associate WLUC in Marquette with an ABC or Fox station (notwithstanding WLUK over the years having their distribution cut off in the UP by WLUC-DT2 and hating it).
 
seedless said:
So what's most likely to occur in Mobile?

Would Media General keep WKRG CBS 5 and WALA Fox 10 then divest CW 55, which would keep them kinda close to a level playing field with Sinclair?
Do you expect the FCC will eventually tell Sinclair they can't own both ABC and NBC while Media General can't own both CBS and Fox?

I *think* Sinclair bought WFGX under the "failing station" exception, so I would expect ownership of My35 to be grandfathered.
Click to expand...

Sinclair outright owns WEAR and WFGX. They operate, under joint sales agreements, WPMI and WJTC. I would expect them to say those agreements need to be terminated, and the owner needs to operate WPMI and WJTC themselves.

My guess is that M-G keeps whichever of WALA or WKRG has better ratings, spinning off the lesser-rated of the two and keeping WFNA. The rule is that at the time of sale, the same company cannot buy more than one of the top-four rated stations in the market, which presumably will be the CBS/NBC/ABC/FOX stations.

- Trip
 
I like in Hertford, NC; so I'm sandwiched between markets that have LIN and Media General ties (Hampton Roads market: LIN owning WAVY/WVBT; while the Greenville, NC market includes Media General-owned WNCT).
 
Wondering what happens in Birmingham? Media General owns WVTM (NBC-13), and formerly owned WIAT (CBS-42). Given that CBS is the stronger of the two networks nationally, and the ratings that Channel 42 gets in the fall from SEC football, would Media General decide to keep 42 and spin off 13?
 
Perhaps. Who knew that a possibility existed for a broadcaster to keep a mid-UHF channel and sell a VHF channel?
 
Birmingham has become rather a peculiar market. Each of the Big 4 affiliates go head to head at 5, 6 and 10, and WBRC-6 (Fox, owned by Raycom) is as dominant as it was before it dropped ABC in '96. The #2 station in the market is WCFT/WJSU 33/40 (ABC, owned by Albritton, sale pending to Sinclair). Channel 42 is actually the 3rd rated station in the market, while Channel 13 brings up the rear, although they've recently done some tweaking to their product and have actually come up with a watchable and credible newscast. In addition, there is a 5th newscast in the market that centers on Tuscaloosa coming from University of Alabama-owned WVUA/WUOA 7/23, the This TV affiliate in the market.
 
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