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posted by martyb on Tuesday May 09 2017, @11:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the teaming-up dept.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-tribune-media-m-a-sinclair-idUSKBN1841HR

U.S. broadcaster Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc said on Monday it would buy Tribune Media Co, one of the largest U.S. television station operators, for about $3.9 billion cash and stock, and assume about $2.7 billion in debt.

[...] The announcement of the deal comes weeks after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission voted to reverse a 2016 decision that limits broadcasters owning stations serving no more than 39 percent of U.S. television households.

A combined Tribune and Sinclair could surpass this cap and face some regulatory challenges which could result in divestitures, analysts said.

Tribune Media. The newspaper assets were spun off years ago into Tribune Publishing, aka Tronc.

Sinclair Broadcast Group.

Related: Gannett Ends Pursuit of Rival Newspaper Publisher Tronc


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  • (Score: 2, Disagree) by VLM on Tuesday May 09 2017, @01:04PM (5 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 09 2017, @01:04PM (#506871)

    First of all some karma whoring links, no rickrolls I promise, list of affected stations.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribune_Broadcasting#Television_stations [wikipedia.org]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stations_owned_or_operated_by_Sinclair_Broadcast_Group#Station_affiliations [wikipedia.org]

    Secondly you'll note something interesting that all the stations are affiliated with different national networks. Fundamentally what we're talking about is a financial holding company that finances local network transmission hardware, not talking about content providers at all. This has nothing to do with FOX buying ABC or something. Local station ownership has nothing to do with station content ON TV. The FCC has legacy regulations based in the radio era where aside from talk radio and some syndicated programs, local ownership of RADIO stations is very important WRT control of content. But for TV, who financed the transmitter hardware is very abstract from who decides what some commie on a network TV program says. There is locally generated content most of which is awful and frankly as per viewership numbers, unwatched, so it doesn't matter. We are not talking about PBS where "Nova" only exists because the local Boston station funds it, it really doesn't matter who owns your local CBS affiliate.

    Thirdly there is multiculturalism or diversity in radio but TV, especially journalism, is purely left wing democrat, 95%+ membership in the D party, nothing but DNC propaganda outlet in the last election cycle, etc. The FCC can LARP that they're enforcing diversity but if every journalist in the country is a commie, then its not really diverse and you're not losing any voices by allowing consolidation. NBC and ABC are mouthpieces of the Democratic National Committee and emit identical propaganda. Ditto SJW themes and issues in prime time programming (I was going to call it fictional programming, but that applies equally well to "journalism" so ...). If two products are generic and indistinguishable then a merger will not silence any voices. I can assure you that the merger does not mean gays are going to disappear from reality TV shows, for example. The amount of poz will be constant (or its rate of increase will not drop) due to the merger.

    Fourthly (Forth Language-ly?) the list of stations is out of date, there was an auction like a week ago to sell off spectrum and close down legacy broadcasters. The days of putting up an antenna and getting 50 subcarrier stations are over, and you'll be lucky if you have 1/3 the number of OTA stations in about three years when the shutdowns are implemented. For example I live in an area where one of the local Sinclair stations is shutting down physical broadcast, then the remaining station is going to dump a subcarrier station (you know, the crappy secondary stations like "this tv") and the shut down station will appear as a subcarrier on the remaining station. Which will save some money, but realize that today is peak junk channel subcarriers... you'll never put up a OTA antenna and see as many extra junk channels as you see now. AND the trib owns a local station, so after the merge I think 2 of the 3 physical broadcast hardware stations will shut down, which means going from about 10 virtual channels to only about 4 or so, which is worse than it sounds because basically they have to dump all the junk channels except maybe one. My prediction would be they're ALL going except univision and the legacy main channels. So say good bye to all the crappy subcarrier channels that have sprung up, which is too bad. There were interesting channels developing. I actually watched something on COMET network just a couple months ago, and given how little TV I watch, that represents a lot.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @01:31PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @01:31PM (#506880)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @05:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @05:00PM (#506976)

    Well, since Comet is already owned by Sinclair I don't see them dumping the channel immediately.

  • (Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Tuesday May 09 2017, @08:12PM

    by i286NiNJA (2768) on Tuesday May 09 2017, @08:12PM (#507090)

    I've been inside sinclair's offices they're more than just a holding company. They talked about developing content management systems and I walked by an open door that had a news desk studio inside. Who knows what else was going on but I saw lots of datacenters and operation centers behind glass.

    I see how you get this impression but it's simply not true.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Tuesday May 09 2017, @10:50PM

    by butthurt (6141) on Tuesday May 09 2017, @10:50PM (#507172) Journal

    > But for TV, who financed the transmitter hardware is very abstract from who decides what some commie on a network TV program says.

    The owner of a television station decides what programmes are broadcast from it. It is unlikely that Sinclair will give air-time to communists:

    Opponents of the deal have cited examples like Sinclair’s hiring of Boris Epshteyn, a former spokesman for President Trump, as its chief political analyst and the on-air commentary of Mark Hyman, a former Sinclair executive who provides reliably conservative arguments on dozens of Sinclair stations.

    -- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/business/media/sinclair-tribune-media-sale.html [nytimes.com]

    Mark Hyman — a Sinclair executive and conservative commentator who appears on Sinclair stations — regularly criticized Clinton or highlighted positions favorable to Trump in his on-air commentaries.

    --
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-that-nations-largest-owner-of-tv-stations-helped-donald-trumps-campaign/2016/12/22/02924864-c7af-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html?utm_term=.d0310fc726fc [washingtonpost.com]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @11:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @11:39PM (#507190)

    there is multiculturalism or diversity in radio

    Around here, the FM band is mostly music with the occasional send-me-money preacher.

    The AM band is generally referred to as Right Wing Hate Radio.
    A station that hasn't yet surrendered its 3-letter callsign (as so many others have due to acquisitions/rebranding) is commonly called KKKFI for its spew.

    Now, if you go back a bunch of years, there was Air America.
    That's the -only- thing I can think of that was Liberal[1] in recent memory.
    ...with the exception of Pacifica, which has been Anti-Reactionary from its start in 1949.

    [1] Do make an attempt to use correct terminology.

    TV, especially journalism, is purely left wing democrat, 95%+ membership in the D party

    Doesn't matter. As butthurt (6141) has already noted in this (sub)thread, it's who OWNS the media outlets that counts.
    ...and let's be quite clear here: Liberals are Right Wingers; they are NOT Anti-Capitalist.
    If those talking heads start talking about collective ownership of the means of production by the workers -then- you can start talking about "Left/Right" without looking like a fool.

    nothing but DNC propaganda outlet in the last election cycle

    Wow. Just WOW.
    How could you possibly have missed Donnie Tiny Hands getting $5B of airtime, gratis?
    How could you possibly have missed CBS's CEO saying, "It [Trump's candidacy] may not be good for America, but it's damn[ed] good for CBS."

    Lamestream Media will put on whatever will make it the most profit.
    To think that they have deep political roots--especially of the non-Right/non-Authoritarian sort--is simply naive.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]