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WHAM/WSYR/WXXA Ownership Changes?

N

NYNewsInsider

Guest
Looks like Providence Equity Partners is ready to unload their television holdings. According to the WSJ and Broadcasting & Cable, Nexstar, Cox and Sinclair will divide 24 stations currently owned by Newport Television.

Wonder who, if anyone, will get ownership of the New York station cluster of WHAM, WSYR and WXXA (along w/WIVT & WEMT)??? The WSJ article says that “The private-equity firm would be left with five stations, which it plans to sell in a separate deal later…” Could the NY cluster be the 5 stations they're looking to sell down the road?

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/ar...tar_Cox_Sinclair_Keen_On_Newport_Stations.php
 
Nexstar already owns in some markets where Newport does, such as Rochester, Jacksonville, and Little Rock. I'm betting those areas are among the five.

- Trip
 
There has talk recently about WHAM breaking off from the hub in Syracuse and returning master control back to Rochester -where it belongs. Maybe that's part of the deal.
 
WXXA's found a buyer - start up Shields Media - that has already announced plans to enter into a JSA/SSA with WTEN. Is this shameful or more smart given how Albany has been over-newsed for a market of its size for a while and the heard might stand to be thinned a teeny bit.

http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/Fox-affiliate-sold-new-role-with-WTEN-3741937.php
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/487861-Newport_Finds_Buyer_For_WXXA_Albany.php

As for WHAM, at this point I'd fear the latest reboot of SJL being probably the probable buyers; it makes sense with stations in Erie and Elmira.
 
I am surprised that Nexstar didn't get WXXA since they are a Newport station and since their purchase of WSYR, WWTI, and WETM is pending...and since they already have WROC in Rochester and WUTR in Utica. If they got WXXA, they would have stations in all of New York markets except for Buffalo and New York City.

Also, I wonder how things are going to pan out between Nexstar and the unions that represent employees at the Syracuse, Watertown, and Elmira stations. I believe NABET represents the stations in Syracuse and Watertown...and IBEW represents the Elmira station. Nextar is well-known to hate unions. Some years ago, they wound up busting the union (NABET Local 23) at WBRE/WYOU by promising the employees significant raises. From what I heard, they never got those promised raises.
 
Jefferson Ward said:
I am surprised that Nexstar didn't get WXXA since they are a Newport station and since their purchase of WSYR, WWTI, and WETM is pending...and since they already have WROC in Rochester and WUTR in Utica. If they got WXXA, they would have stations in all of New York markets except for Buffalo and New York City.
Click to expand...

I think WSYR and the sisters were appealing to Nexstar because they share one common master control facility. Other resources are also shared among stations connected by "the hub." If Nexstar didn't already have WROC, they probably would have taken WHAM as well.

WXXA, on the other hand, is a standalone facility. Even though Wikipedia's entry on WXXA claims master control is handled by Syracuse, I worked at WSYR-TV from 2005 to 2009. I do not recall ever seeing anything relating to WXXA in the master control hub, nor did WSYR have a direct fiber feed to share news video with WXXA. Of course, that could have changed in the last 3 years, but I wound find it odd that the connection would have been installed since then, when its absence went largely unnoticed (at least in the newsroom) for the many years it didn't exist. So, perhaps Nexstar wasn't keen on the idea of WXXA having its own master control facility and/or the prospect of building the fiber link to Syracuse.

The same Wikipedia entry claims that, as of April 2012, WXXA is the only Albany market TV station still doing local news in 4:3 SD. Everyone else is either doing widescreen or full HD. I can't confirm or refute that point, since I don't live in Albany. But this is true, perhaps the prospect of spending additional millions on HD upgrades was a factor that kept Nexstar away. Especially if the upgrades aren't needed just for news, but for master control as well.

The Wikipedia entry claims Nexstar "opted not to pursue the purchase of WXXA because it would then own too many stations in New York State." Again, sources cited, and I've never heard of a rule forbidding a single company from owning too many stations in a single state. Too many in one market, yes. Going above a certain percentage of audience nationally, sure. But too many stations in one state? Guess I either missed that day of my broadcast rules and regs college course or if it's a newer rule, I must have missed the FCC memo.

Either way, someone else bought WXXA, so it's all a moot point now. And with new owner forming a partnership with WTEN, sadly it wouldn't surprise me to see WXXA gutted, and to see its 10pm newscast produced by WTEN instead. Why else would they have an SSA/JSA?

So, the WXXA question is moot. The one question which still remains open is this: who's going to buy WHAM-TV?
 
"The one question which still remains open is this: who's going to buy WHAM-TV?"

That may deend on how soon the FCC issues its new rules on newspaper/TV cross-ownership outside the top 25 markets.

If the rules are loosened, the likely buyer will be Gannett. That company had to leave the Rochester market after the crossownership rules were tightened in the late 1970s--they had to sell WHEC-TV, which they had put on the air in 1953. They've wanted to come back to Rochester ever since. WHEC won't be ffor sale right away, but if WHAM-TV is, that will fit in well with the Gannett company's plans--there can be a lot of sharing of resources with Buffalo's WGRZ, which they've owned for years.

If those rules do NOT change right away, it's anyone's guess who'll buy. WHAM-TV is a very profitable operation and could even interest some of the big boys. It could be the hub of an upstate NY operation which might include WKBW-TV in Buffalo as well (currently a station that's probably available at a discount from troubled Granite Broadcasting) and under those circumstances, such a combo could conceivably even interest ABC. The Mouse likes to own its affiliates whenever possible, including smaller markets like Fresno and Raleigh-Durham, and upstate NY came through the latest recession in better shape than most regions of the country.
 
If Nexstar gets its hands on anyone in the Albany market, it'll be WTEN. The time when Young inevitably has to sell will be probably sooner than later and Nexstar isn't too keen on owning stand-alone Fox affiliates nowadays (their last ones were the ones that went indy in Evansville and Fort Wayne).

Given how Nexstar and Sinclair are the only companies that seem willing to buy stations lately, I wouldn't be shocked to see Granite fall into the same boat. Though both would be nightmares in Peoria (and Granite/Nexstar in Fort Wayne), it'd add WKBW to their now-huge New York/Pennsylvania group and I'm sure WTVH's SSA/JSA could move from 3 to 9 and that WIVT would be dumped for WBNG in a heartbeat.
 
jdb820 said:
and I'm sure WTVH's SSA/JSA could move from 3 to 9
Click to expand...

That would be pretty interesting if it were to happen... Barrington's done quite a bit of work building the "CNY Central" brand for channels 3 and 5 since the latter moved into the former's facility.

I'm actually expecting to see Nexstar partner up with Sinclair... not for a full JSA/SSA, but to have NewsChannel 9 produce a 10pm newscast for Fox 68. Almost, but not exactly, similar to the existing deal between Nexstar's WROC and Sinclair's WUHF in Rochester.

Right now, WSYR 9.2 has a live, 15-minute newscast at 10pm. It then repeats on tape three more times to fill the rest of the hour. When 9.2 becomes a Me-TV affiliate in September, what happens to that 10pm newscast? (I've actually been trying to contact management to find out... but the WSYR-TV GM is on vacation this week and no response yet from corporate.)

I think Nexstar will want to continue to have that 10pm newscast, but if the Me-TV affiliation deal stipulates it can't be on 9.2, they'll need somewhere to put it. Why not Fox 68? Of course, with the condition that it becomes a "real" 30- or 60-minute show, not just 15 minutes live followed by tape replays. Even if the ratings aren't great, there's very little or no additional expense -- everyone who'd be working on the 10pm newscast is already on-duty working on the 11pm newscast.

I think WSYR could get better numbers for 10pm news on Fox than they do on 9.2. Fox prime time has some decent lead-ins, while 9.2 doesn't have much of anything to bring in viewers and hand them over to that 10pm newscast. Maybe not enough to beat CW6 (which has had the 10pm timeslot all to itself for several years now) but I think it could still be a decent contender.
 
CNYRadio.com said:
So, perhaps Nexstar wasn't keen on the idea of WXXA having its own master control facility and/or the prospect of building the fiber link to Syracuse.
Click to expand...

They don't have the brain power to build any kind of fiber link/master control hub between the stations. The company does not have anyone smart enough to build something like that. As far as I know, all of their stations still have master control operators at each station...and that no Nexstar stations are "hubbed."
 
They don't have the brain power to build any kind of fiber link/master control hub between the stations. The company does not have anyone smart enough to build something like that. As far as I know, all of their stations still have master control operators at each station...and that no Nexstar stations are "hubbed."

And where I stand, that's a good thing.
 
therealjm12 said:
They don't have the brain power to build any kind of fiber link/master control hub between the stations. The company does not have anyone smart enough to build something like that. As far as I know, all of their stations still have master control operators at each station...and that no Nexstar stations are "hubbed."

And where I stand, that's a good thing.
Click to expand...


Actually, Nexstar hubs a number the master control operations of their stations in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas out of their KARK-TV facility in Little Rock. The Arkansas stations also share a statewide noon newscast produced out of KARK.

Also, the master control operations of KSAN and KLST in San Angelo, TX were moved to their Abilene stations.
 
I was not aware of any Nexstar stations having master control hubs. Thank you for the update. Maybe we will see the Pennsylvania and New York stations hubbed soon. For current employees, I hope that does not happen because hubbing could potentially result in loss of jobs.
 
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