OT: Sinclair B'casting to buy ABC 33/40,sell 21 and 68...

[rtc]

Notelease excuse this OT but there appears to be no
"TV" place to post it:


http://www.al.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/07/sinclair_broadcast_group_agree.html#comments

 

[whit979]

The article quotes an Allbritton VP as saying ABC 33/40 "would benefit from having (Sinclair) at their back." Does anybody here agree with that notion? All I can go off of is what they've done with WTTO and WABM, which is effectively nothing, and it looks as if their portfolio is comprised almost entirely of "set it and forget it" affiliations that require minimal local effort, like Fox, CW and MyNetworkTV.

 

[Poledo]

Any chance Sinclair might move ABC off the Tuscaloosa and Anniston stations to one of their full power Birmingham stations?

Why would Sinclair need to spin off two stations? They own four stations down in the Mobile market (including ABC, NBC, and My), why can't they do the same in B'ham with ABC, CW, and My? Does it have anything to do with the three channel ABC trimulcast and the two channel CW simulcast?

 

[secondchoice]

Just looked at the FCC web site, it is weird that B'ham doesn't have a lot of "full power" TV stations. I thought with the digital shift that most of the markets would get at least 5 commercial 700KW+ stations.

http://transition.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/t...t2=&mlat2=&slat2=&dlon2=&mlon2=&slon2=&size=9

Are some of the Birmingham stations doing .2 with a major network?

 

[w9wi]

Several "Birmingham" stations are not licensed to Birmingham:

17 - Bessemer
21 - Homewood
23 & 33 - Tuscaloosa
40 - Anniston
44 & 60 - Gadsden

Channels 10, 13, 23, and 40 transmit on VHF frequencies which means their relatively low powers are somewhat misleading.

There are twelve full-power stations in the Birmingham market. The next smaller market (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) has seven and the next larger (Albany, New York) has ten.

 

[secondchoice]

How many are on "in town" towers? Do any of the B'ham stations "share" towers?

 

[w9wi]

- Channels 10/21/42/68 share an in-town tower with 104.7 and 107.7 FM.
- A low-power relay of channels 33/40 is on the WZRR 99.5 tower in town.
- WBHM 90.3 is on the WBRC channel 6 tower in town.
- Channels 17 and 33 are on two separate towers north of Tuscaloosa.
- Channel 40 is on a tower between Pell City and Moody.
- Channel 44 is between Oneonta and Springville.
- Channel 23 has its own tower in town.
- Channel 13 and 94.5 FM share an in-town tower.

 

[Poledo]

While Sinclair has control of 5 full power Birmingham signals would it make any sense to shuffle around the frequencies for the ABC and CW simulcasts in order to get one of the ABC stations up on Red Mountain? Do away with the LP ABC affiliate in town?