What if WLNE wasn't saved in 2011?

[TVCOOL]

I wondered if by early 2011 no one saved WLNE ABC6 from bankruptcy would it really go off the air or lose the ABC affiliated status?

 

[channel99]

I wondered if by early 2011 no one saved WLNE ABC6 from bankruptcy would it really go off the air or lose the ABC affiliated status?

Possibly. However WLWC would likely have picked up the ABC affiliation. If WLNE was off the air, the value of WLWC in the repack auction would have been much lower and it would probably still be on.

 

[TVCOOL]

ABC 28 with the CW on their .2 subchannel? And someone else buying WLNE off bankruptcy for a lower price and getting the Fox affiliation off WNAC and bumping My Network TV to 64?

 

[channel99]

ABC 28 with the CW on their .2 subchannel? And someone else buying WLNE off bankruptcy for a lower price and getting the Fox affiliation off WNAC and bumping My Network TV to 64?

There are so many possible permutations... If WLNE was off the air, WLWC would have had much more value as a broadcaster, and far less value in the upcoming spectrum auction. So Sinclair probably would not have sold WLWC to Michael Dell, who was only interested in the auction value. If Sinclair still owned WLWC, they probably could not have later purchased WJAR, which would have ended up with a different owner. And so it goes...

 

[TVCOOL]

Would both Boston and Providence merge into one TV Market be possible if WLNE went off the air?

 

[tripinva]

No.

- Trip

 

[Eli Polonsky]

Would both Boston and Providence merge into one TV Market be possible if WLNE went off the air?

I remember being a little kid in 1962 when Ch. 6 first came on the air (as WTEV), and they weren't one market before then.

 

[KML0224]

Hartford and New Haven were separate TV markets at one point. Amazing, huh?

Our ABC affiliate has nearly always been third in the market as a whole. Sound familiar? Although there were times when the station trying to stay out of third place was WVIT-TV (NBC) channel 30 of New Britain. They started catching up when Viacom bought the station and increased their power in the late 1970s.

WTNH-TV (ABC) channel 8 has always been based in New Haven. It wasn't pushed south by WMTW-TV (ABC) channel 8 of Poland Spring, ME, as New Haven's station was on first. I once wrote to WTNH-TV for an analog coverage map. Their staff said the Hamden transmitter site was not because of Maine or their old analog transmitter being on Mount Washington in New Hampshire.