Sinclair's new dispute with DirecTV

[w9wi]

From what I know from a distance about Mobile and Pensacola, I think it's fair to say that they're a little unusual as DMAs go. If TV stations were being allocated to the region for the first time today, instead of in the 1950s, I think it's likely that Mobile would be its own DMA separate from Pensacola/FWB - and that both would thus be smaller markets than the combined Mobile/Pensacola DMA is now.

I think this is likely true but maybe for a different reason than what Scott is thinking.

Keeping in mind that I'm an engineer & my opinion may be colored by that...

... Note that Mobile was only allotted two VHF channels, and Pensacola only one. Those of you who are under age 40 or so may underestimate just how important it was to be below channel 14 in the early days of TV.

Imagine it's 1958 and you've just moved to Pensacola. You bought a new TV set (which only comes with VHF, UHF tuners won't be required for another six years) and you need a VHF antenna to get Pensacola's most popular station, WEAR-TV channel 3, ABC.

You hook it all up & find you also get pretty good -- near perfect -- pictures from the two Mobile stations, WKRG-TV channel 5 CBS and WALA-TV channel 10 NBC.

Are you going to spend more $$ for a UHF converter & antenna so you can get a *partial* NBC and *partial* CBS schedule off WPFA-TV channel 15? Probably not...

which means most viewers in Pensacola are watching Mobile stations, and the two cities are going to end up in the same market.

By the time the technology of UHF improved to the point where WPFA's signal (and UHF receivers) would be competitive, it was too late.

IMHO, for Mobile & Pensacola to have ended up as different markets would have required the cities be far enough apart (or separated by a terrain obstacle) such that reception of Mobile stations in Pensacola was not practical with the antennas most viewers would be able to install.

I would suggest a similar situation applies with the assignment of Randolph Co., Alabama to the Atlanta DMA.

The CBS affiliates in the Birmingham and Anniston markets were UHF. Chances are most viewers in Randolph County couldn't receive CBS from an Alabama station even if they wanted to; their only choice for CBS was WAGA. With one of the major networks simply not existing on a Birmingham-market signal as far as Randolph Co. viewers are concerned, there's little doubt that a majority of viewers would be watching Atlanta stations. And again, by the time improved UHF technology made reception of UHF signals from Birmingham practical, cable had etched viewing habits in stone.

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As for the retransmission disputes...

again, if you look at history I think the cable industry may have shot itself in the foot.

For decades, the cable/station relationship was controlled by a combination of must-carry and mandatory retransmission consent. Cable operators were required to carry every station that delivered a decent signal, but the stations were not permitted to charge for that carriage.

If that model had survived to this day.. cable operators would be carrying the same set of OTA signals they're carrying today, but they wouldn't be paying the stations.

But... back in the 1980s... cable operators decided they didn't want to use their (then technically-limited) channel capacity to carry low-rated independents and duplicate affiliates of the same network. So they went to the Supreme Court & got must-carry ruled unconstitutional.

With must-carry gone, the justification for requiring free retransmission consent was also gone. And the door was opened for stations to charge.

As much as we may (or may not) believe the major OTA networks are on the way out, ABC/CBS/Fox/NBC affiliates continue to be by far the most popular channels on any system. Any multichannel provider that's missing one of these networks is going to be at a significant competitive disadvantage, and as much as we may decry the difficulty of switching, most viewers are willing to switch if they think another provider will provide a better deal. (including *all* the channels they watch)

Multichannel providers could have *still* had the major networks for free, if they hadn't upset the applecart 30 years ago...

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Anyway, to come back around to the beginning..

I think probably today, Mobile & Pensacola could indeed each support a full set of network affiliates*. Due to technical limitations 55 years ago and the development of multichannel providers 35-40 years ago, we'll never find out.

* especially as chances are, at least one duopoly would be involved in each market -- there would be four affiliates but two or three owners.

 

[Poledo]

The Pensacola ABC tower was actually in FL and the Mobile towers were short. I doubt many people watched the other market way back when.

 

[w9wi]

The Pensacola ABC tower was actually in FL and the Mobile towers were short. I doubt many people watched the other market way back when.

I think you may underestimate how willing people were to watch distant signals in the 1950s and 1960s. Remember that rooftop (and even tower) antennas were hardly unusual back then. Especially given the flat terrain in that area, I don't think it would be at all difficult to receive a Pensacola station 50 miles away in Mobile. Remember as well that most people had never seen cable -- and would happily tolerate a noisy and interference-laden picture that we would never tolerate today.

If the alternative was to spend something like $200 (in today's money) for a difficult-to-tune UHF converter & balky UHF antenna to pull in a station that might -- or might not -- be carrying your favorite CBS & NBC shows.. there's a pretty good chance Mr. Pensacola Resident would stick with his VHF antenna & watch WKRG & WALA.

 

[Poledo]

I still have those rooftop antennas. Once the stations were firmly setup around 30 miles outside of downtown that was the only way to get OTA TV in Pensacola. Rabbit ears just brought it an unbearable signal. Conditions are weird along the coast and TV reception OTA was not very easy up until the DTV launch. Constant tropo and the inability to get perfect line of sight through the pine trees probably caused most of the issues.

When I was inland, say in Dothan or Tallahassee we could get about 10 VHF stations from those rooftop yagis if you got the dang thing pointed just right. The cool thing about Mobile/Pen was that you didn't have a use for a rotor on your rooftop antenna. All stations were within like 5 degrees of each other.

 

[Louis_009]

I just heard alittle bit about DIRECTV and Sinclair are in very little talks right now at this point trying to get the deal done before Feb. 28th deadline That all I know at this point for now.

 

[Poledo]

Sinclair has never pulled stations from CATV and Sat for more than about 3 weeks that I can remember.
Actually loosing EASY access to the programming from Sinclair stations does not disturb me and shouldn't worry anyone. Those crawls on the TV screen are just a psychological smoke screen Sinclair is using to try to get someone... anyone... to pester Directv.

Since I really don't know shit, I'll throw this out to the experts reading. What percentage of DirecTV viewers would go through with cancelling their subscriptions and changing to another provider? For the sake of this theoretical possibility lets leave out the people that decide to "cut the cord" and go with OTA and the internet for their TV providers. My guess is less than 0.1%. My guess also implies that pulling Sinclair's stations from DirecTV hurts Sinclair more than DirecTV in terms of add revenue.


And Louis, we're almost neighbors... we only live like 3 hours away from each other and my family home is in the Tallahassee DMA about 1 hour north of you. Do you subscribe to DirecTV or do you have cable? If you have cable do they carry WJHG from Panama City down there in the Wakulla area? I know everyone north of the Georgia state line with cable gets WALB and due to WALB's significant viewing in all of SW GA I believe it should be carried on DirecTV and Dish, but as I remember the only Albany station available to satellite viewers in the Georgia half of the Tallahassee DMA is PBS/GPTV. It seems like only a few years ago that WALB was also on cable in Leon county, but the definition of a few years in my mind might be 25. Back in the ATSC/VHF days (circa 1990) I didn't even know Tallahassee had it's own ABC and NBC affiliates. I thought they got ABC from WMBB and NBC from WALB.

Doesn't Fox have something in place where they'll continue to provide Fox network programming even if Sinclair pulls one of their Fox stations off DirecTV? Do ABC, CBS, or NBC have anything like this? Could ABC, CBS, or NBC change the rules after the game starts and provide network programming to DirecTV if Sinclair pulls stations for more than a few days?

 

[Louis_009]

Im in Crawfordville and I have DIRECTV. I didnt know anything utill late monday when u started to talk about it. I also have OTA tv too from Tallahassee. I dont get GPTV from Albany on digital since they are run 10.5 KW digital power. Back in the day Yes I get GPTV and sometimes WMBB in Wakulla but now everything is OTA is alot diffent.

We do have a FOX station WTLH FOX 49 49.1 (CW) 49.2 and MeTV 49.3 own by New Age Media
ABC is on WTXL-DT ABC27 HD own by Calkins Media 27.1HD 27.2 (Bounce TV) 27.3 Weather Now

 

[Louis_009]

The one channel that DIRECTV doesnt carry on the Tallahassee's local channels is WCTV-DT2
My Network TV/This TV Should DIRECTV should add that to the list?

 

[Poledo]

Louis, can you pick up channel 24 OTA? It broadcast from a tower between Tally and Blountstown, perhaps the WFSU-TV tower... I can't recall. I think it's CW and it simulcast on one of channel 49's subs. I've never been able to pick up channel 24 from the Lake Seminole area and its always puzzled me. I can even pick up some Tally LPTV stations like the Christian Channel on 45, but no dice on full powered channel 24. I point my antenna to where channel 24 should be and it just starts pulling in Tampa and Sarasota. Either channel 24 has never really been on the air or it has a highly directional pattern or the tower must be as short as cell phone towers.

 

[Louis_009]

No WTLF 24.1 is on low power. They should have took that into a full power DT and put something else on rather than The CW. (While WTLH run the CW channel. I do get WVUP-DT 45.1 CTN OTA but that channel is also low power but kind of tricky. I think WTLF-DT is in Midway where the DT tower is at. WTLH and WTXL studios are in Midway Florida. WVUP and WCTV share the tower in Bradfordville.

 

[Poledo]

So WTLF-DT 24 doesn't reach your end of the market either? I guess they put the full power station on the air with low power just to secure "must carry" for the Tally CW which is in turn simulcast on WTLH 49.2(or.3?) for folks watching OTA. I believe the Tally DMA probably has a much higher percentage of the TV audience watching OTA than most markets due to all the college kids and the low income communities in the DMA including Gadsden county... making OTA signals a little more important.
I know WTLF-DT 24 signed on as a DT but I never understood why they didn't co-locate with the other TV stations or at least move when the whole DTV switch over was complete.. WTLF's COL is Tally so they don't have to city grade an outlying town like WTLH does with Bainbridge. WFSU owns there tower and they are over to the south west to protect adjacent channel WALB and they used to need that location to get their signal to Panama City before FSU got WFSG 56 on the air from the west side of Panama City Beach.

I wish Alan could chime in, but I've never seen him post on the TV board. He'd have all the answers from a local insiders point of view.

 

[Louis_009]

I know very little or some about Tallahassee's HD TV stations.

 

[Louis_009]

WTLH-FOX 49

49.1 FOX 49 HD
49.2 Tally CW
49.3 Me TV

WTWC-NBC 40

40.1 NBC 40 HD
40.2 Blank (fomer Cool Music TV
40.3 TCN (County Music Network


WTXL-ABC 27

27.1 WTXL-ABC27 HD
27.2 Bounce TV
27.3 ABC 27 Weather Now


WCTV-CBS 6

6.1-WCTV HD
6.2-WCTV-DT 2 My Network/This TV

WFSU-PBS

11.1 WFSU-HD
11.2 Florida Captial
11.3 Creative

 

[theformerwhammy1978]

My biggest problem with Sinclair is that in markets where they don't have a news department, such as Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point, NC... they only air network programming in HD, but all other shows are in SD. Heck, News 14 Carolina on ABC 45 is shown in 16:9 Widescreen as News 14 doesn't provide HD service. I would care more about this if they would upgrade to full HD. While watching the Oscars, they revert the picture to SD to show their crawl, and then back to HD once it is done.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

My biggest problem with Sinclair is that in markets where they don't have a news department, such as Greensboro, Winston-Salem, High Point, NC... they only air network programming in HD, but all other shows are in SD. Heck, News 14 Carolina on ABC 45 is shown in 16:9 Widescreen as News 14 doesn't provide HD service. I would care more about this if they would upgrade to full HD. While watching the Oscars, they revert the picture to SD to show their crawl, and then back to HD once it is done.

there's no need for them to go full HD with their monopoly on ABC

 

[Morgan Wick]

One more thought here: I've long believed that the bigger problem with ownership-cap deregulation isn't on the local level, but rather national.

Fortunately for you, if big station groups favored national consolidation over local consolidation you'd see more of them as flush up against the ownership cap as the network O&O station groups. My analysis suggests that Sinclair, Nexstar, and Raycom could probably trade the vast majority of their faux-duopoly stations between them and result in a situation that didn't violate ownership caps or duopoly rules.

 

[Poledo]

I forgot all about the Sinclair - DirecTV dispute. The crawls on TV stopped and this thread went dead. I just sorted through old articles on Google and found out that Sinclair and DirecTV had extended the existing contract.... humm, surprise, surprise... who could have seen that one coming?
The articles from Sinclair's POV indicate that the existing agreement has been extended because DirecTV came back to the negotiating table so Sinclair is playing nice while they continue talking, but suggest no firm price per sub has been reached. The articles from DirecTV's POV say that everything is settled, Sinclair stations won't disappear.... nothing to see here... move along.

So, the truth lies in the middle. Does anyone know what's really up? Know any more details than the articles in traditional news outlets provide?
Should we expect the crawls to come back in a matter of weeks or has a multi-year deal been reached?

How much do OTA stations usually get for retransmission? I know it depends on the networks and Sinclair is negotiating a package deal for close to 100 stations including many minor networks and indies that would not have any leverage without Sinclair corporate behind them, but in general, for a top 4 network, are we talking dollars or cents per month per subscriber?

In a related question, are there any non cluster owned indies in this county that have the content and viewership required to get retransmission fees instead of just being able to play the must carry card?