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NBC selling stations?

O

odomski

Guest
FTVLive is reporting rumor has it that NBC is selling off some of their "smaller" stations. These stations include WCMH in Columbus, Ohio...WVIT in Hartford, CT...WNCN in Raleigh/Durham, NC...WVTM in Birmingham, AL. Another gossip site also reports WJAR in Providence is included as well. Nothing has been confirmed yet. As I said, this is just a rumor.
 
> FTVLive is reporting rumor has it that NBC is selling off
> some of their "smaller" stations. These stations include
> WCMH in Columbus, Ohio...WVIT in Hartford, CT...WNCN in
> Raleigh/Durham, NC...WVTM in Birmingham, AL. Another gossip
> site also reports WJAR in Providence is included as well.
> Nothing has been confirmed yet. As I said, this is just a
> rumor.
>

It's confirmed at Broadcasting & Cable. The buyer is the New York Times.
 
> > FTVLive is reporting rumor has it that NBC is selling off
> > some of their "smaller" stations. These stations include
> > WCMH in Columbus, Ohio...WVIT in Hartford, CT...WNCN in
> > Raleigh/Durham, NC...WVTM in Birmingham, AL. Another
> gossip
> > site also reports WJAR in Providence is included as well.
>
> > Nothing has been confirmed yet. As I said, this is just a
>
> > rumor.
> >
>
> It's confirmed at Broadcasting & Cable. The buyer is the New
> York Times.
>
See?
Joe Gallant may have been right. Once they sell WJAR, I bet they buy WHDH, or some other major market station...
 
NBC's future, by the numbers

> See?
> Joe Gallant may have been right. Once they sell WJAR, I bet
> they buy WHDH, or some other major market station...

Here's the deal. The magic number is 39% - that's the percentage of households any one broadcaster can reach. (The FCC still discounts the reach of UHF facilities by 50%).

NBC reaches 33.99% of the country, by the FCC's calculations.

Shedding WNCN (0.892%, reduced by half because it's a UHF, so 0.446%), WCMH (0.800%), WVTM (0.661%) and WJAR (0.595%) knocks them down by 2.502%, to 31.49, leaving them with about 8.5% left before they hit the cap. That would easily handle a Boston (2.2%), an Atlanta (1.899%) or a Detroit (1.793%) - but then, they don't NEED to shed any of those stations to make a bigger acquisition, either for cap reasons or for the cash. GE's got plenty of that, thank you.

So I'll go out on a limb and predict that a WHDH acquisition is NOT in NBC's future, no matter how many annual Joseph Gallant predictions we may see (and he's been making them for something like a decade now!)

IF Ed Ansin were selling - and I don't think he is - he'd want, and deserve, huge money for WHDH. With only two stations, he needs to get the absolute maximum amount of cash possible when it comes time for him to cash in. That's not the game GE pays when it buys properties. Look at San Francisco, where they passed up an overpriced KRON in favor of rimshotter KNTV, which was effectively a startup for them. (And, no, NBC won't be buying WCVB, either - Hearst-Argyle's ties to ABC are too tight for that to happen.)

In fact, I don't think these sales are a prelude to anything in particular. It sounds to me as though GE got an offer it couldn't refuse for a package of stations that were at best tangential to its larger goals.

If the reports are correct about which stations are being sold, and to whom, then it sounds like nothing more than a smart buy by NYTCo, which adds some larger stations to its small-market holdings in some growing markets that are close to its existing print and broadcast operations, and a smart sale by GE, which unloads its four smallest NBC O&Os for what will no doubt be a healthy profit.

I wouldn't rush to read ANYTHING more into it than that.<P ID="signature">______________
Tower Site Calendar 2006 JUST RELEASED! - <a target="_blank" href=http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html#calendar>www.fybush.com</a></P>
 
Re: NBC's future, by the numbers

I couldn't see NBC owning WDIV Detroit. Although it is a very strong NBC affiliate, I believe it is the flagship of Post-Newsweek.<P ID="signature">______________
From WNBC-TV New York this is Liiiiive at Fiiiiive!</P>
 
Re: NBC's future, by the numbers

> I couldn't see NBC owning WDIV Detroit. Although it is a
> very strong NBC affiliate, I believe it is the flagship of
> Post-Newsweek.

If you had told any of us at WBZ, when I started working there in 1992, that within three years the TV station would be a CBS affiliate, NBC would be on that laughingstock called channel 7, "Group W" would be relegated to the history books, and the whole place would be called "CBS," you'd have been laughed all the way down Soldiers Field Road, too.

Business is business. There's very little room for sentimentality there.

(That said, I don't see any reason to expect Post-Newsweek to want to sell, or NBC to want to pay the kind of enormous prices those stations would bring.)<P ID="signature">______________
Tower Site Calendar 2006 JUST RELEASED! - <a target="_blank" href=http://www.fybush.com/nerw.html#calendar>www.fybush.com</a></P>
 
> > FTVLive is reporting rumor has it that NBC is selling off
> > some of their "smaller" stations. These stations include
> > WCMH in Columbus, Ohio...WVIT in Hartford, CT...WNCN in
> > Raleigh/Durham, NC...WVTM in Birmingham, AL. Another
> gossip
> > site also reports WJAR in Providence is included as well.
>
> > Nothing has been confirmed yet. As I said, this is just a
>
> > rumor.
> >
>
> It's confirmed at Broadcasting & Cable. The buyer is the New
> York Times.
>
Check that...while the stations are for sale, it HAS NOT been confirmed that the buyer is the New York Times.
 
Re: NBC's future, by the numbers

Hi everyone:

> I couldn't see NBC owning WDIV Detroit. Although it is a
> very strong NBC affiliate, I believe it is the flagship of
> Post-Newsweek.

And for almost the same reason, you can most likely forget the notion of KUSA 9 here in Denver becoming an NBC O&O. Why? Three reasons (Well okay, maybe two and a half :) ).

1). They've already got a Telemundo O&O in KMAS 63/67.

2). The future of KPXC 59 is still VERY much up in the air (as it that of the entire i/PAX network for that matter). As a result, there's still a chance (however remote it is) they might keep KPXC and run it as either a Latin-speaking or (most likely) English-speaking Indie, picking up cheap syndie fare during the days and evenings and running Home Shopping from ShopNBC overnight.

3). Gannett just spent HUGE $$$ snapping up UPN affiliate KTVD 20. This move ALONE negates ANY notion or thought of KUSA being bought by NBC as I seriously doubt Gannett would stick around Denver if all they had was a UPN affiliate. UPN affiliates just aren't worth it.

Just my opinion :)

Cheers for now :)

Pat<P ID="signature">______________
patspodcast03a.jpg

http://patspodcast.blogspot.com/
Radio? Uhh.....What's THAT?? :)</P>
 
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