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Archive for the ‘WTVJ Sale’ Category

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DOJ Kills Richmond, VA CBS-FOX Duopoly

In light of the DOJ involvment into the WTVJ-WPLG merger I thought this was interesting.

Sinclair Broadcasting made a move to buy WTVR, the CBS affiliate in Richmond, VA, from Raycom Communications while still owning WRLH, the FOX affiliate in the same market.

All was said and done until the DOJ rejected the deal last month. Sinclair says they were going to sell WRLH to Carma Broadcasting LLC to avoid owning two stations in the same market but DOJ still rejected them. I’m guessing here that WRLH and WTVR are in the top 4?

DOJ didn’t specify why they rejected the acquisition leaving Sinclair to guess that it might have something to do with their duopoly. Apparently DOJ can nix any deal without giving a reason.

found via Save WTVJ blog

WTVJ Sale Deal in Trouble

This article appeared on FTVLive today. It is true according to people involved and NBC executives have confirmed it.

NBC 6 Sale hits a snag:

“It appears that the WTVJ (NBC O&O Miami) sale maybe in trouble.
Insiders tell FTVLive that the Department of Justice has been in Miami and looked at the client lists for the two stations and there’s concern that Post Newsweek may have too much of the market and the deal could be in trouble.
If so, this is a big issue for the NBC-Local Media Group. They needed the money from the WTVJ  sale to cover budget misses. If the sale doesn’t go through, you could be looking at some more very deep cuts at the O&O’s”
The one bad side of it is that Dave Boyland told several people that the sale will still go through. It just may be delayed until February.

Formal Petition Against WTVJ Sale Filed

This from the Save WTVJ Blog

Miami attorney JB Harris announced today that he would file a formal petition with the FCC to stop the proposed sale of Miami television station WTVJ (NBC6) by owner NBC Universal to rival Post-Newsweek Stations, which owns and operates Miami’s WPLG (Channel 10).

The petition is being filed on behalf of a Coalition of Concerned Citizens for Competition and Fairness in Broadcast Journalism, headed by William McCormick, former President of the Fort Lauderdale NAACP.

The petition is 14 pages long!

I guess when someone said there was a grassroots effort to stop the merger they were not kidding.

We wish them success.

Press release for petition filing

Dan Gelber’s letter to the FCC

Rep. Dan Gelber, of Miami is on WTVJ’s side! He recently posted on his blog, a copy of the letter he wrote to the FCC, regarding the NBC6/PostNewsweek buy. You can read the full letter, here.

 

“Today, I forwarded my concerns to the FCC regarding the proposed purchase by WPLG Channel 10 of their rival WTVJ-NBC 6. While I appreciate that Florida’s tanking economy can impact all businesses –including media – the public’s interest in a vital and diverse press must be taken into account. As newspapers downsize, and television stations merge, the losers will be our citizens who will be shortchanged the critical information that informs and empowers them. Jefferson was right, “Information is the currency of Democracy.”

CBS4 Evening Executive Producer Resigns

Ozzie Martinez, the evening executive producer at CBS4, is resigning. He has been with WFOR for 5 years, and previously worked as an executive producer at WSVN. His last day is today, August 8th. No word if executive producer Stephanie Linton, will move up from the AM slot to the PM producing slot.
/Thank you, to all the people who left tips!/

update 3:25pm: A tipster says this story has two legs. They claim CBS4 was trying to hunt down the person who emailed Herald columnist Joan Fleischman about Ted Scouten’s phony homeless guy story in which a guy pretended to be homeless and got help from CBS4 Neighbors4Neighbors and a radio station before bing found out (see:CBS4 Dupe By Fake Homeless Man) And that management suspected Ozzie Martinez was the one who leaked it so they let him go telling employees he left to “travel”.

Update: This story doesn’t really add up since according to the official story the radio station were the ones who originally found out the guy was faking being homeless after a police officer and family called them. Then HOT105 called WFOR. It appears it wasn’t a super duper secret that no body was aware of so anyone at the radio station, CBS4 or elsewhere could have sent the info to the Herald.

If you know this to be false, i ask you kindly to e-mail me. Thank you!

update: the last part of this story about Ozzie being fired appears to be false. I’d like to apologize to Ozzie for the mishap it wasn’t intentional. No harm meant.

It appears my update yesterday is what actually happened and makes the most sense and I realised it better once I paid better attention to the facts.