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Sean Hannity is Rumored to go to Sinclair

Megatron said:
I don't believe the rumor that Bill O'Reilly is trying to get Sean Hannity to leave Fox News for Sinclair given that O'Reilly & Hannity don't like each other. I thought that Sean has a contract with Fox News until 2020.
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Also we need Fox News to confirm that Hannity is fired from the network. For now all of this is mainly speculation here by the leaders of Sinclair to hype up their talent Mark Hyman and Boris Epshteyn for now and also the complete closings of the mergers of Tribune, Bonten and Sinclair to go through.
 
http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/106009/news-rivals-wrong-in-attacking-sinclair/format/print

Update on the proposed Sinclair deal

Poor Sinclair. Its proposed $3.9 billion acquisition of Tribune is being attacked even before petitions to deny are due at the FCC. Several entities have asked the FCC to postpone the Aug. 7 deadline for petitions and subsequent pleadings, charging that the transfer application is lacking on details and public interest justification.

I suppose that this is just good lawyering. If you are against something, you use every legal means possible to stall or derail it.

The scrappy American Cable Association of small operators and Dish Network head the pack of preemptive protesters and that's to be expected. They hate the idea of a broadcaster like Sinclair gaining muscle mass and squeezing them harder for retransmission consent fees.

But what is surprising is the piling on by a couple of conservative news organizations — Newsmax and One America News (OAN) — that apparently believe that they are going to be outflanked by outsized Sinclair in the race to be the next Fox News Channel.

Newsmax, headed by journalist and Trump loyalist Christopher Ruddy, has a lively website that mostly aggregates news (some from dubious sources) for the conservative reader and a low-budget TV channel that is mostly a platform for rightwing pundits. It relies on a hodgepodge of outlets — OTT, broadcast subchannels, cable and satellite.

OAN is another FNC wannabe. Founded in 2013 by Robert Herring and his son Charles, it is mostly live news, albeit from the conservative perspective. As a news service, it fills a vacuum created when CNN became talky and Headline News turned into whatever the heck it is today.

Newsmax and OAN have some cause to be alarmed. Sinclair's David Smith talked about launching a cable news channel when he bought WJLA Washington and the other Allbritton stations in 2014.

Those plans never materialized. And this week in an interview in Variety, Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley confirmed that a cable news network is off the table. "Our strength is local news,” he said. “The market for national cable news is very well served.”

But if its deal with Tribune goes through, Sinclair won't need a cable network. It will have a national broadcasting platform that it could use to become the alternative conservative news brand.

As you have read here and elsewhere, it has already started down that road, pumping the conservative commentary of Mark Hyman and Boris Epshtyen and nationally produced features with a conservative slant in and around its local newscasts.

There has also been speculation that Sinclair might hire Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity — a move that could catapult them past Fox News, let alone Newsmax and OAN. I read those reports with much skepticism. Among other things, it would take millions of dollars a year to land just one of those two. To say the least, paying big for talent is not David Smith's style.

Newsmax and OAN are not the first businesses to use government regulatory processes to try to stymie competition. It's commonly done and one of the reasons to be wary of all regulations. They are subject to abuse.

ACA and Dish can throw around the words "public interest" all they want, but everybody knows that their only interest in the Sinclair-Tribune matter is stunting Sinclair's growth in every which way they can for their own private interest.

But there is something contemptible when companies driven by an anti-government, anti-regulation ideology like Newsmax and OAN do it. The word hypocritical comes to mind.

In making its case, Newsmax even tries to put a conservative gloss on its objections by suggesting that the national TV ownership cap that limits Sinclair's growth was conjured up by the Reagan administration "to protect the public against the concentration of media power that could endanger press freedom and media diversity."
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Interesting article, although I don't see any new issues brought up, or anything that could really prevent the FCC approval. People and groups can file all the comments they want. They rarely make a difference in FCC decisions.
 
I agree with TheBigA that filing with the FCC makes any difference whatsoever maybe every now and then fine for broadcast TV. But then again that has been few and far between compare to 80's or 90's where it seem like broadcast was fined a lot although it was just a slap on the wrist until boobgate then they went $350K fine and the Supreme Court threw out those fines.
 
Bonten deal has already been approved in late June. That bill isn't going to go anywhere just that congressmen getting his name in the press is all.
 
RadioPatrol said:
Update now MSNBC is named for having the top rated cable news/talk show for now with Rachel Maddow.
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And even though Maddow was on vacation last week, her hour was still #1.

As I've said, the show Fox has at 9PM is terrible. They need something better in that slot.

Having a bunch of people sitting around a table shooting the you-know-what is bad programming.
 
A worse show is Tucker Carlson. The formula is:

1. Tucker introduces a whacky guest.
2. The guest spouts nonsense while Tucker looks on quizzically.
3. Tucker shouts down the guest.

Totally predictable. They should have given Jesse Watters O'Reilly's slot. His weekend show is well done.
 
Was that the right link? That's a rundown of POTUS's news conference today, Hannity isn't mentioned.
 
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