Possible affliation changes in south Florida??

[Rick Rose 2.0]

Soon after NBC announced that they were selling WTVJ Miami I see a blurb on Newsblues that south Florida could be the home of another affiliate shake-up. I do not see it actually happening because CBS owns 4, 7 is glued to Fox and 10 must be established with ABC. I know 6 has signal issues but the analog shuts down in Februrary and the new WTVJ digital signal covers south florida just like the other VHF's. Would NBC move to10?

 

[Markxxx]

Well CBS and FOX have sold off some smaller market stations without any affiliation change. NBC said it wanted to concentrate in TV station in Top 10 markets though it doesn't own a station in all top ten markets.

The only way I could see a change is if it involved a swap of some sort with a company or a ownership group wanting to affiliate all their stations with a network.

FOX and CBS and NBC are happy with what they have and NBC has no other place to go. As the OP noted with digital the signal will be fine.

 

[bpatrick]

A couple or so years ago I heard a rumor that
WPEC/12 West Palm Beach was considering
going back to ABC (it went to CBS when WTVJ
moved to NBC on Channel 4, and then-WCIX/6
couldn't get a signal into Broward County, let
alone the Palm Beaches). But 12 is still with
CBS, so what happened?

 

[lugnuts6]

This is interesting , I wonder if anyone has a newsblues subscription can fill in the blanks from wednesday's edition

NBC, Post-Newsweek, and Sunbeam Television meet in Miami

Now what if ANYTHING can be made out of this meeting of the minds..

 

[FightingIrish]

This is interesting , I wonder if anyone has a newsblues subscription can fill in the blanks from wednesday's edition

NBC, Post-Newsweek, and Sunbeam Television meet in Miami

Now what if ANYTHING can be made out of this meeting of the minds..

Well, there's no way WSVN will switch back to NBC. They had a nasty breakup way back when and WSVN and FOX seem to have a great relationship. FOX works well for what WSVN is doing (tons of news programming without having to clear extra slots for other networks).

And I'm sure Ch. 10 is happy where they are.

Likely, as in the case of many affiliates sold by the network, there will be a long-term affiliation deal involved, which will keep NBC there for a long time and make sure they clear the whole slate of programming.

 

[bpatrick]

Here's a thought: NBC wants o&os in the top 10
markets, right? Why not swap with Gannett and
pick up WXIA? That would give NBC an o&o in
Atlanta and Gannett a station that can stay with
NBC, the two companies being quite tight.

 

[radiovoice1]

Regarding WPEC, a couple of years back they extended their affiliation agreement with CBS, and have recently changed their on-air identity to "CBS 12".

 

[bostonmediaguy]

This is interesting , I wonder if anyone has a newsblues subscription can fill in the blanks from wednesday's edition

NBC, Post-Newsweek, and Sunbeam Television meet in Miami

Now what if ANYTHING can be made out of this meeting of the minds..

Rumor has it Post-Newsweek purchases WTVJ and merges the news department with WPLG. The WPLG building is sold to Sunbeam which moves WSVN to this location. The current WSVN land is sold to developers.

 

[Morgan Wick]

This is interesting , I wonder if anyone has a newsblues subscription can fill in the blanks from wednesday's edition

NBC, Post-Newsweek, and Sunbeam Television meet in Miami

Now what if ANYTHING can be made out of this meeting of the minds..

Rumor has it Post-Newsweek purchases WTVJ and merges the news department with WPLG. The WPLG building is sold to Sunbeam which moves WSVN to this location. The current WSVN land is sold to developers.

GAH! Would that even be legal, or is WTVJ that crappy that it isn't one of the top four stations in the market?

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

The Spanish language stations occupy at least two of the "top 4" slots with WPLG and either WSVN or WFOR (I don't remember which) occupying the other two, so it's plausible this could happen.

Right after the duopoly rules were changed, Gannett purchased and merged Allbritton's Jacksonville station, WJXX-25-ABC, with their NBC affiliate, WTLV-12, and has been moderately successful (more so, I think, after P-N's WJXT-4 dropped CBS and went indie).

I doubt Gannett would be willing to give up WXIA-Atlanta, especially since they just (within the last 2 years) purchased WATL-36 from Tribune as a duopoly property.

Perhaps Post-Newsweek has offered up Houston's KPRC-2 in exchange for the WTVJ property, Houston being a fast-growing number 10 market and one where NBC-U's Telemundo owns a (albeit weak) signal.

 

[lugnuts6]

One thing we have forgot..
We know WTVJ is on the selling block by NBC ..BUT not Telemundo51
We have had rumors that Telemundo51 will be moving BACK to Hialeah when 'TVJ is sold
Also hasnt WPLGs building already got a buyer ???

 

[Garrett]

This is interesting , I wonder if anyone has a newsblues subscription can fill in the blanks from wednesday's edition

NBC, Post-Newsweek, and Sunbeam Television meet in Miami

Now what if ANYTHING can be made out of this meeting of the minds..

Well, there's no way WSVN will switch back to NBC. They had a nasty breakup way back when and WSVN and FOX seem to have a great relationship. FOX works well for what WSVN is doing (tons of news programming without having to clear extra slots for other networks).

I disagree, respectfully. This was before they bought WHDH in Boston, also channel 7, also an NBC affiliate. Now, WHDH and WSVN have identical websites, logos, and very similar news operations. Having both as NBC affiliates would fit nicely, imagine the savings in switching two stations at once? NBC does this with KNSD and KNBC in Southern California.

There have been revolving rumors (and that's all they are) that NBC wants to buy a Boston station. Not sure how this fits in, but you'll recall that the flip between 4 and 6 had to do with a swap between NBC and CBS, which involved CBS buying WBZ in Boston along with a bunch of other Group W stations that had been NBC.

 

[taylorjsdad]

This is interesting , I wonder if anyone has a newsblues subscription can fill in the blanks from wednesday's edition

NBC, Post-Newsweek, and Sunbeam Television meet in Miami

Now what if ANYTHING can be made out of this meeting of the minds..

Well, there's no way WSVN will switch back to NBC. They had a nasty breakup way back when and WSVN and FOX seem to have a great relationship. FOX works well for what WSVN is doing (tons of news programming without having to clear extra slots for other networks).

And I'm sure Ch. 10 is happy where they are.

Likely, as in the case of many affiliates sold by the network, there will be a long-term affiliation deal involved, which will keep NBC there for a long time and make sure they clear the whole slate of programming.

Remember WSVN's owner (Sunbeam Television) owns WHDH-7 Boston's NBC affiliate.

 

[taylorjsdad]

This is interesting , I wonder if anyone has a newsblues subscription can fill in the blanks from wednesday's edition

NBC, Post-Newsweek, and Sunbeam Television meet in Miami

Now what if ANYTHING can be made out of this meeting of the minds..

Well, there's no way WSVN will switch back to NBC. They had a nasty breakup way back when and WSVN and FOX seem to have a great relationship. FOX works well for what WSVN is doing (tons of news programming without having to clear extra slots for other networks).

I disagree, respectfully. This was before they bought WHDH in Boston, also channel 7, also an NBC affiliate. Now, WHDH and WSVN have identical websites, logos, and very similar news operations. Having both as NBC affiliates would fit nicely, imagine the savings in switching two stations at once? NBC does this with KNSD and KNBC in Southern California.

There have been revolving rumors (and that's all they are) that NBC wants to buy a Boston station. Not sure how this fits in, but you'll recall that the flip between 4 and 6 had to do with a swap between NBC and CBS, which involved CBS buying WBZ in Boston along with a bunch of other Group W stations that had been NBC.

True, Boston is the largest DMA where the NBC station is not an O&O (NBC-U owns WNEU-60 Merrimack, NH , Telemundo affiliate run by ZGS and WWDP-46 Norwell, MA - they run ShopNBC) but I don't see the Aslin(sp???) family selling WHDH anytime soon. They bought WLVI from Tribune so NBC could not.

I wonder if Media General would be interested in WTVJ? They do own several NBC affiliates including WFLA-TV in Tampa (an excellent NBC affiliate BTW.)

I am wondering aloud if Post Newsweek could even buy WTVJ and keep WPLG... I would think both would be in the top 4 in revenue.

If Gannett had the $$ and were under the 33% national cap it would make sense.

 

[Garrett]

Ed Ansin

 

[Tim-In-Houston]

I am wondering aloud if Post Newsweek could even buy WTVJ and keep WPLG... I would think both would be in the top 4 in revenue.

The rule change states It can be either a "failed" station (meaning the station is insolvent and/or about to go bankrupt) or a "failing" station meaning it has had a low audience share or declining revenues for several years.

I think the rumor of a Post-Newsweek buyout is hinged on the "failing" station portion, in terms of overall ratings. WTVJ finished 6th in prime-time (behind co-owned WSCV-Telemundo, which was 5th) and 6th in late news ratings (behind co-owned WSCV (4th) and CBS-owned WFOR (5th). WPLG was first in both prime-time and late news ratings).

If I could find ratings numbers going back two or three years, I'm sure it would show a very similar story, with WTVJ bringing up the rear among English-language stations.

 

[Rick Rose 2.0]

Considering the Miami markets hispanic population is it conceivable that Univision buys channel 6. I assume NBC shot down the idea to sell the WTVJ intellectual property (and NBC affiliation) and channel 51 license and move Telemundo to channel 6. The channel 6 digital signal covers the market a lot better than the analog signal and analog shuts down in February. Is it time for the spanish speaking population of south florida to get a VHF station?

 

[Markxxx]

I know after the transition to digital NBC, CBS, FOX and ABC will lose the "UHF discount," and I'm assuming any station owned will be grandfather'd in. According to the FCC after this is implimented then other station owner groups will also lose the "UHF discount." But it doesn't say when just eventually.