Regional television markets

[doorknob60]

Newer TVs that have a Wifi connection might be able to upgrade, but older TVs will either need a converter box or be scrapped.  I own a few of each. 

That's my hope; my TV is internet-connected, albeit via ethernet since I feel it's faster/more reliable.  It's new enough to be smart but old enough to not be watching/listening to me.

Looks like it won't likely be possible.
https://www.soundandvision.com/content/will-2016-tvs-be-upgradeable-atsc-30

Sounds like it could theoretically be possible with both a software update plus a USB tuner dongle (most TVs have USB ports now) with the needed hardware to receive and decode the ATSC 3.0 signal. This solution would integrate with your normal TV's interface, and not be a separate device like a cable box. In practice, though, for most people the only option will likely be a separate converter box with an HDMI output, as I would not count on manufacturers providing support for all that on their older TV models.

[vdeane]

Canada is an example of what happens when media mergers go almost unchecked. Bell owns the largest commercial TV network, almost all of its affiliates, a second TV network (and most of its affiliates as well), many radio stations, and Canada's largest satellite TV company. Bell also is the primary phone company for eastern Canada and the secondary company for western Canada.

CBC is also in bed with the cable and satellite industry, to the point that they let several large cities (over 100k population) lose OTA CBC service during Canada's digital transition.

Definitely true.  If tvtv.ca is right, it appears Canada doesn't do sub-channels like we do here, so someone watching broadcast is only going to get a few networks, not the dozen(s) we get here.  From what I've read, they also don't have separate local/national news broadcasts, and "local" news production is far more centralized than in the US (Global in Montréal gets weather from Toronto, for example, which would be unheard of in a major metro area here).

Sounds like it could theoretically be possible with both a software update plus a USB tuner dongle (most TVs have USB ports now) with the needed hardware to receive and decode the ATSC 3.0 signal. This solution would integrate with your normal TV's interface, and not be a separate device like a cable box. In practice, though, for most people the only option will likely be a separate converter box with an HDMI output, as I would not count on manufacturers providing support for all that on their older TV models.

Could still lead to the "need to change input from 'TV' to 'USB' to watch TV" problem depending on how they'd implement it.  And, of course, entirely dependent on them deciding to avoid obsolescence.  And, since my TV's USB ports are on the side instead of the back, I'd have aesthetic concerns.

[bing101]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/australias-nine-tv-network-acquire-publisher-fairfax-31b-1129937

As in the United States the Ownership concentration issue is also at play like less voices in Australia.

See the Nine Network/Fairfax deal does have some resemblance to the Time Inc/Meredith deal here I the USA. Fairfax inc was once the biggest name in print media like Time Inc was in the USA though. In the case of Meredith they own TV Stations in certain part of the USA and Nine Network is a major Network  Down Under.

[ftballfan]

Canada is an example of what happens when media mergers go almost unchecked. Bell owns the largest commercial TV network, almost all of its affiliates, a second TV network (and most of its affiliates as well), many radio stations, and Canada's largest satellite TV company. Bell also is the primary phone company for eastern Canada and the secondary company for western Canada.

CBC is also in bed with the cable and satellite industry, to the point that they let several large cities (over 100k population) lose OTA CBC service during Canada's digital transition.

Definitely true.  If tvtv.ca is right, it appears Canada doesn't do sub-channels like we do here, so someone watching broadcast is only going to get a few networks, not the dozen(s) we get here.  From what I've read, they also don't have separate local/national news broadcasts, and "local" news production is far more centralized than in the US (Global in Montréal gets weather from Toronto, for example, which would be unheard of in a major metro area here).

The following cities (all over 100k+) lost over-the-air CBC service (either English or French) during Canada's digital transition (with 2016 population in parentheses):
Lost both English and French
London, Ontario (383,822)
Saskatoon, Sasketchewan (246,376)
Kitchener, Ontario (233,222)
Sudbury, Ontario (161,531)
Kelowna, British Columbia (127,380)
Kingston, Ontario (123,798) [had a privately owned CBC affiliate that switched affiliation to CTV]
Thunder Bay, Ontario (107,909) [had a privately owned CBC affiliate that switched affiliation to CTV]
Red Deer, Alberta (100,408) [Red Deer is the largest non-suburban city in Canada with no local TV of any kind]
Lost French (but still has English)
Calgary, Alberta (1,239,220) [third largest city in all of Canada by population, but French is way down on most spoken languages (behind Chinese, Tagalog, Punjabi, and Spanish)]
Halifax, Nova Scotia (403,131)
Windsor, Ontario (217,188)
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador (108,860)
Lost English (but still has French)
Note: most of these areas are nearly monolingually French to the point that none of these cities have a commercial English station (CBC Radio does operate English stations in all four of these cities)
Quebec City, Quebec (531,902)
Sherbrooke, Quebec (161,323)
Saguenay, Quebec (145,949)
Trois-Rivieres, Quebec (134,413)

[bing101]

https://www.fiercevideo.com/video/cbs-launching-local-news-streaming-services


https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/219870/cbs-intros-cbsn-local-streaming-services/


CBSN to launch a local News edition for its o&o's on apps. This affects stations owned by CBS.

[bing101]

https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/219866/cordillera-looking-exit-tv-business/

An update Cordillera is considering to exit the TV Station business.

[bing101]

https://kcsm.org/tv/index.php



https://krcb.org/connect-to-krcb/krcb-north-bay-public-media-acquires-kcsm-tv


KCSM-TV San Mateo is now known as KPJK San Francisco. Its owner by KRCB Public Media.

[SP Cook]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-tribune-sinclair-merger-20180809-story.html

And the Sinclair - Tribune merger is off and Sinclair is getting sued.  Tribune believed this was an above board deal where the two companies would merge and then sell off, in compliance with the law, the stations it could not own (more than one of the Big 4 in the same market).  Sinclair, of course, played its usual game of telling the FCC it was selling the stations to its own dummy corporations and continue to run them.  The FCC finally said no and sent the thing to a hearing.

It appears that the FCC finally balked at Sinclair's criminality because this involves bigger markets.  It has let Sinclair by with this in smaller markets for two decades.  The next step, IMHO, is to enforce the law equally everywhere.

[hbelkins]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-tribune-sinclair-merger-20180809-story.html

And the Sinclair - Tribune merger is off and Sinclair is getting sued.  Tribune believed this was an above board deal where the two companies would merge and then sell off, in compliance with the law, the stations it could not own (more than one of the Big 4 in the same market).  Sinclair, of course, played its usual game of telling the FCC it was selling the stations to its own dummy corporations and continue to run them.  The FCC finally said no and sent the thing to a hearing.

It appears that the FCC finally balked at Sinclair's criminality because this involves bigger markets.  It has let Sinclair by with this in smaller markets for two decades.  The next step, IMHO, is to enforce the law equally everywhere.

WLEX-TV (Channel 18 in Lexington) is up for sale. In Lexington, WDKY (Channel 56) is the Fox affiliate, owned by Sinclair. They have a partnership with WKYT (Channel 27), which is owned by Gray, to produce a 10 p.m. newscast and also some morning newscasts. Many of the anchors and reporters are shared with Channel 27, and they use stories produced by WKYT and WYMT (Hazard) reporters.

I was at a meeting yesterday with a group of WYMT employees, who were discussing the situation. They were speculating that Sinclair would buy WLEX and then move the newscast production from WKYT to their new corporate partners. And they were also speculating that the WKYT folks would love that, because they have to produce separate graphics for the WDKY and WKYT newscasts.

[bing101]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/disney-ceo-bob-iger-talks-underway-sale-fox-regional-sports-networks-222917027.html


Update Disney is in talks to sell Fox Sports Local editions. This deal affects Fox Sports West in Los Angeles.

[SP Cook]

WLEX-TV (Channel 18 in Lexington) is up for sale. In Lexington, WDKY (Channel 56) is the Fox affiliate, owned by Sinclair. They have a partnership with WKYT (Channel 27), which is owned by Gray, to produce a 10 p.m. newscast and also some morning newscasts. Many of the anchors and reporters are shared with Channel 27, and they use stories produced by WKYT and WYMT (Hazard) reporters.

I was at a meeting yesterday with a group of WYMT employees, who were discussing the situation. They were speculating that Sinclair would buy WLEX and then move the newscast production from WKYT to their new corporate partners. And they were also speculating that the WKYT folks would love that, because they have to produce separate graphics for the WDKY and WKYT newscasts.

Oh, that is exactly what will happen.  The only question is which dummy corporation Sinclair will use to violate the law.  I don't know which I prefer.  Cunningham has the advantage of its owner being dead for the last 15 years; then you have Howard Strick Holdings, which "belongs" to conservative commentator Armstrong Williams, who is paid a whole $10,000/year fro the use of his name (and skin color) by Sinclair.  There are plenty of others. 

As to news, this is what will happen.  Sinclair will simply produce the same news program for broadcast in the slots provided by NBC and Fox, with no real differences between the two. 

[bing101]

https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/220720/gray-selling-wswg-albany-ga-marquee/
Gray is Selling WSWG in Albany, GA. This is part of the Gray/Raycom Talks.

[bing101]

https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/220734/pai-white-house-called-sinclair-tribune/
Yes the President's cabinet had a role in the Sinclair talks.

[bugo]

Sinclair is a propaganda arm of the Republican Party. It is the American version of the Soviet era Pravda newspaper.

No, that would be CNN or Media Matters.  They're more in line with the propaganda that Pravda presents.

Pravda? Oh, the irony. The current dipshit and his Republican enablers are the ones with ties to the former Soviet Union and the KGB.

[bugo]

This weather map suggests that Scott County, Arkansas was once in the Tulsa market. Was this the case?

[bugo]

I never thought I'd see SP Cook criticizing Sinclair.

[Sctvhound]

I never thought I'd see SP Cook criticizing Sinclair.

Sinclair is easy to criticize even if they didn't have the political opinions they had. All of Sinclair's stations have the same graphics package, down to the American flag in the background. They all carry the same programs and news features every newscast.

[ftballfan]

This weather map suggests that Scott County, Arkansas was once in the Tulsa market. Was this the case?

Into the 1970s, the Fort Smith market was just Fort Smith and had only one relevant station [KFSM] (with Fayetteville falling in the Tulsa market and Rogers and Bentonville falling in the Joplin-Pittsburg market [hence why the Joplin-Pittsburg area is still called the Four States]).

Cox still carries KTUL (the ABC affiliate in Tulsa) in both Fort Smith and Fayetteville.

[SP Cook]

I never thought I'd see SP Cook criticizing Sinclair.

Well you did.  And while it just came up off-topic here, it has been the case on some other media boards I post on for a long time. 

And their politics (which, BTW, I do not believe are sincerely held) are totally irrelevant to the discussion.  In a free society, the LAW should apply equally to everybody.  Whether I, or you, or anybody else, agrees with their politics or not. 

The LAW says, that the "big 4" stations in each town (with small exceptions that do not apply) should belong to four different and competitive companies.  That is the LAW.  It should be enforced, against Republicans, democrats, or whatever, equally, or it should be changed. 

[bing101]

https://nypost.com/2018/08/20/sooks-nexstar-may-be-next-to-chase-tribune-media-merger/


Update there are rumors that Nexstar Television the Owners of KRON 4 in San Francisco is wanting to have a merger with Tribune.

[bing101]

https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/220885/gray-makes-deals-sell-9-stations/


Gray Sells 9 stations.

[US71]

https://tvnewscheck.com/article/top-news/220885/gray-makes-deals-sell-9-stations/


Gray Sells 9 stations.

They own KY3 and KSPR in Springfield Missouri (since 2015)

[RobbieL2415]

The Disney-Fox merger basically screws over all the regional baseball markets.  A majority of them were FoxSports branded, including the YES Network (basically dba FoxSports New York).  ESPN used to run syndicated sports programming on local OTA stations under the ESPNPlus moniker until they got smart and started signing contracts with collegiate sports conferences to make their own CATV stations.  Also wonder how this will affect current MLB intra-region syndication (network-produced games airing OTA) if ESPN Regional Entertainment will still allow them.

[SP Cook]

As a part of the deal, Disney (ESPN) is not allowed to keep the Fox Sports regional sports networks.  It has 90 days (theoretically, it will probably get stretched out a bit) to sell the group to somebody. 

Possible buyers include Comcast (which owns NBC and the NBC branded regional sports networks), AT&T (which owns DirecTV and the AT&T branded regional sports networks),  Liberty Media (which started some of the regional sports networks decades ago under the "Prime Sports" brand name, and which owns Formula One car racing and the Braves), the Charter cable company, and the Discovery Channel group.  The Yankees and the Reds have the right to buy their channels in the event of a sale, the Yankees probably will.

Really has nothing to do with ESPN Plus (now ESPN Regional Television) or what games might end up on local stations at all. 

The bad deal, for consumers, would be for Disney to break up the network and sell the individual outlets piece by piece.

[ftballfan]

As a part of the deal, Disney (ESPN) is not allowed to keep the Fox Sports regional sports networks.  It has 90 days (theoretically, it will probably get stretched out a bit) to sell the group to somebody. 

Possible buyers include Comcast (which owns NBC and the NBC branded regional sports networks), AT&T (which owns DirecTV and the AT&T branded regional sports networks),  Liberty Media (which started some of the regional sports networks decades ago under the "Prime Sports" brand name, and which owns Formula One car racing and the Braves), the Charter cable company, and the Discovery Channel group.  The Yankees and the Reds have the right to buy their channels in the event of a sale, the Yankees probably will.

Really has nothing to do with ESPN Plus (now ESPN Regional Television) or what games might end up on local stations at all. 

The bad deal, for consumers, would be for Disney to break up the network and sell the individual outlets piece by piece.

I could see the Fox Sports RSN's get split based on dominant cable provider in each area