SINCLAIR BUYS 8 STATIONS FROM FREEDOM COMMUNICATIONS

[gregg75]

They are:
WPEC West Palm Beach CBS 12
WWMT Kalamazoo, MI. CBS 3
WRGB Albany, NY. CBS 6
WCWN Albany, NY. CW 45
WTVC Chattanooga ABC 9
WLAJ Lansing, MI. ABC 53
KTVL Medford, OR. CBS 10
KFDM Beaumont, TX. CBS 6
http://www.deadline.com/2011/11/sinclair-to-buy-freedom-stations-for-385m/

 

[SteveRichards]

Combined with the Four Points purchase, this is going to give Sinclair a nice stable of CBS affiliates.

 

[KML0224]

Their only New England outlet right now is WGME-TV (CBS) channel 13 of Portland, ME. As for Freedom Communications, I know they once owned WLNE-TV (ABC) channel 6 of New Bedford, MA (Providence, RI market). The two stations for "Albany" are actually both licensed to Schenectady, NY.

On a separate note, I wonder what this will mean for the ROH (Ring Of Honor) Wrestling TV show, which airs on the stations already owned by Sinclair?

 

[nathannah]

Combined with the Four Points purchase, this is going to give Sinclair a nice stable of CBS affiliates.

And in WRGB, one of the first television stations to exist, period, although under Freedom it's less of a crown jewel than it used to be.

It does make me wonder though if they're beginning to lose interest in running their CW and MyNet affils heavy on talk shows and low-rated programming and finally trying to get some respect in the industry after the News Central debacle. Now that Nexstar has taken the "worst and cheapest owner" title and ran with it I'm seeing Sinclair putting much more money into their stations on all fronts (even KDNL with their contracted news), though you can't do much when you're stuck with Wilkos, Springer and Jeremy Kyle on your schedule.

 

[dave73]

With Sinclair about to have a lot of CBS stations in their portfolio, I wonder if they'll be able to get the CBS affiliation down the road, in markets that a competing station has CBS affiliation. It would make me wonder if Sinclair might try to take the affiliation from Milwaukee's WDJT. WDJT took the affiliation when all other Milwaukee stations (including Sinclair's WCGV & WVTV, which neither were owned by Sinclair at the time in 1994) turned down the affiliation, when WITI switched to Fox. It meant for Weigel Broadcasting (owner of WDJT) that they had to put in a news department as a condition of acquiring the CBS affiliation. Weigel seems to prefer independent status anyway, even though they do have ABC, CW, & My Network affiliations in South Bend, & Telemundo in Milwaukee (besides CBS).

 

[FightingIrish]

With Sinclair about to have a lot of CBS stations in their portfolio, I wonder if they'll be able to get the CBS affiliation down the road, in markets that a competing station has CBS affiliation. It would make me wonder if Sinclair might try to take the affiliation from Milwaukee's WDJT. WDJT took the affiliation when all other Milwaukee stations (including Sinclair's WCGV & WVTV, which neither were owned by Sinclair at the time in 1994) turned down the affiliation, when WITI switched to Fox. It meant for Weigel Broadcasting (owner of WDJT) that they had to put in a news department as a condition of acquiring the CBS affiliation. Weigel seems to prefer independent status anyway, even though they do have ABC, CW, & My Network affiliations in South Bend, & Telemundo in Milwaukee (besides CBS).

Not happening. Sinclair owns plenty of FOX, CW and MNTV affiliates. In fact, that's most of their portfolio. Plus, Sinclair is not very adept at running ABC/CBS/NBC outlets. Their local news product tends to be terrible. On some of those stations, they don't even run news. No way CBS will do something like this. Sinclair ain't Group W. They've always been better at running stations that don't require news.

And I'm sure CBS is pretty happy with WDJT. Their news is very competitive with WITI's ratings-wise.

 

[kenglish]

Sinclair seems to have a lot of money to spend nowadays.

 

[JayR]

On a separate note, I wonder what this will mean for the ROH (Ring Of Honor) Wrestling TV show, which airs on the stations already owned by Sinclair?

It means more viewers. WPEC alone will add more viewers; it's signal can be picked up as far south as central Broward (the old analog signal went further; I used to pick it up in Miami).

 

[lugnuts6]

I do know that "Kalamazoo's Lansing ABC/CW station" WLAJ abc53/CW5 no longer have a news department (On Spet 25, 2009 freedom gave the news dept 20 minutes to pack it all up right before the 6pm newscast) they do a taped 11pm update produced out of WWMT in Kalamazoo...(along w/ taped news breaks during GMA)

But here is what sorta worries me, Sinclair owns Ring Of honor, while WLAJ CW5 airs the successful "All World Wrestling league Big Time Wrestling" , so a question could we see a big 2 hour block of wrestling , or what ???

 

[TheRob]

WRGB and WTVC are decent stations. Didn't Mr. Food start at WRGB?

I suppose Sinclair expects to make up some of the investment with additional political revenue in 2012 (heck, I'm already seeing Senate campaign ads).

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Will their news departments be gutted and outsourced to another station?

 

[nathannah]

I do know that "Kalamazoo's Lansing ABC/CW station" WLAJ abc53/CW5 no longer have a news department (On Spet 25, 2009 freedom gave the news dept 20 minutes to pack it all up right before the 6pm newscast) they do a taped 11pm update produced out of WWMT in Kalamazoo...(along w/ taped news breaks during GMA)

But here is what sorta worries me, Sinclair owns Ring Of honor, while WLAJ CW5 airs the successful "All World Wrestling league Big Time Wrestling" , so a question could we see a big 2 hour block of wrestling , or what ???

Of course WLAJ is sadly infamous for having that Detroit reporter as their anchor/ND for a year before she resigned and killed herself over a fraud she allegedly committed against someone else, and the news department just withering away after that. I sometimes get WLAJ DX'ed on my antenna from across the lake, and it feels like going back to 1996 presentation-wise, as everything with them is automated to death and their CW sub is just a CW Plus satellite feed with local branding and ads thrown in here and there.

As for the wrestling? It's done if it's just a brokered programming payment by the promotion for airtime, as Sinclair can just simply refuse the money and move on.

I don't see them cutting any news departments at all outside of regular post-sale attritions and early retirement packages because they're all affiliated with Big Three networks. If anything, it helps that Sinclair already has a Washington bureau which adds value to the deal.

 

[DToTheJ]

...WRGB, one of the first television stations to exist, period... under Freedom it's less of a crown jewel than it used to be...

And wait till you see what it's going to be under Sinclair ownership!

 

[danikayser84]

...WRGB, one of the first television stations to exist, period... under Freedom it's less of a crown jewel than it used to be...

And wait till you see what it's going to be under Sinclair ownership!

Fox 6/My 15? Sorry, I don't expect that to happen But who knows, this is Sinclair... they own mainly Fox and MyTV affiliates

 

[therealjm12]

Living in Upstate NY and seeing Nexstar & Sinclair in action, I would much prefer watching (& working at)a Nexstar station. I feel bad for my friends at WPEC. Problem is Nexstar is on the market. Hope Sinclair doesn't buy it.