Sinclair pushing takeover of Scripps

[TheBigA]

But to suggest that the station groups need to be lemmings and potentially follow a network off a cliff is genuinely laughable.

Station groups have to follow the contracts they signed. At some point groups like Nexstar will be bigger than the networks and won't need to sign affiliation deals. That seems to be where they're going. Except now the president just threw a hammer into the fan.

On the radio side, iHeart has that kind of size. They don't need to do deals with anyone else. TV is going the same way. The problem for both radio & TV is the consumers don't need either of them.

 

[umfan]

In terms that everyone will understand ... your posts read as "fake news" in my book.

And yours read to me as a blowhard with an inflated sense of ego in mine. Somehow, I think we both will somehow manage to find a way to cope.

 

[umfan]

They wanted a "cooling off period." It wasn't a punishment for what he said. They only did it because of Brendan Carr.

And with Kimmel continuing to intimate that he might go ballistic on the air, it was a reasonable analysis and action by the stations that actually hold the FCC licenses to broadcast the programming to take enough of a pause to be comfortable airing his program again. ABC would not have had a slam dunk in court had they pursued that course of action.

 

[TheBigA]

And with Kimmel continuing to intimate that he might go ballistic on the air,

You've obviously never watched him. He made the comments Monday, did the show without incident on Tuesday, and Carr spoke on Wednesday. The cooling off period wasn't about Kimmel, but about angry conservatives who were calling for him to be fired or worse,

ABC would not have had a slam dunk in court had they pursued that course of action.

Court case? Over what? What's the crime? Remember that the trigger here was Brenden Carr. Not the FCC. It never came up before the commission, there was no vote, and there is no investigation going on about Kimmell. This was a completely made-up crisis.

The stations owned by Nexstar and Sinclair are mainly located in blue cities such as Washington DC and Seattle. People there didn't agree with their local stations dropping a show over ideology.

 

[K.M. Richards]

And yours read to me as a blowhard with an inflated sense of ego in mine. Somehow, I think we both will somehow manage to find a way to cope.

If you read what I write as egotistical rather than factual analysis, you are more in need of finding a way to cope than I do.

As I said, you simply do not understand how this business works, and your posts reflect that lack of understanding. Your replies echo as "I don't care how many facts you cite, I am still right", and I am not the only person who has rebutted those.

Perhaps you see everyone who disagrees with you and has the audacity to cite facts as a "blowhard". If that is the case, I will take that remark as a compliment.

 

[gr8oldies]

You've obviously never watched him. He made the comments Monday, did the show without incident on Tuesday, and Carr spoke on Wednesday. The cooling off period wasn't about Kimmel, but about angry conservatives who were calling for him to be fired or worse,



Court case? Over what? What's the crime? Remember that the trigger here was Brenden Carr. Not the FCC. It never came up before the commission, there was no vote, and there is no investigation going on about Kimmell. This was a completely made-up crisis.

The stations owned by Nexstar and Sinclair are mainly located in blue cities such as Washington DC and Seattle. People there didn't agree with their local stations dropping a show over ideology.

ABC still had the right to say "allright, you are out of compliance with your affiliation agreement, no football for your viewers and advertisers". I never believed Nextar and Sinclair suddenly "got religion" at 5pm on a Friday before a big football weekend without ABC exercising the nuclear option.

 

[davideduardo]

It's unfortunet because if they don't air say a primetime show from the network that they cary that some of the people want to see that means they don't really care about the viewers in their markets.

The issue here was a bit different. The owners os some affiliates believed that a show had presented incorrect information. Their objection and show suspension was due to a false claim, at least in their opinion.

 

[Larry]

And with Kimmel continuing to intimate that he might go ballistic on the air, it was a reasonable analysis and action by the stations that actually hold the FCC licenses to broadcast the programming to take enough of a pause to be comfortable airing his program again.

They could have easily decided to televise his show on a delay, 30 seconds or 1 minute if technically possible and feasible or 30 minutes (with show starting at midnight) so they could first view the show and see if there was anything that offended their sensibilities (political and other) before airing the show. I think much preferable to a total preemption.

 

[Mediafrog+]

The issue here was a bit different. The owners os some affiliates believed that a show had presented incorrect information. Their objection and show suspension was due to a false claim, at least in their opinion.

If the owners of video providers believe that Fox News, Newsmax or OANN presented “incorrect information” should they be able to yank those channels at will?

Shoe, meet other foot.

 

[Mediafrog+]

They could have easily decided to televise his show on a delay, 30 seconds or 1 minute if technically possible and feasible or 30 minutes (with show starting at midnight) so they could first view the show and see if there was anything that offended their sensibilities (political and other) before airing the show. I think much preferable to a total preemption.

You have no idea of how network distribution of a TV show works. If there is “anything that offended their sensibilities” they then do…what?🤔😖

I will admit that the thought of a corporate suit hanging out at a master control hub around midnight trying to censor a TV show in real time is quite amusing.🤣🤣🤣🤣

 

[davideduardo]

If the owners of video providers believe that Fox News, Newsmax or OANN presented “incorrect information” should they be able to yank those channels at will?

Those are not OTA broadcast channels, for sure. Fox News et. al. are cable channels, and the content is not run on any over the air signal. None of those is licensed by the FCC, nor are the cable "channels" that carry them.

 

[TexasTom]

With one uneducated tweet, the president just blew up Sinclair's attempted takeover of Scripps

Uneducated is a polite way to put it. I'll put it even more bluntly -- Trump's opinion is neither informed nor intelligent but is just a brain-stem reaction to his grudge against the big TV networks.

Apparently ABC thought there was or they wouldn't have pulled him from the air.

Strangely, they didn't feel that way until Brendan Carr started threatening their affiliates. It's pretty obvious that ABC did not find anything objectionable about what Kimmel said and that they were reacting to Carr's threats more than anything else. And having watched the allegedly offensive monologue that triggered all this, this was much ado about very little.

 

[DavinaR]

Those are not OTA broadcast channels, for sure. Fox News et. al. are cable channels, and the content is not run on any over the air signal. None of those is licensed by the FCC, nor are the cable "channels" that carry them.

Actually before 2018 Newsmax was carried on some lp tv stations and now Newsmax 2 is carried on some lp tv stations. Just for clarification.

 

[DavinaR]

Seems like to me Scripps does not want the takeover.

Scripps Adds Poison Pill to Block Tennis Channel Owner's Takeover

Sinclair Inc.’s proposed acquisition of rival television station owner E.W. Scripps Co. is quickly becoming a hostile situation.

frontofficesports.com

 

[umfan]

Uneducated is a polite way to put it. I'll put it even more bluntly -- Trump's opinion is neither informed nor intelligent but is just a brain-stem reaction to his grudge against the big TV networks.

Strangely, they didn't feel that way until Brendan Carr started threatening their affiliates. It's pretty obvious that ABC did not find anything objectionable about what Kimmel said and that they were reacting to Carr's threats more than anything else. And having watched the allegedly offensive monologue that triggered all this, this was much ado about very little.

Recognizing and accepting the current regulatory landscape, and taking the appropriate actions on that basis, is a key responsibility of network and broadcast executives. Whether is was much ado about little or much, the stakes for Disney and ABC affiliate investors was at stake and that is more important than mollifying the ego of a low rated late night host.

This isn't the first time affiliates pre-empted ABC Programming. NYPD Blue was not carried in many markets because some affiliates found the content to be objectionable. Perhaps carriage agreements no longer allow this, I don't know, but the circumstance is similar.

 

[TheBigA]

Whether is was much ado about little or much, the stakes for Disney and ABC affiliate investors was at stake and that is more important than mollifying the ego of a low rated late night host.

Yet they only suspended him for three shows. He didn't accede to the demands of conservatives, who wanted him to apologize and donate money to the widow. The ratings for his return show were massive, over 6 million viewers, even without the two station groups. Viewers found other ways to watch. Sinclair and Nexstar resumed the show a few days later with the Friday repeat of Tuesday's return show, complete with his commentary about the suspension. Since then, his monologues haven't changed. So the two station groups had their chance to speak, and then went back to following their contracts.

 

[K.M. Richards]

This isn't the first time affiliates pre-empted ABC Programming. NYPD Blue was not carried in many markets because some affiliates found the content to be objectionable. Perhaps carriage agreements no longer allow this, I don't know, but the circumstance is similar.

You answered your own question. The NYPD Blue situation was way back in 1993. 32 years is an eternity in the broadcast industry, and therefore has absolutely zero standing as a precedent for the present.

Therefore, your second sentence is correct. Network affiliation contracts, as was pointed out in the original thread about the Kimmel suspension, now only allow for pre-emptions in limited frequency, and then usually restricted to things like expanded news coverage in a disaster or live sports coverage (since many affiliates also have contracts to broadcast their local team's games).

I would not be surprised, actually, if what happened back in '93 wasn't the spark for the tightening of restrictions on pre-emptions. Realistically, any such pre-emption creates a legal problem for the network, which sells the in-program advertising based on the presumption that the programming is being carried across the entire network. Sinclair and Nexstar are lucky that ABC did not sue them for breach of contract.

The bottom line here (as I have said a couple of times previously, in both threads): It is not the local affiliates' right to decide for their viewers what they can and cannot watch; the prevailing POV is that any "offended" viewer has plenty of options themselves if a particular program offends them. And in this case, the potential for such offense was very limited; the late night audience is much smaller than prime time viewing, Kimmel's regular audience did not take his off-handed remark to mean what Sinclair and Nexstar interpreted it to mean, his remark was not out of character for Kimmel, and outside of the misinterpretation it was harmless.

I am a regular Kimmel viewer. I saw and heard the remark. In context, it did not even come close to what the offended station owner groups claimed it was. They blew it entirely out of proportion and if anything, have likely forced the networks to tighten the pre-emption clause in their affiliation agreements even further.

Put simply, this backfired on Sinclair and Nexstar and all ABC affiliates will be further restricted as a result. (As will the affiliates of CBS, NBC, Fox and The CW, since they will likely take similar action in their affiliate contracts as a result of this.)

 

[TheBigA]

Since the subject here is Sinclair & Scripps, there was an interesting move yesterday involving Sinclair in Syracuse NY:

Syracuse CBS changing channel number, call letters • CNYRadio.com / CNYTVNews.com

SYRACUSE - Starting Monday, the local CBS affiliate will be moving from it's longtime home on channel 5 (WTVH) to a new channel.

cnyradio.com

So now, Sinclair owns NBC and CBS affiliates in Syracuse. They did it by moving the CBS affiliation to a UHF station, thus invoking the UHF discount. The company that owned the CBS affiliate is leaving the business. Sinclair put one of its diginets on the former CBS affiliate.

 

[fybush]

Since the subject here is Sinclair & Scripps, there was an interesting move yesterday involving Sinclair in Syracuse NY:

Syracuse CBS changing channel number, call letters • CNYRadio.com / CNYTVNews.com

SYRACUSE - Starting Monday, the local CBS affiliate will be moving from it's longtime home on channel 5 (WTVH) to a new channel.

cnyradio.com

So now, Sinclair owns NBC and CBS affiliates in Syracuse. They did it by moving the CBS affiliation to a UHF station, thus invoking the UHF discount. The company that owned the CBS affiliate is leaving the business. Sinclair put one of its diginets on the former CBS affiliate.

The UHF discount has nothing whatsoever to do with any of this. WTVH and WKOF are both UHF stations as far as FCC rules are concerned, since they go on RF channel (18 and 15, respectively) and not on virtual channel number.

As with other Sinclair markets, the Syracuse move was simply a way to bring the CBS affiliation to a license that Sinclair owns rather than operates for a sidecar licensee. Which, in turn, allows Sinclair to control the retrans consent negotiations and get a better deal with cable and satellite providers than Granite could have done as a standalone.

Sinclair got lucky in Syracuse and had the chance to buy a new license at auction for what became WKOF. Otherwise CBS would simply have become the 3.2 subchannel on the WSTM license that Sinclair already owns in Syracuse. The only difference in this case is that by putting WKOF on the air a few months ago, Sinclair now has another 6 MHz of UHF spectrum to utilize for ATSC 3.0 experimentation.

(The ATSC 1.0 signals for NBC, CBS and Roar are, and have been for a while now, all on the transmitter of WTVH, since WSTM and WKOF both operate in 3.0.)

And there is no evidence to suggest Granite is "leaving the business" any more or less than it has already done. WTVH has been the only license in its portfolio for quite a few years now, and whatever is left of Granite seems to be content to sit there cashing the checks it gets from Sinclair for leasing it out. Especially because of the 3.0 experimentation going on in the market, it really doesn't matter to Sinclair or Granite what program stream is on the WTVH license, just that the transmitter is there for the 1.0 signal.

 

[vchimpanzee]

The UHF discount has nothing whatsoever to do with any of this. WTVH and WKOF are both UHF stations as far as FCC rules are concerned, since they go on RF channel (18 and 15, respectively) and not on virtual channel number.

I may have asked this before but why is there still a UHF discount when VHF signals perform more poorly with digital TV for most people?