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FCC approves Sinclair/Allbritton deal, 33/40 shutdown

I'd guess that's assuming ABC will allow Sinclair to move its affiliation. Not sure what the contract says, but it at least seems plausible that ABC would have to approve such a deal.
 
I'm just thinking out loud here, so take this for what it's worth!

Does anyone have any experience with how Sinclair runs its stations outside the Birmingham market? I just wonder if this purchase of ABC 33/40 is going to change the way they've operated their stations here for years and years. The programming on WTTO and WABM is cheap. The branding is cheap. The stations are operated cheap. Try to think of any shows that have consistently aired on either of those stations besides Maury, Jerry Springer, and The Andy Griffith Show. What are they doing to increase revenue? What are they doing to be relevant locally? Do they even care?

Maybe they're not changing the 33/40 name just to maintain familiarity among their audience. Seems logical enough. But ftballfan just made a good point. WABM is on digital channel 36, virtual channel 68, and a whole host of other positions on the dial depending on who your cable/satellite carrier is. So what station will those antenna viewers be looking for now? 33? 40? 36? 68? Good gracious. Unfortunately, for over-the-air viewers in Anniston and Tuscaloosa, they'll get nothing but darkness. So why keep a name that means nothing now? It just seems like Sinclair is saying that, to them, it costs too much money to change the logo, the branding, the website address, the fancy stickers on all their satellite trucks, etc., so just leave it and let the viewers deal with the confusion.

Sinclair bought Allbritton's TV portfolio so they could get WJLA, plain and simple. In the process, they inherited a station perennially running a distant second in Nielsen market #44. They've got to be looking at their return on investment with this. Which leads me to the next question I'm wondering: How long does Sinclair own this station before they start looking at ways to cut costs even more? Allbritton has likely been sinking upwards of a million dollars a year -- maybe more -- into the half-dozen personalities who have been with the station since its sign-on in 1996. And all that investment in six familiar faces has earned them a 3.6 rating, well behind WBRC's 5.1 (source: http://www.bizjournals.com/birmingham/blog/2014/07/top-of-the-list-birminghams-most-watched-tv.html).
So what do you do if you're Sinclair and you're operating Birmingham on the cheap? Hope for more severe weather to cover? Or start letting people go?

By the way -- if I'm LIN Media, I'm watching this all very carefully. Seems like a huge opportunity could be on the horizon for them to snag more viewers, and maybe even a well-known anchor or two. It would be the perfect complement to that fancy new studio and branding package they just rolled out.
 
What?! This is disgusting. James Spann, probably one of America's best meteorologists, coming out of this station, is probably not happy, losing WCFT/WJSU in the event of an emergency/tornado warning. This is not good for the Montgomery market. Is WBMA gone too? I cannot imagine ABC 33/40 being on a stupid subchannel of a MNTV station. That's Sinclair hard at work!

-crainbebo
 
From what I read in that article, ABC 33/40 will be on the main channel (68.1) while MNTV will move to 68.2. Maybe not much better, but not quite as bad.
 
There seems to be confusion depending on from which article has written the upcoming changes...so let me get this straight (or mostly straight...) WCFT and WJSU transmitters shut off, WABM becomes ABC33/40 (name and all) broadcasting on digital channel 36 (assuming the PSIP of 33 since low-power broadcaster WBMA is currently digital channel 40 and for all purposes will not change in any capacity). MyNetworkTV and related programming moves to WABM 33.2 (again assuming PSIP 33.2). I'm guessing channel '68' will go away. To recap, WABM/WBMA ABC33/40 [DT36] and myNetworkTV on WABM/WBMA-DT2.
 
crainbebo said:
What?! This is disgusting. James Spann, probably one of America's best meteorologists, coming out of this station, is probably not happy, losing WCFT/WJSU in the event of an emergency/tornado warning. This is not good for the Montgomery market. Is WBMA gone too? I cannot imagine ABC 33/40 being on a stupid subchannel of a MNTV station. That's Sinclair hard at work!

-crainbebo
Click to expand...

Not Montgomery. Birmingham.
 
@ evanschuck

I suppose you could...but why? They require two signals plus an LPTV and still can't put a reliable signal across the area. If not even any of the God-casters wanted to buy those signals, that tells you what they're worth.
 
Why couldn't they just move WCFT or WJSU to Birmingham, killing the need for the LPer?

-crainbebo
 
The LPTV station doesn't count against station ownership, which is why they're allowed to keep it.

James Spann has commented on the situation on his Google+ page and he basically says he expects little to change for the end user (viewer) unless you're OTA. Those people will have to do a re-scan of course to pick up the new channel assignments.

As far as how Sinclair runs things, I can offer some observations from the Mobile-Pensacola TV market, where Sinclair controls four TV stations. Sinclair owns outright WEAR-3 (ABC) and WFGX-35 (MNT). Deerfield Media owns WPMI-15 (NBC) and WJTC-44 (Ind.) but LMA's both to Sinclair. Of course with the new rules in place this agreement is grandfathered in.

Sinclair has made reasonable improvements to WEAR in the years I've lived here. Their set is modern and they have a decent roster of reporters, along with some popular long-lasting anchors. But that station primarily covers Pensacola so I don't watch it much. It's a little more low key and laid back in style than the Mobile news programs, IMHO. They run just one subchannel, 3.2 carries ZUUS Country (which I understand Birmingham just lost recently.)

WFGX is your typical My Network TV affiliate and is pretty indistinguishable from WABM except that WFGX also carries some This! TV programming in the mornings. It also has just one subchannel, which just came on this month with the Sony-backed getTV network. WFGX also carries a live 9pm edition of WEAR news, something they added in the last year or so.

WPMI is the perennial last place news station in this market but is the one I watch most because I think they have a good mix of personalities for such a small market. Most people watch Fox 10 or WKRG (CBS) because those are the legacy stations that people grew up with. Since the Sinclair LMA they've gone high def, gotten a new set and seen a roster of new up and coming reporters debut. Despite the last place showing, they have really put some emphasis on the news department here. One negative comment is this station has some sound issues that have never been fixed since the big HD rollout. The audio is dull and lacks clarity and sounds like it's being downsampled to 32 kHz, 8-bit. I've sent them comments on it in the past and it was fixed for about three days, then went back to how it is currently. Other than news I never watch so I never followed up. They only run one subchannel here, with 15.2 being a customized version of WeatherNation.

WJTC is this market's lone true independent station (marketed as "UTV 44") with a strong lineup of old and new syndicated programming during prime hours. They have recently begun airing live WPMI news at 6:30pm and 9pm on weekdays.

Overall, my impression is they run the stations as well as whatever network is attached to them. Our NBC and ABC affiliates are treated fairly well with WJTC and WFGX being a tier down but still not terrible. Certainly no worse than WABM or WTTO. WJTC does not run any subchannels at all, and carries all syndicated programming in HD.

There does seem to be some corner cutting evident, though. Like the sound issue at WPMI, and the poor chyron spelling and grammar apparent on their newscasts. And WJTC has been known to have some automation issues on the rare occasion, but other than that, no major problems that I can see.
 
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I wonder if the Heartland Network and the weather map will go to 68.3 and 68.4 respectively. I haven't heard anything about their fate.
 
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