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Sinclair Buys Barrington Stations
- Thread starter TheRob
- Start date
TheRob said:
Where does Sinclair find all the money to buy all these stations? They have to have an insane debt load at this point, yes?
How much money can really be made on medium and small market TV? I'd have to guess that at this point their revenues are reaching the levels of purchase-shy, established, diversified groups like Hearst, Gannett, Belo, etc. At what point does Sinclair become #5 behind the O&O's?
By 2015, Sinclair, Gray, Granite, Young, and Nexstar will be one 200+-station mega-group and because the largest market any of the five is in is San Francisco, no watchdog or the FCC will care.
jdb820 said:
Well in this case I read they got a bank loan and analysis give sinclair and their recent activities rave reviews:
http://rbr.com/rave-reviews-for-sinclairs-downmarket-tv-buy/
jdb820 said:
In 2009, Sinclair was on bankruptcy's doorstep. Today, they're gobbling up mid-market TV stations like Pac-Man.
Also note that in some markets, they're spinning off stations to other individuals. One of them, Armstrong Williams, is a political commentator who has a weekly right-leaning program airing (by corporate mandate) on Sinclair stations in most of the markets they operate in.
jdb820 said:
I'm sure Belo would like to get their hands clean of the Tucson licenses they hold in which Raycom operates the stations. If Raycom can't buy them under a "Failing Station" waiver, then Sinclair might be interested.
With that money, Belo could buy KLAS in Las Vegas, beating Sinclair to the punch.
Eric Stein said:
I hope the FCC takes a very close look at this deal; they're about to have a station group in the United States which has over 100 television stations, plus all the various SSA's and LMA's they carry, and in markets like Syracuse where I'm sure the promotional look and feel of the stations they'll get there and 'spin off' will continue to be under Sinclair, they'll be the only game in town (and with Nexstar pretty much in the Sinclair template, there is only one game in town there).
Armstrong Williams is very questionable to me; he basically had payola obligations to supporting No Child Left Behind that killed his Tribune column in 2005, and since then like Ring of Honor and The Point he's become an inescapable part of what makes a Sinclair station where they have to carry it on orders from Hunt Valley. It's just getting absurd and comical at this point how far Sinclair and Nexstar are stretching FCC regulations, while groups like Hearst, Grey and Meredith focus more on quality of service to their markets than quantity.
I think a lawsuit of the style of what happened to the original AT&T back in the 1980s needs to occur against Sinclair. It ought to be a very crafty suit as well point out there is a "lack of objectivity" and "multiple voices" in the DMAs because of their SSA/JSA. It would put a halt to them and Nexstar.
Wasn't this whole "nationwide station grab" pretty much started by Bud Paxon? Pax's business model didn't really work out in the end but it still set a precedent that the FCC is going to be stuck with. If the FCC decided to "waste government tax dollars" to take Sinclair to the Supreme Court in today's environment I could see things getting even worse. Sinclair has never been silent about the owners' political views.
Sinclair has 4 stations in my home market and only one station in an adjacent market that I frequent. Sinclair was the first to go HD in Mobile and I really can't complain about the way they run their stations. It's a little easier for me to find reasons to complain about Lin and Raycom.
Gray seems to run stations smart. I think Gray is the best owner of stations in Bama/GA/North Fla.
Sinclair has 4 stations in my home market and only one station in an adjacent market that I frequent. Sinclair was the first to go HD in Mobile and I really can't complain about the way they run their stations. It's a little easier for me to find reasons to complain about Lin and Raycom.
Gray seems to run stations smart. I think Gray is the best owner of stations in Bama/GA/North Fla.
poledo said:
Paxon only hoarded licenses and had bought marginal stations that either were brand new or hadn't done much of anything otherwise. They never went to the point of owning or operating more than one station in a market and never made an effort to do so; if Paxon thought like Sinclair, they'd have found some way to keep control of 2 stations in the Boston market when Pax bought the WABU chain from BU.
When someone who matched "their views" was in office, Sinclair actually left several markets (Indy, Sacramento, Springfield MA, Tri-Cities VA/TN), was in a holding pattern, and nearly went bankrupt. On either side when it was the opposite, they went two periods of heightened expansion in a quick amount of time. Chew on this and think that the Dems have been Sinclair's true friends because it's been under them 90% of their stations were purchased as they've looked the other way.
The current administration would make tripolies legal with control of up to 5 stations in a market and would greenlight a Sinclair/Nexstar/Gray/Granite/Young mega-group before having the (mostly sharing "their views") Supremes go after them. This really is like Clear Channel without the universal hate.
Perhaps I was vague or perhaps I misunderstood your response but I was trying to say I believe that if the FCC were to make the mistake of going after Sinclair that the end result would be DC changing the laws making Sinclair a much larger corporation. My thought process on this statement is to complicated and political to spell it out.
Now down the road in a different political and economic environment I could see DC stopping Sinclair.
Now down the road in a different political and economic environment I could see DC stopping Sinclair.
poledo said:
Political environment does not matter in this case. Under a Republican administration, they actually shrank slightly, lost a ton of money with the News Central debacle, and nearly went bankrupt. During the Democrat administrations on either side of said administration, they went through massive growth (Act III/River City/Abry/Guy Gannett/etc. under Clinton, Four Points/Freedom/Barrington/half of Newport/Cox's outcasts to date under Obama).
So which political environment could Sinclair be limited? The one they side with or the one that's turned a blind eye and let them run amok?
jdb820 said:
I think the problems with those at the FCC is they are more worried about the top 10 markets, but the NYC, Chicago, Philly, and DC markets in particular because that is where most of them reside or are from originally. It is like the rest of the top 50 markets in the US, where the vast majority of the US population resides (and where future socially progressive support will likely come from), are irrelevant because they aren't those 4.
That is flat out stupid, very shortsighted, and will come back to haunt the FCC and those "elitist liberals" whom think like them...
Maybe you could write a letter to them or something.kilamanjero said:
Perhaps the Chicago commissioners could take a trip down to Champaign/Springfield/Decatur, where the main six network affiliations are split between three companies: Sinclair (ABC/Fox/CW), Nexstar (CBS/MyNet), and Block Communications (NBC). The New York and Philly ones could head over to Scranton-Wilkes-Barre for a similar situation with Nexstar (NBC/CBS), Local TV (ABC), and New Age Media (Fox/CW/MyNet). And perhaps all of them should make the trek out to Erie, PA, where all of the Big Four are controlled by two companies: Nexstar and Lilly/SJL, with the latter also running a digital CW affiliate and no MyNet affiliation. Alternately, they could head to Utica, NY, where Nexstar owns the ABC and Fox affiliates (as well as the MyNet station) and CBS has to be imported from other markets. (Clarksburg-Weston, West Virginia, would also do, even though both owners are smaller groups.)
kilamanjero said:
All of which are in the exact opposite boat. DC is the only one which doesn't Big 4 stations all owned by the networks and Philly is the only one where there have been affiliation changes. In the current 2/5/7/9 arrangement, Chicago has seen a grand total of zero ownership changes. Even in terms of WUSA and WJLA, both haven't changed hands in decades and it can be argued that WJLA never really changed hands since Allbritton bought the holdings of the old Washington Star outright and when they sold the paper changed the group name.
The Top 10 markets are outliers themselves due to wealth and size alone. Only one merger of full news departments (KCBS/KCAL), save for Westinghouse and New World very few affiliation swaps, and a very high barrier of entry which keeps TV-only companies out with the few that got in on a whim (Young, Granite) long-suffering.
I'm surprised that LA isn't a power center and given the number of "blue state" markets Sinclair and Nexstar is gobbling up I'm amazed there is so much silence. In a way, I'd like to see Sinclair try to do a hypothetical WJLA-WDCW duopoly* because it would troll the FCC and make them really look at how things really are.
* DC has more than enough voices to do this and given Tribune's neglect of WDCW Sinclair would be not much of a change. Regardless of who owns WJLA, they'll still be in 4th place.
The same "elitist liberals" who are looking the other way? The reason why we haven't seen that style of consolidation is that nobody has tried it in the larger markets because there is no will to do so.
You guys have a point as long as those 4 markets are protectorates of quality then the FCC doesn't seem to care at all in the other markets.
Oh yeah jdb820, nobody cares about LA because it is going to be protectorate by default since all the West Coast Flagships are located in that market. One would have to have major cash on hand for them to take claim to anything in market #2. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose is very similar but due the very large activist community there it is doubtful anything would be tried by any of the companies like Sinclair, Nexstar, etc.
Oh yeah jdb820, nobody cares about LA because it is going to be protectorate by default since all the West Coast Flagships are located in that market. One would have to have major cash on hand for them to take claim to anything in market #2. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose is very similar but due the very large activist community there it is doubtful anything would be tried by any of the companies like Sinclair, Nexstar, etc.
kilamanjero said:
Oddly enough, San Francisco is probably the easiest market Sinclair could get into in the Top 10 given how KRON and KOFY could be bought on the cheap and the lack of interest from the obvious slam dunk owner (Fox) to purchase them. Of course, seeing how Granite and Young entered and lost their shirts with the same stations...
Come to think of it, there isn't much else in the Top 10 markets that could even be up for sale period. Take away rimshot WLNY and the last time anything changed hands when Tribune (foolishly) left Boston and Atlanta back in 2006. Even in the Top 25, Sinclair's stations are almost all-netlet (WPGH the only Fox and they look far smaller than their market) and are in markets where they really can't upgrade.
jdb820 said:
The have a Fox station in Pittsburgh and a netlet-like ABC station in St. Louis
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