1 of 1- RadioActive
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Does Big Deal Mean Big Changes Coming To Some Buffalo Subcarriers?
If you watch television over the air, you’ve almost certainly tuned in channel 51, WPXJ, the ION TV outlet located near Buffalo. It used to be a low power station you could barely get here, but it won the repack lottery and now its digital signal into Toronto is one of the strongest in the city.
All of which brings me to a major deal that was announced on Wednesday. E.W. Scripps just bought all the ION stations in a deal worth a whopping $2.65 billion. Scripps already owns a major Buffalo network affiliate – WKBW, Channel 7 – so whether it will be allowed to keep 51 remains to be seen.
But here’s where it gets interesting. Scripps also owns a company called Katz TV, which provides a number of subcarriers across the U.S. Some of them are already on channel 7 – Grit, which shows war and western-themed movies, Laff, featuring old sitcoms and some comedy flicks, and Court TV Mystery, dedicated to crime documentaries.
But they also control Bounce, a Black-oriented network, which is currently on Nexstar-owned Channel 23. And Court TV, which is a subcarrier on the same company’s WIVB.
So what will happen to all those extra channels? Will they remain where they are or be absorbed by Channel 51? If so, where do the relatively lame channels that are currently there (a kids’ station and a host of shopping channels) go?
This is an intriguing development for OTA viewers, because if new owner Scripps takes these existing stations off of 4 & 23, they’ll have to be replaced by something else. What that is or if it happens remains to be seen. And then there’s the question of whether WKBW could start a separate newscast on channel 51, like WGRZ and WIVB do with channels 29 and 23. All of this could change, of course, if Scripps is forced to sell off WPXJ.
I’m betting most of us rarely watch channel 51 here. But stay tuned - there could be some new substations coming to your antenna soon. And chances are it will be on one of the strongest signals in town.
Scripps Buying Ion Media For $2.65 Billion
Katz TV Subcarrier Station List
- fybush
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Re: Does Big Deal Mean Big Changes Coming To Some Buffalo Subcarriers?
The FCC rules for a deal like this say that you can't have more than two full-power licenses under common ownership in any market, and that in markets that would have fewer than eight separate owners, you can't form a duopoly at all, unless you get a "failing station" waiver.
Buffalo currently has eight owners: TEGNA (WGRZ), Nexstar (WIVB/WNLO), Scripps (WKBW), WNYPBA (WNED), TCT (WNYB), Sinclair (WUTV/WNYO), Ion (WPXJ) and ITV (WBBZ). So the letter of the rules says Scripps can't buy WPXJ.
In theory, they could apply for a failing-station waiver. In practice, the trades are reporting that Ion and Scripps have a deal where 23 of the 71 Ion stations will be spun off to comply with ownership rules, and while it doesn't say so specifically, I'm sure WPXJ is among those 23.
But there's always a "but," and the but here is that they've lined up an unnamed buyer who will maintain the Ion affiliations on those 23 spinoff stations. My guess is that it will end up being a shared-services deal (like the one under which Sinclair manages WHAM-TV here in Rochester, and that WPXJ will still end up being effectively run by WKBW anyway.
- RadioActive
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Re: Does Big Deal Mean Big Changes Coming To Some Buffalo Subcarriers?
You're right, the article states that some of the IONs will be sold off to meet ownership-per-market restrictions and I suspected WPXJ might be one of them. And I came to the same conclusion about Scripps still calling the shots in any event.
I suspect Newsy will end up as a subcarrier in Buffalo somewhere. But we'll see. ION grew out of the old Home Shopping Network and still carries that programming. So that may not disappear. Would they lose some of what's there now or add more? There are already a ton of subcarriers on Channel 51. How many is too many before it starts affecting the main HD channel?
Either way, I'm guessing some changes are ahead, depending on the contracts Nexstar has for its own subcarriers. I asked Alan Pergament of The Buffalo News about this in an email and he said he'd be looking into it, but added - since the deal just happened - it's way too early to know what it all means.
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Thread Starter- fybush
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Re: Does Big Deal Mean Big Changes Coming To Some Buffalo Subcarriers?
Read this on thefly.com: "Katz today pays leasing fees to other broadcasters for multicast distribution. As Katz's current distribution contracts expire, its programming will be migrated to ION stations' digital subchannels."
- RadioActive
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Re: Does Big Deal Mean Big Changes Coming To Some Buffalo Subcarriers?
Thanks for that. I hadn't seen it. So the change may take time, but as I suspected, it's probably coming. The question: what goes from Channel 51, provided Scripps still has - let's call it "remote" control? And what does Nexstar use to replace the lost signals, if anything?
Ironically, Nexstar owns Antenna TV, which currently airs on Tegna's WGRZ. So could that be taken away from Channel 2 at some point? Lots of interesting questions, but it's early days.
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