#now lets see how much of this i can actually remember lma

[the-other-art-blog]

Little Women saga - Parallelisms (Part 2): Jo-Laurie-Amy & Nan-Tom-Dora

A while ago (like months ago, sorry) I talked about how similar Jo-Laurie and Nan-Tom relationships are. I do not believe that neither Laurie nor Tom actually loved those women. And both Jo and Nan have very maternal feelings towards these men. They were fixations. Really, they were very damaging obsessions that were ruining these men’s lives. And the women, to their misfortune, had to deal with them. Plus, they both had more maternal feelings than anything else towards those men.

I made 2 posts about it (Chapter 41, Chapter 41: Laurie). It is one of my favorite chapters in the whole saga. And you can see that Laurie’s head is a mess. It’s actually very frustrating to see him going back and forth between accepting that he doesn’t love Jo and admitting his feelings for Amy. When you think he finally got it, he goes back to Jo. But in the process, it’s pretty clear he does NOT love Jo or that he ever did. Why? Well, if he really loved her as much as he claimed, then why did he fight so hard to remember her? And why did Amy get in his mind without even trying?

Louisa describes the moments when Laurie/Tom get over Jo and Nan in a pretty similar way.

The moment Laurie gets away from Jo, those feelings start to disappear. Sure, he spent months wailing and feeling sorry for himself, but that was an act. Once he starts working on his opera, he realizes Jo is no the heroine he once thought. He even claims,

That girl is a torment!

At the same time, he begins dreaming of another heroine that casually looks a lot like Amy and that is surrounded by things he experienced with her in Nice. The only reason why he kept forcing himself to think of Jo was because he thought it would be betrayal to forget her. 

But alas he lets her go:

Laurie thought that the task of forgetting his love for Jo would absorb all his powers for years, but to his great surprise he discovered it grew easier every day. He refused to believe it at first, got angry with himself, and couldn’t understand it, but these hearts of ours are curious and contrary things, and time and nature work their will in spite of us. Laurie’s heart wouldn’t ache.

Fastforward 25 years and Tom is going through basically the same.

Tom and Demi go away. At first Tom is still fixated on Nan and even tries to make her jealous through Dora. However, his plan backfires because he ended up enjoying Dora’s company quite a bit. She turned out to be a lovely girl who made him very happy.

LMA even describes Tom’s change in quite a similar way,

surprised to find that his heart did not ache a bit.

And just like Laurie, Tom is so excited to tell Jo he’s engaged. He’s delighted, that boy is on a cloud! (I’m imagining Jo listening to Tom and thinking “I’ve been here before”)

I spoke about Laurie’s proposals before. It’s so different how chaotic Laurie is with Jo. Meanwhile, his relationship with Amy runs smoothly. It brings him such peace. And the same thing happens with Tom,

'I declare, I feel as if a weight was off me...

Can you imagine? After all those years of chasing the wrong girl, the stress, the anxiety. Then finally, they are truly in love and those girls love them back! That must feel amazing!

Jo offers her opinion (she does know a thing or two about a boy’s fancy):

It is my opinion, Tom, that you love Dora, or are on the way to it; for in all these years I've never seen you look or speak about Nan as you do about Dora. Opposition has made you obstinately cling to her till accident has shown you a more attractive girl. Now, I think you had better take the old love for a friend, the new one for a sweetheart, and in due time, if the sentiment is genuine, marry her.'

Here’s the thing about these fancies, it’s not only about the girl they want to marry. It is about their entire life. Tom was throwing away his future just to be near Nan. He hated medicine. Once he gets over Nan, he goes into business and loves it. This is how important it is to choose your partner wisely, because they can lift you up or drown you.

Tom is basically Laurie 2.0 in this regard. They are so similar that Laurie gives him advice later on.

and Mr Laurie gave him some wise advice upon the astonishing gymnastic feats the human heart can perform, and be all the better for it if it only held fast to the balancing-pole of truth and common sense.

(I want to write a one-shot of this conversation)

But in the meantime, here it is. Finally, I finished this post that has been on my drafts since forever.

Little Women saga- Parallelisms (Part 1): Jo-Laurie & Nan-Tom

[angisam]

Challenge Zimtober

Day 17. Home

Day 1

Previous <—> Next

Here we go. the beginning of the future arc and the incredible experience that Dib had

Oko belong to @owosa and thanks for tranlated it <3

Dib awoke to the strident sound of an alarm. His ship's alarm to be precise.

Confused and with a racing heart, the first thing he did was fall out of bed in a mess of blankets as he desperately tried to get to his feet. When he managed to free himself, he went running to navigation to see what happened. The red lights and the sound of the alarm didn't help reduce his panic.

-"... Holy shit" It was the only thing he could express when he saw the dark mass with an aura of distortion around him. A wormhole was in front of him and his ship was being drawn straight into the center of it.

This was normally not a problem, many ships were designed to use those as shortcuts to travel between the universe. Too bad his ship wasn't one of those ships designed for hyperspace travel.

He knew there was no turning back, the hole was going to suck him in and the chances of the ship not disintegrating were particularly slim but he wasn't going to give up that easily, HA! of course not. He took the controls of the ship and tried to divert its course by turning the power of the thrusters to the maximum. He only managed to win just two seconds before the hole swallowed him completely.

...

The ship stood still, dancing through space aimlessly, slowly but surely moving away from the wormhole where it had emerged just seconds before. It had all happened too fast to even think other than that for some reason, his ship endured the journey.

Dib was too stunned to congratulate himself on a good job building the ship, so he just sat in his seat about to throw up. It was an indescribable sensation,as he got back to his senses.

We can guess that molecularly separating to rejoin was not a pleasant thing.

He sincerely thought that possibly he had some fused organ.

He approached the commands to find out where the hell he had appeared only to discover that he had run out of power. Well, all was not lost, he simply had to wait for the energy to recharge again…

Oh well, nothing to do anymore. He went back to his small room at the back of the ship and got himself into bed. He had no control over the ship until it reloaded. If he was going to die, let him do it well rested.

Upon awakening, the lights were on which meant that the ship simply reactivated itself. He didn't know what else to do but take pride in building a ship capable of withstanding hyperspace travel without even realizing it. Hah!

He once again went to navigation to locate in which coordinates he was now.

….

The universe would have to be laughing at him, he was in the damn Milky Way fortuitously close to the solar system, HIS solar system. He literally could have ended up anywhere in the HUGE universe and he had to end up right in the last place where he vowed not to return.

He was just about to change course when he stopped short. Perhaps he could take this opportunity to pay someone a visit. The thought of it left a bitter feeling in him for a bit and made him feel guilty to the point of simply wanting to go ahead with his plan to turn around, but his sister's words echoed in his memories and he resisted the urge. He breathed in and out strongly setting course for planet Earth.

The trip was short and he was easily able to locate the area of ​​the planet where he wanted to land. Everything was going pretty normal until he entered the exosphere and noticed that something was wrong. The atmospheric stabilizer was not responding, SHIT. Which meant that the appropriate speed had to be manually managed to penetrate the ozone layer and well the problem with that was the possibility of bouncing if it did not reach the appropriate speed or that the ship would scorch a bit if it was overshot and the option of go back was no longer available. Well, surely the ship would survive although the landing would be… well rough at best. The decision was made by putting on whatever seatbelt the pilot's seat had.

Sure enough, the landing was horrible but at least it survived the impact and he hoped the ship had suffered no more than he had in mind. Although the biggest surprise was received when he got off the ship.

Before hitting the ground, the only thing he saw was

dense vegetation, so the last thing Dib expected was an immense empty city under that vegetation. Actually that was a lie, the LAST thing he expected to find was a pack of dogs surrounding his ship.

-"....wtf" he said simply, his mind still trying to connect the loose ends. A huge black Great Dane that was almost as high as Dib approached the human and cocked his head to one side as a clear gesture for him to follow in the indicated direction. He stepped back in distrust. Several dogs approached Dib and began to direct him, some chewing on his clothes and others at him.

They pushed insistently with their heads for him to follow.

"Hey! Stop! What are you doing?! " For every step the dogs tried to take with Dib, he took another two backwards, the absurd struggle going on for a while until the Great Dane looked closely into his eyes as a warning growl escaped his throat. He raised his hands in somewhat uncomfortable surrender to have this beast so close to him. After the canine victory, the Great Dane turned around, resuming his march.

It was there that he discovered PAK.

...wait what?!

A closer look made him realize that all the dogs had a PAK. An Irken PAK.

Oh no, it couldn't be true, the earth had been invaded by the irken armada and they used dogs to dominate humans. Dogs, human’s great and only weakness!. HOW COULD THIS HAVE HAPPENED?!

WAIT. Perhaps there were other simple explanations for this, what about humans? Where were them? It was flat daylight and the street was empty…. They were slaves working in mines drawing resources! And this city was just abandoned! It must be that! If not, why were there dogs with PAKS in an empty city?.

They made him get into a vehicle, leaving the dogs behind except the Great Dane, who sat next to him. During the whole journey he did not move an ear. Dib forgot what it was like to be uncomfortable in a quiet room with someone else, even if he was with this...thing, and spent the whole way fiddling with his hands in an attempt to focus his attention on something.

The fragrant sunlight was replaced by the grim, artificial light from the tunnel they entered. They didn't know where they were taking him but he would be prepared for anything.

The car stopped and without him being able to argue much, Dib was taken out of there, being accompanied by the dog-thing to a large room where there was… By Jupiter. In front of him was an immense irken Control Brain.

His knees trembled and he fell to the ground as he slammed a fist on the ground dramatically.

DAMMIT! THEY DID. THEY CONQUERED EARTH! He was only a couple of years off the planet and they took advantage of his absence to conquer it without him knowing.

Without him noticing, several mechanical arms began to scan him and when they finished, a small holographic figure appeared in front of Dib, that due to his small dramatic act, did not immediately took notice.

"...OKO ?!" And then it all made sense. "YOU HAVE INVADED THE PLANET WITH YOUR DOGS?!"

Oko's hologram tilted her head slightly. "Invading Was Never My Duty." she answered calmly with the same monotonous tone that he remembered.

"Oh... Then why are there ghost towns ?!" There was a moment of silence in which Oko tried to understand what the human in front of her was referring to.

“I Detected A Ship With Various Irkens Elements Approaching The Planet. I Ordered The Humas To Stay On Their Home To Protect Them When I Calculated Where You Would Crash.”

“… Oh well, that also made a lot of sense”…wait a second “Why should humans even listen to you?!"

"Because It Is My Duty" The hologram sensed the growing confusion of the human and there was a movement behind her. In one of the screens of the room, several images began to appear, which left the man stunned.

Happy walking families, futuristic structures, vast plains of vegetation among much more.

"No way... it’s that...the Earth?"

“Yes, Human-Dib. I've Been Taking Care Of It For More Than 7 Centuries.”

“Wha- Wait!…. 7 centuries?! How is it possible?!, it can't be true, I-... "

“I win~"

A spark ran through his

shoulder and he quickly turned his neck towards the voice he had just heard. There she was, leaning on his shoulder, half lying in the air. Alma.

"ALMA?!" In an instant, her face full of pride and glee was replaced by sheer disbelief

"DIB?!"

Dib also began to make faces of utter disbelief as she tried to utter words that she didn’t know how to choose or could express. He looked at Oko while pointing at Alma, but she made no sign of understanding what was wrong with him. He went back to the Floating Alma and she just shrugged.

After the day he was having so far and for the sake of his sanity, he just shut up and let it go for now.

"Your Arrival Is Certainly Unexpected And Clearly Interesting. This May Be An Important Chance To Convince Your Paternal Unit To Stop Exploiting Resources Of The Planet In An Unsustainable Way.”

Was his father still alive?! Well, at this point he didn’t know why he continued to be surprised.

The talk with “Control Brain” Oko had been intense, he still had too much to assimilate, too ...he still didn't know if all this could even be real. Either way, Dib was following a dog named BFT 222750 who was taking him to his new apartment until a few days passed and Oko determined that everything was in order with him.

Great, he was going to be quarantined.

"So ... can you see me?" Alma had appeared next to Dib, moving in the air in time with him. There was also that.

"Are you real?" he asked.

"I think so, are you?” Dib pinched his nose with his fingers and sighed.

"I don't know, I'm still trying to get out of the shock of all this to think about it...” Dib looked at the specter of his friend. She looked just how he remembered her.

"You are dead?”

"Did you expect me to be alive after more than 700 years?" He could hear a slight laugh coming from the ghost and for a second, the stress of the whole crazy day was gone.

"Welcome home, Dib"

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Little Women Review, chapter 5: Being Neighbourly

Or the chapter in which Jo “nurses” Teddy.

“I like adventures and I’m going to find some” - Jo basically describing herself in a sentence.

Jo is always doing something for Beth.

LMA takes advantage of Jo’s snow shoveling to make a comparison between the two houses, the March’s and the Laurence’s; again, the permanent contrast between lifeless richness and colorful, lively “poverty”.

Laurie’s loneliness and sadness in this chapter is moving. Nice note, that Mr. Brooke actually took care of reading aloud for him when he was sick, even books Mr. Laurence wouldn’t read to his grandson. I think we don’t usually pay that much attention, maybe because it is always between lines, to the friendship between Laurie and Mr. Brooke. Another two little notes: Laurie has his own private little parlor (boy, that family was rich. I cannot imagine how rich Fred Vaughn actually was if the Laurences seemed middle class compared to them) and his room is a mess.

I should make a list of the flowers that appear in the book. Anyways, Beth sends the kittens, Meg sends her blanc menage and Amy sends... red geraniums. Remember when the red geraniums were practically a theme in Little Women 1994? Red geraniums are the flowers Fritz gives Jo; Jo puts a red geranium on her novel when she finishes it; Hannah throws red geranium petals on Beth’s things after her death (maybe a hint about the love of the sister who was far from home and could not come in time?).

“He’s very kind, though he does not look so; and he lets me do what I like pretty much” Let’s end the “Mr. Laurence was an ogre train right here. He probably wasn’t the best of parental figures, he was a bit rough, moody even, but he did actually try his best (I’m looking at your, Masterpiece miniseries).

“We haven’t been here a great while” So, did the Marches live elsewhere before? I didn’t remember this tidbit.

“Mr. Brooke, my tutor, doesn’t stay here” So, did he live in some kind of pension, like the house Jo lived in in New York?

I had totally forgotten the story about Aunt March’s suitor. Wow, that’s hilarious to imagine. Some people actually are desperate for money. I have a love-hate relationship with Aunt March’s parrot. Don’t ask.

“She clapped her hands and pranced, as she always did when specially delighted” Jo at the library. There are reasons why we love this girl. I’m just trying to imagine the first time she did that in front of Fritz. He most certainly thought “this is my soulmate”.

"I'm sure now that I shouldn't be afraid of him, for he's got kind eyes, though his mouth is grim, and he looks as if he had a tremendous will of his own. He isn't as handsome as my grandfather, but I like him."

"Thank you, ma'am," said a gruff voice behind her, and there, to her great dismay, stood old Mr. Laurence. (...) A second look showed her that the living eyes, under the bushy eyebrows, were kinder even than the painted ones, and there was a sly twinkle in them, which lessened her fear a good deal. The gruff voice was gruffer than ever, as the old gentleman said abruptly, after the dreadful pause, "So you're not afraid of me, hey?"

So, basically Mr. Laurence is a mixture of Dumbledore with Hagrid. Guess it was from him that Laurie inherited the lively eyes.

Jo loved her own grandfather as much as she loved uncle March. I need a fic about these two when they were young...

“She’s right; the lad is lonely. I’ll see what these little girls can do for him.” SEE?

And Mr. Laurence gets upset about the piano playing. I repeat what I said elsewhere. His daughter, who loved to play, died young; his son, who married a pianist, and loved the instrument, died young too. The man cannot but tie pianos with mourning and disgrace.

And here go two mentions of Laurie being half Italian BECAUSE IT IS RELEVANT, I’M LOOKING AT YOU, ADAPTATIONS.

And Beth and Jo close the chapter presenting what will happen in the next with the Pilgrim’s Progress comparison.

[franeridart]

Can we also talk about how Bakugou went from "weird haired guy" to "Kirishima. Change of plans". Oh man I didn't realize how much I missed the anime *cries*

BOI CAN’T WE I just spent the whole morning crying over seeing the moment Bakugou recognizes Kirishima as an equal animated nbd at all r i p me - I think this might be the first time Bakugou calls anyone by their name, actually, and I just!!! that’s because Bakugou heard Kirishima’s words and recognized him as a good partner and a worthy hero and someone whom he could respect and I’m gonna be grateful for chapter 133 for the insight on this for the rest of my always I !!!!!! have feelings g a h

Anon said:ok ok ok ok but but listen what about BAKGOU AND OCHAKO they are the most popular couple and the most cutest , i think you should try to draw them once i would love love to see this !!! of course just if you want hehe thanx

Ahhh sorry anon but I really don’t ship that - I mean, it’s true that I ship Bakugou with a bunch of people aside from my main two, but if they’re part of Deku’s group you can fairly assume they’re not between my Bakugou ships? And I only romantically ship Uraraka with Deku, Tsuyu and Iida anyway so! You’re probably not gonna see any romantic baku/ocha from me, sorry o

Anon said:Since we know what Bakugou’s parents are like, what do you think Kirishima’s parents are like?

I have a similar ask somewhere asking about Kaminari’s parents as well, so I guess I’ll answer both here?? As a general rule I don’t really like making headcanons over stuff I’m sure the manga will give me in the future, so I can’t say I’ve thought about this too much - there are a few things I work under the assumption of while drawing, like for example I’m taking for granted they both have at least functional families, considering Aizawa personally visited their homes to ask their guardians about allowing them back to school, and if anything had been weird he would have noticed

I like to think Kaminari got his quirk straight from one of his two parents with no mixing happening, and got the Kaminari surname from them as well, but that’s all I ever allowed myself to settle on as far as Kami’s family goes, everything else changes based on what I need for the current scenario I’m thinking about… I do often end back on him being an only child, though - in the same way depending on how angst or lighthearted I want it to be my ideas for Kirishima’s family change a lot, but generally I think I mostly fall back on the idea of him having a big family? In a scenario like that his parents are kind and love him a lot, but having many children and needing to split their attention on all of them might cause them to overlook him a little (it would explain his obsession with being flashy, for me) then again, who knows? I don’t know how canon you can consider the infos SMASH gives, but in one of the strips Kiri mentions working part-time, and the fact that he doesn’t seem to have problems with money kinda makes me believe he might be independent from his family like that (unless he’s a rich kid, also very entertaining as a possiblity)

I’ve seen a lot of headcanons floating around about both of these guys’ families and possibly being related to villains, that would be cool too, though I’m not sure how much I believe it

I’m sorry this ended up being little to no useful at all lol as I said, I just shift between scenarios a lot - imagine settling on one and growing attached and then having to let it go once Hori proves it wrong, that’d be terrible for me

Anon said:Oh my god…we had a black cat called nitro !! He was super affectionate and high strung. Thanks for reminding me of him. great art as always !!!

You’re!!! the second person telling me they have/had a cat called that!!!! °O° is it a popular name for cats? I just called her that for Baku’s quirk tbh hahaha

Anon said:I would L.O.V.E to do a BNHA art collab with you my lord!

BOI THAT’S FLATTERING!!!!!! I’ve never done collabs before though, so I dunno if I’m comfortable with this? I’ll !!! have to think about it!

Anon said:Not only is your art adorable but how much you babble on in the tags is absolutely precious, you’re like a sunshine who always brightens up the day just by being yourself!

Way to make me blush anon oh my g o d!!!!!! I’m??? glad I can make you smile with my incoherent blabbering??? It’s super nice to know because tbh I just have way too much to say about everything hahaha (read: I dunno how to shut up. ever. rip)

Anon said:I just wanted to say your asks posts and doodles and literally just your whole blog in general brightens up my day so much no matter how sucky it’s been. I had a rough day today but the first thing I saw when I got on tumblr was one of your bakugou drawings and it made me smile when nothing else that day did and I just wanted you to know that. Also you seem like one of the most honest and heartwarming people ever. I hope you have a good weekend. ❤️

gODS what’s up with you guys trying so hard to make me a smiling and blushing mess here aaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!! thank?? you???? I’m really, really, really happy I could make you smile!!! That’s the reason why I post my stuff to begin with, knowing I could help you even just a little bit means a lot!!!

Anon said:I’m really sorry if I reposted anything!!!!! Its truly out of habit….😌 But really, I’m sorry. (By the way, your art is amazing!!)

Thank you!! And as long as you took down whatever you reposted, your apology is more than accepted! Thank you for being understanding! But that kind of habit is something you should really grow out of, anon - for most artists, if they wanted their art on other websites they would post it themselves, and as long as it’s about sharing it here on tumblr a reblog is more than good enough! It’s nice of you to want to share my things, and I’m happy you like my stuff enough to want more people to see it, but since I don’t have accounts anywhere else on the internet I don’t really want my stuff there either - a link back to the original post would suffice if all you want is share, wouldn’t it? 

About this, thank you so much to all the super nice people telling me they’re sorry about my stuff being reposted! There’s a lot of you and posting all the asks here would make this post insanely long, but know that I read all of them and I appreciate every word! To those mentioning they do tell people to take my stuff down when they notice it being reposted, thank you so so so so much, and to those worrying I might stop posting, for now that’s still not going to happen - I might reduce the amount of stuff I post for specific fandoms or ships, but I love it all too much and I love sharing my love for them too much to just stop. And thank you for all the nice words and compliments too, you’re all so kind to me !!!!

Anon said:I don’t know if you’re familiar with Dave and Buster’s (it’s a big arcade/restaurant for mainly adults) but I went the other day and all I could think about was “holy shit, Kuroo, Bokuto, and Terushima would have the time of their lives here” anyway, just thought I’d share that with you since I know you ship them as well cx

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! we don’t have those in Italy so I can’t say I am, but this sounds interesting and if it’s bo kuro and teru I’m always up for hearing more! What kind of place is it? How does it work?? *O*

Anon said:Not a question or anything but I just found your blog and it is so nice??? Like all your art is amazing and you’ve made bakushimanari my ot3 and you bakusquad doodles are just perfect too. Just thank you for existing and your art and ideas just give me life. That’s all

THANK YOU OH MY GODS!!!!!!!!!! I’m so so so happy you like my squad stuff?? Lately they’re the most entertaining thing to draw tbh, I’m glad there’s actually people who like all the silliness hahaha I wish you the best weekend, anon, I know this ask just made mine, tbh!!

Anon said:LMAO when did Allen strip I don’t remember that

It’s in an extra! God I can’t remember what they were talking about so I can’t find it, I’ve been trying to since I got this ask (if??? anyone knows??? that’d be much appreciated???) but anyway they were hosting something? It might have been a character poll or something similar but I’m not sure, and Allen was The Host™ and at some point he started stripping and talking about added prices for it and if I remember right Reever and/or Johnny might have started crying for his forever lost and now non-existent innocence (was that a pun? possibly)

Anon said:OMG!!! I get so excited every time I see you posted something and now you just !!! uploaded !!!! all !!!! these !!!! BAKUGOU !!!! BIRTHDAY !!!!! COMICS !!!! AND !!!! I !!!!! AM !!!!! SO !!!! HAPPY !!!!!! (and they are all so adorable!!)

I’M GLAD YOU LIKED THEM HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!! Every time I post so much all together I always worry it’s too much haha I’m sorry for clogging all your dashboards now and again rip

Anon said:I was so excited this chapter of bnha because I thought we’d finally learn Kirishima, my babies, backstory but then we didn’t and now I’m sad (im still holding out for him having met/seen Bakugou in middle school for some reason and being inspired or something).

That’s tbh a good headcanon I’ve seen around now and again, and until Horikoshi will finally stop holding back all the Kiri infos you!!! keep on doing your thing!!!! he for sure already knew of him because everyone did thanks to the sludge incident, so why the heck not 

(I can’t say I share the hc though, since until they fought together during the USJ attack Kirishima did think of Bakugou’s quirk as Everything He Ever Wanted™, but he didn’t seem to be much into Bakugou himself? I dunno I dunno Kiri’s very gay and got around to sticking to Bakugou like glue in something like fifteen chapters I can’t say we saw much of how he used to think of him before deciding he wanted to marry him lmao)

Anon said:I love Kirishima so much it’s genuinely confusing, like this boy is literally sunshine and I want him to be happy with his explody bf. The latest chapters gave me life because he is shining and I want the world to love him like I love him. Your art of him is beautiful and the best thing ever.

BOY THANK YOU!!!! I’m glad I can do him justice in your opinion? He’s SO MUCH and SO BRIGHT !!!!!!!!!! It’s kind of hard, making him just as good as he is in canon, but that’s cause he’s perfect how is he that perfect how does he even do that I 100% share all of your confusion anon when did I even fall this hard for that child

Anon said:I’m most into the voltron fandom tonight so if I followed every blog that was suggested I would be burried in more discourse than I can handle lmao so I will just try to dig through tags to find weeks

……that’s really one messy fandom you decided to stick with, anon, I admire your strength - but!!! as far as ship weeks go, since the voltron fandom is pretty huge maybe there might be a blog dedicated specifically to letting you know when fandom events are supposed to happen! You should try digging around for that!!! 

[feedbaylenny]

I’ve avoided writing much about Sinclair Broadcast Group trying to buy Tribune Media because I’ve been busy and I don’t want to jinx any possibility the merger will fall through.

But there has been some news, and the biggest for a local TV market could be Miami/Fort Lauderdale (of course!).

You’ll remember, one of the biggest, nastiest TV station groups has been trying to buy another biggie. (Click here for the official Federal Communications Commission docket.)

Of course, I’m referring to Sinclair Broadcast Group doing everything it can to spread its conservative information campaign to most of the U.S. that the company doesn’t already reach.

One week ago, TVNewsCheck‘s Harry Jessell noted,

“For nearly a year, Sinclair has been screwing around, working every angle in its grim determination to hang on to every Tribune station it could in the face of FCC ownership caps and Justice Department antitrust limits.”

But the deal announced in May, 2017, still hasn’t happened.

To follow through, it would need government approval: from the Justice Department for antitrust worries and the FCC to approve ownership limits. (And Sinclair may have already gotten “help” from FCC chairman Ajit Pai, who was selected by President Trump. Pai is now under investigation by his own agency’s inspector general. Keep reading.)

Ajit Pai (Wikipedia)

The $3.9 billion deal would still require a number of stations to be sold. The questions partially responsible for holding things up were how many, and in which cities? About six weeks ago, I explained TV ownership limits are very complicated, with four rules in play: 1. national TV ownership, 2. local TV multiple ownership, 3. the number of independently owned “media voices” – 4. and at least one of the stations is not ranked among the top four stations in the DMA (that’s the “designated market area” or city, and ranking based on audience share), and at least eight independently owned TV stations would remain in the market after the proposed combination.

Plus, there have been literally thousands of complaints from activists who know how important this is. Click here to see 4,497 total FCC filings since July 5, 2017, including 891 in the past 30 days. THANK YOU if your name is on the list! Keep reading for directions on how to say no.

Now, click here to see some of the “33 concurrently filed applications on FCC Form 315 that seek the Commission’s consent to a transaction,” back in July, 2017, and what the companies consider “Public interest benefits of the transaction.” You’ll soon know better if you actually believe there are public interest benefits! You’ll also notice the companies fighting for every last station they could, to grow even larger.

On April 24, The Wall Street Journal reported Sinclair “reached deals to sell nearly two dozen television stations as it works to get regulators to sign off on its purchase of Tribune.”

Sinclair said it’ll spin off 23 stations in 18 markets – some owned by Sinclair and others by Tribune.

Also on April 24, Deadline magazine reported, “Sinclair expects the transactions for the station sales to close the same day the Tribune deal is approved, and now estimates it all will be wrapped up by June.”

Folks, that’s next month!

So let’s take a look at the “List of stations to be divested,” filed with the FCC in April. Click here for the complete 138 pages.

These are the stations currently owned by Sinclair that would be divested only if the merger goes through…

and these are the stations currently owned by Tribune.

So now we know who is expected to own the stations a Sinclair-Tribune combination would not be allowed to keep. Unfortunately, it’s not as clear as the charts above that list call letters and cities.

First, the official licensee could have a different name but we know we’re dealing with stations owned by Sinclair and Tribune.

More importantly and suspiciously is the last column, called Buyer. That’s because Sinclair has been the king of using shell companies to get around ownership rules. These corporations are either owned by the Smith family that owns Sinclair, or others that let Sinclair program them through local marketing agreements. Sinclair doesn’t technically own all those stations, but operates them as if they do.

So let’s take a look.

Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation is the most controversial. It calls itself “an independent television broadcast company that, together with its subsidiaries, owns and/or operates 20 television stations in 18 markets across the United States.”

First, notice “owns and/or operates.”

As for independent, Wednesday, Forbes magazine (not a liberal publication) put out an article called “Meet the Billionaire Clan Behind the Media Outlet Liberals Love To Hate” and it described Sinclair’s owners and their ties to Cunningham.

“The Smith family, which includes brothers David, Robert, Frederick, J. Duncan and a flurry of family trusts, is worth a combined $1.2 billion, Forbes estimates, based on the family members’ ownership of stock in publicly traded Sinclair Broadcasting, share sales over the past 15 years, dividends and some private assets,” it read.

“Revenues have increased 281% over the last decade to $2.7 billion in 2017, while Sinclair’s share price has increased 367% over the same period, pushing its market capitalization up to a recent $3 billion. All of this growth has occurred under the control and oversight of David Smith, 67, the chairman and former CEO of the company, as well as the son of the company’s founder Julian Sinclair Smith,” it continued.

Jessell of TVNewsCheck reported, “Its financials are consolidated with Sinclair’s in its SEC filings and earnings reports.”

Forbes quoted Daniel Kurnos, an analyst at Benchmark Capital, as saying, “Sinclair plays some of the hardest ball of anyone,” from acquiring stations to negotiating advertisement pricing and retransmission fees, which are some of the highest in the business.

SIDEBAR: Wednesday, The TV Answer Man Phillip Swann reported PlayStation Vue removed Sinclair-owned local stations affiliated with Big 4 networks from its streaming lineup without an explanation. Just Tuesday, subscribers got an e-mail that live channels would be replaced May 1 (that day) with an On-Demand version.

Sinclair said it pulled the stations and blamed “Sony (for) failing to comply with certain contractual provisions.” It didn’t elaborate but urged Sony subscribers to consider other video distributor options, including Sony competitor YouTube TV.

Sony hasn’t commented.

The Baltimore Sun reports, “Sony describes PlayStation Vue as a live streaming TV service for up to five devices at once that offers sports, news and other programs along with premium channels and a cloud DVR.”

BACK TO THE STORY: Under David Smith, who wouldn’t comment for the article, Sinclair went from three cities – Baltimore, Pittsburgh and Columbus – to what it is today.

Sinclair today, without Tribune

“To ‘purely make money’ in a scale-oriented business, David bought up as many broadcast stations as possible. First he concentrated on secondary markets, like Memphis, St. Louis and San Antonio, where operation costs were cheaper than in places like New York or Chicago.

“‘I believed that certain things were going to happen in the television industry, the most important being consolidation,’” David told Forbes in 1996.

So much for public service!

But then came the controversial Cunningham, arguably rigging the system.

“In the 1990s, the company pioneered a technique to circumvent an FCC rule limiting ownership of more than one TV station per metro area. David’s mother, Carolyn Smith, started another business, Cunningham Broadcasting. Following Carolyn’s death in 2012, most of the ownership of Cunningham Broadcasting shifted to a family trust, which is included in the overall Smith family valuation.”

So Cunningham really isn’t independent, as its website claims!

Known as “Glencairn, Ltd. prior to 2002,” it got into some trouble back in 1998. In July of that year, Broadcasting & Cable magazine reported,

PUSH pushing FCC over Sinclair/Glencairn

“The Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is raising questions at the FCC about whether Sinclair Broadcasting is exercising control over a minority-headed TV group with which it has struck a series of local marketing agreements (LMAs).

“In a July 1 filing at the FCC, Rainbow/PUSH said it plans to study whether the LMA deal between Sinclair’s KABB(TV) San Antonio and Glencairn’s KRRT(TV) Kerrville, Tex., violates the commission’s prohibition against common ownership of two local stations. (The rules were more strict then.)

“‘Rainbow/PUSH has not had an opportunity to fully research this matter, and thus preserves here the question of whether Glencaim is the alter ego of Sinclair,’ the group told the FCC.”

More than three years later, in Dec., 2001, Broadcasting & Cable was finally able to report the decision.

FCC fines Sinclair for Glencairn control

“Sinclair Broadcasting exercised illegal control of business partner Glencairn Ltd., the FCC found Monday after three years of investigating the companies’ relationship.

“Each company was fined $40,000 but escaped tougher sanction sought by civil rights groups-a government rejection of Sinclair’s request to buy 14 stations from Sullivan Broadcasting.

“The commission’s three Republicans judged that the companies were liable for misinterpreting FCC policies, but found they did not intentionally mislead the agency about compliance.

“Democratic Commissioner Michael Copps wanted the FCC to pursue a tougher sanction and voted to designate the station sales for hearing in front of an administrative law judge.

“Sinclair has repeatedly ‘stretched the limits’ of FCC ownership rules, he said.”

http://cunninghambroadcasting.com/about-us/

Back to the Forbes article, last year, Cunningham paid Sinclair more than $120 million for running its stations. Also, Cunningham admits its treasurer and chief financial officer, Lisa Asher, worked as Sinclair’s assistant controller before moving over in 2002.

So we know Cunningham, set to buy Tribune stations in Dallas and Houston, appears to be a shell company, and we can make bets who will operate and control it if the Sinclair-Tribune deal ever comes to fruition.

But there’s a lot more evidence.

Cunningham is headquartered near Sinclair in Maryland, which is very convenient since

“Cunningham Broadcasting owns the FCC broadcast licenses and operates through various management agreements with Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc. WNUV-TV in Baltimore, Maryland; WTTE-TV in Columbus, Ohio; WMYA-TV in Anderson, South Carolina; WRGT-TV in Dayton, Ohio; WVAH-TV in Charleston, West Virginia; WDBB-TV in Bessemer, Alabama; WBSF-TV in Flint, Michigan; WGTU-TV in Traverse City, Michigan; KBVU-TV in Eureka, California; KCVU-TV in Chico-Redding, California; WEMT-TV in Greeneville, Tennessee; WPFO-TV in Portland, Maine; WYDO-TV in Greenville, North Carolina; and KRNV-TV & KENV-TV in Reno, Nevada.”

Looking at its list of stations — something the Fox Television Stations Group never posted on its own website despite me calling them out for it here, here, here, here (so far in no particular order, although I may have missed a couple), and my favorite, here — you may realize Sinclair recently bought Bonten Media Group (Disclosure: I used to be Digital Media Manager at the former Bonten’s WCYB but left before the sale.) but Cunningham bought the stations Bonten operated. Notice those stations listed on the website have no websites of their own. And I’ll get back to Fox later. I’ll bet they can’t wait!

Another dead giveaway is that Cunningham is based at 2000 W. 41st Street, Baltimore MD 21211 and coincidentally, Sinclair flagship WBFF-45 (Fox affiliate) has the same address!

But not just WBFF.

So is WNUV-54 (CW affiliate), which says it’s “owned and operated by Cunningham Broadcasting Corporation and receives certain services from an affiliation of Sinclair Broadcast Group.”

(Sinclair, the corporation, is based in nearby Hunt Valley, MD.)

But that’s not all, folks!

There’s still WUTV-24 (MyNetworkTV affiliate), with the same look as the other websites, which says it’s “a SBG Television affiliate owned and operated by Deerfield Media, Inc and receives certain services from an affiliation of Sinclair Broadcast Group.”

Deerfield, with apparently no website of its own (so see Wikipedia’s take), is another of the shell companies, formed in 2012 but not involved in the proposed Tribune transaction.

How’d that happen?

In Nov., 2012, TVNewsCheck reported,

“For years (before 2012), Fox Television Stations’ WUTB Baltimore gave Fox considerable leverage in its sometime contentious affiliation negotiations with Sinclair Broadcast Group.

“If Sinclair ever got out of line, Fox could threaten to yank its affiliation from Sinclair’s flagship station WBFF Baltimore and move it to WUTB.

“But last May, Fox relinquished that leverage when it extended its affiliation with WBFF and 18 other Sinclair stations for five years starting Jan. 1, 2013, and granted Sinclair an option to buy WUTB.

“Sinclair is now exercising that option by assigning it to a third party, Deerfield LLC.

“According to an FCC filing seeking approval of the deal, Deerfield is buying WUTB and allowing Sinclair to run the MNT affiliate through joint sales and shared services agreements.

“The deal gives Sinclair a virtual triopoly in Baltimore where it also operates CW affiliate WNUV, which is owned by Cunningham Broadcasting, Sinclair’s longtime duopoly partner that is controlled by trusts for the children of Sinclair’s controlling shareholders.”

But Sinclair and Deerfield were already in cahoots.

Months earlier, in July, 2012, MarketWatch reported Sinclair intended

“to buy six television stations from Newport Television LLC for $412.5 million and agreed to buy Bay Television Inc. for $40 million. … Sinclair also agreed to sell the license assets of its San Antonio station KMYS and its WSTR station in Cincinnati to Deerfield Media Inc. Sinclair will also assign Deerfield the right to buy the license assets of WPMI and WJTC in the Mobile/Pensacola market, after which Sinclair will provide sales and other non-programming services to each of these four stations under shared services and joint sales agreements.”

The next day, TVNewsCheck reported,

“Sinclair Broadcast is getting six stations in five markets for $412.5 million: — Cincinnati (DMA 35) — WKRC (CBS) — San Antonio, Texas (DMA 36) — WOAI (NBC) — Harrisburg-Lancaster (DMA 41) — WHP (CBS) — Mobile, Ala.-Pensacola, Fla. (DMA 60) — WPMI (NBC) and WJTC (Ind.) — Wichita, Kan. (DMA 67) — KSAS (Fox)

“Sinclair is also acquiring Newport’s rights to operate third-party duopoly stations in Harrisburg, Pa. (CW affiliate WLYH), and Wichita, Kan. (MNT affiliate KMTW). Those rights include options to buy the stations. …

“While Sinclair was buying, it was also selling.

“It said it would spin off its CW affiliate in San Antonio (KMYS) and its MNT affiliate in Cincinnati (WSTR) to Deerfield Media Inc., presumably to comply with the FCC ownership limits. In the deal, Deerfield also picks up an option to buy two of the stations it is acquiring from Newport, WPMI-WJTC Mobile, Ala.-Pensacola, Fla.

“Sinclair said it intends to ‘provide sales and other non-programming services to each of these four stations pursuant to shared services and joint sales agreements.’

“In yet another deal, Sinclair said it is buying WTTA Tampa-St. Petersburg from Bay Television Inc. for $40 million. Since 1998, Sinclair has operated WTTA pursuant to a local marketing agreement.”

And that was the start of the Deerfield connection!

Even more telling is that Deerfield’s WUTV moved from Channel 24 (24.1) to 45.2, which is a subchannel of Sinclair’s WBFF! The website doesn’t tell why. It just explains to viewers watching over the air with an antenna how to rescan, but the reason is really the FCC’s recent spectrum auction.

With three stations realistically (unless you prefer names over control), Sinclair was in a great position to sell off some spectrum space and make even more money. This website shows Channel 24 will go off the air and the owner (or operator?) will get $122,912,964 for its spectrum.

SIDEBAR: The purpose of the reverse auction is “broadcaster licensees bid (low price) to relinquish spectrum usage rights.” Then, “the FCC will reauthorize and relicense the facilities of the remaining broadcast television stations that receive new channel assignments in the repacking” so the remaining stations are close together and that will happen in waves because there are so many. And finally the FCC will sell that spectrum to commercial wireless service providers (high price) to expand mobile broadband services. (That has all happened already except for stations moving to their new assignments.)

It looks like stations sold $10 billion of spectrum and wireless providers bought $19 billion, so the FCC made money.

BACK TO OUR STORY: So for those of you in Baltimore, do you need to reach the newsroom, are you looking for a job (Would they hire me for my investigative work?), or interested in inspecting the FCC public file of any of the three stations? All the information is the same, from address to phone numbers, and we already established three stations in one city are not allowed!

To the next perspective buyer…

HSH stands for Howard Stirk Holdings, and is owned by conservative journalist, entrepreneur and producer Armstrong Williams. Wikipedia described Howard Stirk Holdings as “a media company affiliated with Sinclair Broadcasting that has made numerous television station purchases.”

Don’t believe it? It’s somewhat true, after a controversial beginning.

In a Broadcasting & Cable article on the news section of HSH’s website dated July, 2013, and was written in first-person, Williams mentions suing the FCC for not reviewing

“its broadcast ownership rules every four years. …

“This is one of the reasons why my company, Howard Stirk Holdings, LLC (HSH), has sued the FCC. As an African American licensee of two television stations, I believe that by refusing to complete its 2010 quadrennial review, the FCC has unlawfully withheld taking an action required by Congress and the law, and thus is arbitrarily and capriciously retaining burdensome regulations that are no longer in the public interest.”

Williams was angry the FCC “adopted a new rule restricting joint sales agreements (JSAs) between television broadcasters in the same market.”

He claimed, “It effectively slams the door shut on an important gateway to enhancing localism, viewpoint diversity, and opportunities in broadcast television ownership by minorities and underrepresented groups.”

But there’s more.

“Armstrong Williams talked about the impact of a March 31, 2014, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling that television station owners cannot control more than one station in the same local market via the use of joint sales agreements and shared services agreements, often known as “sidecar” deals. Mr. Armstrong, who owns two TV stations through a sidecar agreement with Sinclair Broadcasting, argued that the ruling could cause minority owners, and small station owners more generally, to be forced out of existence.”

That’s from a C-SPAN article on the news section of HSH’s website dated April, 2014, where you can watch the whole interview.

A Washington Times article from a few weeks earlier, on the same News page as the others on HSH’s website, said,

“The FCC, backed by the Obama administration Justice Department, argues that broadcasters have used the shared-service, or “sidecar,” arrangements to circumvent long-standing rules against owning multiple television stations in a single market, allowing them to raise ad prices and weaken market competition.”

Williams and his supporters suggest a more partisan motive: his conservative views.

In fact, it seems every article in HSH’s News section mentions Sinclair or those joint sales agreements designed to get by without abiding by the FCC’s ownership rules!

In other words, he was a great partner for Sinclair since he’s a minority (but without the views of most other minorities) and they’re both making money by using each other!

But I found it eventually gets somewhat better.

http://www.hsh.media/search-openings/

Howard Stirk Holdings’ website’s Content Creation page calls it “a leading broadcast television company” but have you heard of it before starting this article? The page doesn’t say how many TV stations it owns or operates on its own. Even the page to search job openings offers no links (except the top navigation which doesn’t say much), and that includes its Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

Something was obviously wrong, so I turned to the FCC and found no entities or file names from before 2012.

Then I went to Wikipedia and read Williams helped Sinclair buy Barrington Broadcasting in late 2013, so he got stations in Flint, MI, and Myrtle Beach, SC, but they remain operated by Sinclair. They’re actually his only stations run by Sinclair and remember, at the time, his company was accused of “acting as a ‘sidecar’ of Sinclair to skirt FCC ownership rules.”

But that was then.

A year later, he actually, really bought three stations from Sinclair: one in Charleston and two in Alabama.

Charleston wasn’t planned. The first two paragraphs from a Sept., 2014, Broadcasting & Cable magazine article is posted on HSH’s website’s News section.

Howard Stirk Holdings Grabs WCIV for $50,000

“Howard Stirk Holdings, run by Armstrong Williams, has agreed to acquire WCIV Charleston for $50,000. Sinclair picked up WCIV, an ABC affiliate, when it acquired Allbritton. While Howard Stirk is acquiring the license, among other assets, it and Sinclair will share some aspects related to the station, and Sinclair will provide services.

“‘We’ll continue some of the wonderful business relationships we have with them,’ said Armstrong Williams, principal at Howard Stirk Holdings.”

WCIV’s services came up because of a tangled web of local marketing agreements. There were ownership conflicts over licenses and other assets of three stations.

Sinclair owned MyNetworkTV affiliate WMMP-36 for years. Then, in 2001, it bought and spun off Fox affiliate WTAT-24 to Glencairn (to become Cunningham) and crafted a local marketing agreement between the two stations. That got Sinclair fined Sinclair $40,000 for illegally controlling a duopoly.

But in 2013, Allbritton sold its entire television group, including ABC affiliate WCIV-4, to Sinclair, which intended to sell WMMP’s license but still control it. Thus, three stations!

Unfortunately for Sinclair, WMMP had that local marketing agreement with WTAT. So Sinclair decided to cut ties from WTAT, keep the more established WCIV and sell WMMP.

But Sinclair told the FCC it couldn’t find a buyer for WMMP, so it would shut down WCIV and keep WMMP because its facilities were better — but move WCIV’s affiliation and all its programming to WMMP. Then, WMMP’s programming including MyNetworkTV would move to a subchannel.

Instead, Sinclair filed to have WCIV’s license sold to HSH to avoid shutting it down. Thus, the low price of $50,000. Then, the two stations swapped licenses, Sinclair let Williams’ WCIV share studio space at WMMP’s facilities and Williams explained he hoped to “continue some of the wonderful business relationships we have with [Sinclair]” through the deal — but operated independently from Sinclair.

Shortly after, this page on the company’s website’s News section lifts the first four paragraphs from a Feb., 2015, Broadcasting & Cable magazine article.

Howard Stirk Acquires KVMY Las Vegas

“Howard Stirk Holdings has agreed to acquire KVMY, the Las Vegas MyNetworkTV affiliate, for $150,000. Armstrong Williams is the principal at Howard Stirk, which is closely aligned with Sinclair. The price reflects $25,000 for the equity assets, including the FCC license, and $125,000 for the transmission assets.

“According to the following, Howard Stirk ‘acknowledges that it is not buying the Business of KVMY-TV as a going concern.’” (There was a call letter and affiliation change, but Howard Stirk Holdings runs several digital subchannel networks on the signal.)

“In September, Sinclair agreed to acquire NBC affiliate KSNV Las Vegas for $120 million. It also owns CW outlet KVCW.

“Last year, Howard Stirk Holdings acquired the license and other assets to WCIV Charleston from Sinclair for $50,000.”

So they’ve been in business several times, and it may not be over.

Some more about Williams: In 2004, the Bush administration paid him $240,000 to promote the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law on his nationally syndicated TV show and urge other black journalists to do the same. USA Today reported the campaign was part of an effort to build support among black families and Williams was “to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts” and interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show. Williams said he understood critics could find the arrangement unethical, but “I wanted to do it because it’s something I believe in.”

Two years ago, The Washington Post reported Williams settled a sexual harassment and retaliation suit filed by a former salesman at a DC Jos. A. Bank. Court records reportedly showed the complaint alleged Williams had sought sexual favors after befriending and mentoring the other man. That man did get jobs at the Washington Times and then at a Howard Stirk Holdings TV station, but he lost that job.

It wasn’t Williams’ first such situation.

In 1997, Williams’ former personal trainer-turned-producer sued him, contending he “repeatedly kissed and fondled him for almost two years,” before being fired. Williams claimed he was fired for incompetence. That case was also settled.

Bottom line: As of now, Howard Stirk Holdings owns seven stations. Two are in the same Anniston-Tuscaloosa-Birmingham, Ala., market, and Williams’ first two are still run by Sinclair. Now, after other purchases, he’s expecting to buy three more if the Sinclair-Tribune merger happens.

Then there’s Standard Media Group. I hadn’t heard of them either. Its website says Standard General was founded in 2007 and is pretty much an investment advisor, but getting into the broadcasting business. We’ll see how long that lasts. Investment firms are more likely to sell than others with broadcasting in their blood, especially ones who invest in their communities.

Now, if the deal goes through, it’ll fulfill its “goal of swiftly building a substantial broadcast television group with a strong and diverse voice” that includes four state capitals.

The stations are Fox affiliates except where noted: Oklahoma City, Grand Rapids, York PA, Greensboro NC (ABC), Richmond, Sinclair’s role in a Wilkes Barre Fox-CW-MyNetworkTV triopoly, and Des Moines.

You may have noticed Meredith Corp. on the list of buyers. TVSpy noted Meredith “has signed a deal to acquire KPLR (CW) from Tribune for $65 million, pairing it with KMOV (CBS) which Meredith has owned since 2013. … Sinclair already owns KDNL (ABC) and will also own KTVI (FOX) in the market.” Great for owners’ synergies. Bad for the number of independent voices in such a big city. Which do you care more about?

Of the other big city stations, Tribune’s legendary WGN-TV9 is supposed to go to WGN TV LLC but that’s really code for Steven Fader, a Maryland auto dealer and business associate to Sinclair chairman David Smith, for a mere $60 million. Sinclair would also have an option to buy WGN-TV outright within eight years and you know it’s counting on the FCC to relax its ownership rules even more within that time frame!

https://twitter.com/politico/status/992451325878300672

Concerning WGN, there are now plans for a Sinclair news channel. Yesterday, Politico reported,

“Sinclair Broadcast Group, which for months has denied any interest in challenging Fox News while awaiting approval of a merger with Tribune Co., is gearing up to do just that.”

TVNewser put it this way:

“Even though Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley has said a 24-hour national news network is not in the works, his boss (David) Smith seems to like the idea of a few hours of prime time opinion programming to challenge Fox News.”

Fox News is carried in more than 90 million homes, compared to 80 million for WGN America which Sinclair would own if regulators approve, and 55 million for the Tennis Channel which Sinclair already owns.

If your cable or satellite company doesn’t offer either of those last two, then expect it to get a call when any deal with Sinclair is about to expire.

Politico quotes “a person familiar” saying “Smith has been holding meetings with potential future employees, including former Fox News staff members, and laying out a vision for an evening block of opinion and news programming that would compete with Fox’s top-rated lineup.”

So, the discussions are over “a block of at least three hours, but also potentially up to six. Smith is settled, though, on basing his new operation in Washington, D.C.” That’s because the company already owns local station WJLA-7, where it produces some of its national content.

Wikipedia

One apparent Sinclair target is former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, who left the network in Sept., 2016, and then had a short stint at MSNBC before signing on with Voice of America. Van Susteren wrote in an email she has spoken with Smith.

“If the Sinclair deal happens, I might talk to him further. … but it would have to be something that would not take me from VOA,” Van Susteren said.

“Other potential hires are former Fox anchor Eric Bolling and reporter James Rosen,” who both left Fox under sexual harassment allegations. Neither admitted whether they met with Smith or other Sinclair executives.

Eric Bolling, via Twitter

James Rosen, via Twitter

Bill O’Reilly, via FoxNews.com

Talks with former Fox host Bill O’Reilly reportedly fell apart.

The slant of a national news block hasn’t been decided. We know where Sinclair stands, politically, but TVNewser notes, “There are already national challengers from the right, including Newsmax TV and OAN.”

And in the nation’s largest market, Tribune’s WPIX-11 is now off the market. It was supposed to go to Cunningham for a mere $15 million. That’s pennies on the dollar, and it would’ve been run by Sinclair. Now, it’ll just go to Sinclair so it’s not on the list.

But what about those TBDs (to be determined)? They are all owned by Tribune: the Fox affiliates in San Diego, Seattle/Tacoma, Cleveland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City and Denver, and the CW affiliate in Miami/Fort Lauderdale.

And you may have noticed Rupert Murdoch’s Fox conglomerate was not listed as one of the buyers, but that’s sure to change.

The Hollywood Reporter wrote, “Sinclair and Tribune have been negotiating a sale of up to 10 stations to 21st Century Fox, and those talks are still proceeding.”

Jessell of TVNewsCheck was more direct, saying all Sinclair

“has to do now is wrap up its negotiations with Fox. I don’t know what’s delaying that deal, except that neither Fox nor Sinclair is famous for making concessions. Once Sinclair does that, it can finalize its application and the FCC can complete it long-stalled review.”

Those greedy bastards are going to end up screwing everything up for themselves (which I’d love to see happen), and you’ve only read about half of the plans, so far!

First, Fox actually used to own the Cleveland, Salt Lake City and Denver stations but sold them to a company called Local TV which sold itself to Tribune. So much for Fox — selling stations and then buying them back later — caring about communities. IMHO, that company can’t make a case for a second chance at ownership.

But now, 21st Century Fox plans to sell off most of its assets like its studio, cable networks and regional sports networks to Disney – keeping just its Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, its FS1/FS2 cable sports channels, adding to its TV stations, and its network, which will focus on live events, especially NFL Football. The new, smaller company is being referred to as New Fox.

That’s the reason Fox has tried to own stations in cities that have NFC conference football teams since it got the rights to most of their away games in 1994 – and even trade or sell other stations for them – despite the fact a regular season of 16 games could mean the home audience would see its team play about 12 games a year on its local Fox station, unless the team makes the playoffs.

Whether paying a fortune for NFL rights that keep skyrocketing is questionable. It wasn’t questionable in 1994 when Fox arguably overpaid the NFL to get the New World stations to switch away from the Big 3 networks. We’ll see about Fox doing the same on Thursdays, when it doesn’t have popular programming.

Fox even got its hands on Cox’s KTVU in San Francisco (with an NFC team, the 49ers, and the AFC Oakland Raiders across the bay will now be moving to Las Vegas in 2020) and give Cox its own stations in Boston (the New England Patriots are AFC) and Memphis (no NFL team).

What has changed is Fox bought the rights to Thursday Night Football, which should split games between NFC and AFC teams. That means Fox has become more interested in AFC team cities, even though there’s no pattern as to which teams play on Thursdays.

Football teams have moved, but the cities Fox wants are Seattle (especially because it’s NFC), and Cleveland, Denver and Miami (because they have AFC teams). San Diego and St. Louis no longer have teams, so Fox isn’t interested in Tribune’s Fox affiliates in those cities.

Seattle, Cleveland and Denver should be easy. The stations are already Fox affiliates so prime-time programming and the amount of news shouldn’t change. And Fox has leverage because it can threaten to take away its affiliation from those stations, lowering their value, if they’re sold to another company.

Remember what Fox did in Charlotte? It dropped a good affiliate, WCCB-Channel 18, because it wanted to own a station where the NFC Carolina Panthers play. Instead, it bought a nothing station, WJZY-Channel 46, and started it from scratch. And it had to do that a second time when it tried to be too different and less traditional the first time! (And, for disclosure: It got a great new news director who is a former colleague.) Remember, Charlotte pretty much sits on the North Carolina-South Carolina line. Old timers are pretty traditional. Was the move worth it for Fox?

Miami is a different story. Fox has a very good affiliate, WSVN-7, owned by Ed Ansin’s Sunbeam Television. (Disclosure: I got my start in journalism there.) It gives Fox great coverage of breaking news in South Florida. Several people at Fox News Channel used to work there. The ratings are great. So what’s the problem?

The Miami Dolphins play there, and as an AFC team, they show up on Fox on a few Sundays and may now also be seen on Fox on Thursdays.

But the station that’s available is Tribune’s WSFL-39, a CW affiliate without a news department despite a few morning attempts. WSVN owner Ansin has shown he’ll probably take the station to his grave, with or without any affiliation, so there’s no realistic possibility there.

Should Fox dump WSVN and start from scratch with WSFL? Would it be worth the effort?

Unlike Charlotte, WSVN is a #1 station. And Miami is a very different place. There’s big news regularly and the two main Spanish stations do better than most of the English! People who aren’t bilingual can’t watch all the available stations, which really limits its size, making it actually smaller than the 16th largest market. We’ll have to see who wants WSFL, since a Sinclair-Tribune merger can’t include it due to FCC ownership rules.

One thing I’d say for sure is that WSFL loses its CW affiliation because CBS and Warner Brothers (Time Warner) own the network, and CBS doesn’t only own WFOR-4 (CBS station) and but also WBFS-33 (MyNetworkTV affiliate) and the CW does better.

Staying with this possibility, WSFL could become the new MyNetworkTV affiliate, and MyNetworkTV is owned by Fox.

It’s not so unusual for a network to own stations but not air the network on them.

Let’s take CBS, for example. It owns independents in New York (WLNY-55) and Los Angeles (KCAL-9). In Dallas, WTXA-21 is also independent.

In Miami, WBFS ended up with MyNetworkTV to please Tribune since CBS got the CW in so many other cities when the WB and UPN combined. It’s similar in Boston where WSBK-38 airs MyNetworkTV, but that’s expected to change since Sunbeam’s WLVI-56, which used to be owned by Tribune, airs the CW.

Single CBS-owned stations in Atlanta, Seattle and Tampa air the CW while affiliates owned by other companies air CBS programming.

And in Indianapolis, CBS’ WBXI-47 airs Decades, while the actual CBS affiliation changed from one outside company to another. CBS dumped a strong WISH-8 and went to half of Tribune’s duopoly, independent WTTV-4, over a disagreement with the former Media General.

A last possibility if Fox is determined to buy a Miami station is ABC affiliate WPLG-10. That station, stable under Post-Newsweek (now Graham Media) for decades, was sold to Berkshire Hathaway as its only broadcast property. We’ve talked about synergies (BH, as an “only child,” has none) and know Warren Buffett wants to turn a profit, so we can imagine Fox dumping WSVN for WPLG, but can’t assume ABC will take its affiliation to WSVN. Remember how CBS didn’t do that in 1989? But that’s highly unlikely.

And somebody will end up with WSFL.

A lot of the information on which stations would be sold was expected since Sinclair hinted in a February filing which stations it planned to sell, to avoid owning more than allowed.

Deadline noted, “For decades, the maximum reach by one single owner has been 39 percent, but the Federal Communications Commission has been re-evaluating the cap.”

More specifically, rather than gutting rules like a good conservative would ordinarily do, the FCC under Pai brought the UHF discount is back. That rule started because it used to matter whether a local TV station was VHF or UHF, due to antennas and how old TV sets were not made for the UHF band. So the FCC decided the amount towards a company’s ownership cap should only be half for those stations, compared to VHF stations. It was ended because today’s technology means it doesn’t matter anymore.

Regarding the UHF discount’s revival, The New York Times wrote, “A few weeks later, Sinclair Broadcasting announced a blockbuster $3.9 billion deal to buy Tribune Media — a deal those new rules made possible.” (Oh, and led to Pai’s investigation. But luckily, Harry Jessell of TVNewsCheck wrote critics of station consolidation say it “now serves only to allow groups to circumvent the intent of Congress, which was to limit groups to 39%” and they’ve “challenged the perpetuation of the UHF discount in court (D.C. Appeals Court), and seem to have made some headway in their oral arguments.”)

It also wrote,

“A New York Times investigation published in August found that Mr. Pai and his staff members had met and corresponded with Sinclair executives several times. One meeting, with Sinclair’s executive chairman, took place days before Mr. Pai, who was appointed by President Trump, took over as F.C.C. chairman.

“Sinclair’s top lobbyist, a former F.C.C. official, also communicated frequently with former agency colleagues and pushed for the relaxation of media ownership rules. And language the lobbyist used about loosening rules has tracked closely to analysis and language used by Mr. Pai in speeches favoring such changes.”

An FCC spokesman representing Mr. Pai countered the allegations of favoritism were “baseless,” and

“For many years, Chairman Pai has called on the F.C.C. to update its media ownership regulations. … The chairman is sticking to his long-held views, and given the strong case for modernizing these rules, it’s not surprising that those who disagree with him would prefer to do whatever they can to distract from the merits of his proposals.”

Last week, Broadcasting & Cable’s John Eggerton wrote FCC chair Ajit Pai suggested at a House Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee hearing “the FCC had not yet had a chance to fully evaluate” the Sinclair-Tribune deal, but, “He would not agree to delay a decision on the Sinclair-Tribune deal until a court ruling on a related issue, the UHF discount.”

However, “Pai said he would factor the potential court decision into the FCC’s decisionmaking.”

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) told Pai the spin-off of WGN-TV Chicago to the owner of a car dealership owned by Sinclair’s executive chair, “stretches the definition of divestiture under the plan to something unrecognizable” and the planned divestitures make a mockery of FCC rules.

Author Eggerton suggested, “One thing the FCC could do would be to condition the deal on the court upholding the UHF discount” and Jessell expects a decision to come in August or September.

Pai denied Rep. Quigley’s request to hold off on a decision on Sinclair until the UHF discount court decision, saying that was a case of clashing hypotheticals — both what the court would do with the discount and what the FCC would do with the proposed merger.

The nerve, since Congress controls the FCC!

Jessell of TVNewsCheck brought up the old saying, “Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and that is no less true when the thing being possessed is a broadcast license.” He also had a lot more details on the court case.

In another article, Jessell analyzed the ownership numbers in this case, and you try to figure out what’s true.

He led by saying,

“Sinclair is telling the FCC that its coverage after spinoffs from its merger with Tribune will be just 58.7%. But that’s for regulatory purposes. (In other words, with the revived UHF discount that only counts channels 14 and up as half the audience of the market.) In the real world, where it matters, Sinclair’s national reach will be 66.3% — a full two-thirds of TV homes.”

But he said Sinclair is telling the FCC

“the coverage of the group will be just 58.7% and, with the UHF discount, below the statutory 39% cap. But those percentages are for regulatory consumption, not the real world.”

So there’s a 7.6-point disparity, the difference between 58.7% and 66.3%. How’d that happen? And don’t forget about the part, “with the UHF discount, below the statutory 39% cap.”

Jessell explained Sinclair

“is claiming 58% because it is not counting stations in three big markets — WGN Chicago, KDAF Dallas, KIAH Houston — that it is spinning off to closely affiliated companies. Without those markets and the discount in effect, Sinclair’s reach will be just 37.39%, safely below the 39% cap.”

Plus, with Dallas and Houston (but not Chicago), “Sinclair has put additional distance between itself and Cunningham” but will “have an option to buy the stations should the FCC ever ease the rules to allow it.”

So this is Jessell’s bottom line:

“So, again, for regulatory purposes, Sinclair’s reach will be 58.7% without the discount and 37.39% with it.

“But I don’t think that is reality. Those are not the numbers that Sinclair will be showing national advertisers, MVPDs, vendors and others with which it does business.

“In the real world, Sinclair will have a lot of control over Chicago and some control over Dallas and Houston, and its effective national reach will be 66.3%. (For the record, its reach with the UHF discount will be 41.1%, two points over the cap, but that will not matter because regulators will not be counting the three markets.)”

Then Jessell questioned Fox’s counting, assuming it’ll buy Miami, Cleveland, Sacramento as well as Seattle, Denver, Salt Lake City and possibly San Diego.

He calculated Fox reaches 36.8% of homes, but just 24.3% with the UHF discount. If it buys up all seven stations, its reach will grow to 45.9% but, well below the cap at just 30.4% with the discount.

But where will Fox find the money to buy the stations it wants? That’s another story!

Last year, Disney made a $52.4 billion offer to buy most of Fox, including its stake in the European pay TV company Sky.

But The Hollywood Reporter said on Wednesday, “Back in 2004, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts bid $54 billion to acquire The Walt Disney Co.” At the time, Comcast hadn’t bought NBCUniversal but Disney did own ABC. It was a 22 percent more than Disney was worth then, but former CEO Michael Eisner said no anyway.

Now, even though NBCUniversal has performed well, some say Roberts wants revenge by offering the same $52.4 billion as Disney for most of 21st Century Fox.

There could also be a bidding war overseas. Sky had agreed to let Fox, a 39 percent shareholder, buy the portion it doesn’t already own – and that Disney agreed to buy from Fox in December. Comcast could ruin those companies’ plans.

CNN reports, “It pledged … to maintain investment in Sky News for 10 years, and ensure the division’s editorial independence.”

Rupert Murdoch, Wikimedia Commons

Then, in January, a UK regulator advised the government to block Fox’s bid to buy the remaining 61 percent of Sky because it would give one family – the Murdochs – too much control over media in Britain.

So Murdoch had preferred Disney as the buyer, afraid the Comcast offer came with more regulatory risks. Then, Disney offered to buy Sky News just to help Murdoch buy full control of Sky News’ parent company, the broadcaster Sky. But CNN reported Fox made a new pitch to win approval for Sky by selling Sky News to Disney, and another proposal that would’ve legally separated Sky News from the rest of Sky to ensure its editorial independence.

Then, last month, The Hollywood Reporter reported, “The U.K. Takeover Panel … ruled that Walt Disney must make a mandatory offer to buy full 100 percent control of Sky if and when it completes its planned acquisition of large parts of 21st Century Fox, including Fox’s stake in Sky.”

Then, according to Deadline, “Disney will have 28 days from the completion of its $66 billion acquisition of Fox to make a $15 offer for all the shares of Sky if Fox’s own $15.7 billion takeover of Sky is not complete by then, or if Comcast’s rival offer has not been accepted. It also (decided) this would not be required if another third party has acquired 50 percent of Sky by then.”

But last week Comcast made its $31 billion bid for Sky official and that’s 16 percent higher. Deadline reported that caused Sky directors to withdraw their recommendation of a Fox takeover bid.

This all comes along with many mergers and acquisitions across the industry.

In fact, a decision on this may not come until a judge determines whether to let AT&T buy Time Warner. The Justice Department has been fighting against it with an antitrust case. Closing arguments just finished and a decision is expected June 12.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, last week Fox said it’s “considering its options” on Sky and is believed to be prepping a sweetened bid. But Comcast is known for (usually) getting what it wants.

But back to Sinclair, which hasn’t been doing itself any favors.

Deadline noted Sinclair “has faced further attention in recent weeks over a push to have local anchors at its stations read company-scripted messages, including a recent prohibition against fake news. The spots … struck many in media as too closely aligned with the dismissive rhetoric of President Donald Trump.”

So much for localism at a company that already owns or operates an astounding 193 TV stations, in 89 cities, covering a huge part of the American population. (You’ve read the different takes on the numbers.)

This is criticism from The New York Times…

from the PBS NewsHour…

from USA Today…

and even Russia Today…

and Al Jazeera English.

But Sinclair fought back against CNN’s criticism (and banned comments from YouTube!):

FTVLive’s Scott Jones showed a memo from Portland, OR – I’m sure one of many around the country – ordering employees not to complain.

Notice KyAnn’s name. KyAnn Lewis was the news director until Scott reported today she was fired. No details why, especially in the middle of the May ratings period.

Don’t forget, at least for now, local news organizations remain the most trusted source of information in Pew Research Center’s polling on trust in media – even though in January, a Pew Research Center report announced fewer Americans regularly rely on TV news.

Since then, The Poynter Institute said Emory University researchers found

“many TV local news stations are focusing more on national politics and have taken a rightward slant over the past year. And that move is stemming from ownership of the stations, not the demands of a local audience.”

Poynter noted, “The study comes just as many are raising concerns about a coordinated effort by one major owner of TV stations that forces its anchors to record a segment about ‘the troubling trend of irresponsible, one-sided news stories plaguing our country.’” And you know who that is.

The researchers examined 7.5 million transcript segments from 743 local news stations and saw huge differences between other stations, and outlets owned by the nation’s largest local broadcasting chain, Sinclair Broadcast Group.

“The authors found Sinclair stations, on average, carried about a third less local politics coverage and a quarter more national politics … (including) commentaries the stations are forced to run by former Trump official Boris Epshteyn.”

Researchers warned,

“The ‘slant scores,’ based on repetition of ideologically linked phrases, increased by about one standard deviation after acquisition by Sinclair as compared to other stations in the same markets. … And this programming could spur nationalistic and polarizing movements, ‘be expected to reduce viewers’ knowledge of the activities of local officials’ — and hurt accountability, especially “given the decline of local print media.”

So while everything plays out, from fighting the UHF discount in court, to negotiating spinning off stations, to Fox getting money to buy stations (while keeping its Sinclair affiliates), to counting how long the deal has taken (since May, 2017), to counting how long the steps still to be taken will last, the two companies’ bosses have no public complaints or worries.

Sinclair president and CEO Chris Ripley:

“After a very robust divestiture process, with strong interest from many parties, we have achieved healthy multiples on the stations we are divesting. …While we continue to believe that we had a strong and supportable rationale for not having to divest stations, we are happy to announce this significant step forward in our plan to create a leading broadcast platform with local focus and national reach. The combined company will continue to advance industry technology, including the Next Generation Broadcast Platform, and to benefit from significant revenue and expense synergies.”

Tribune CEO Peter Kern to employees:

“There is no reason to assume that this change won’t be for the better. … So try to focus, as you have always done, on the business at hand—delivering outstanding local journalism and great content for our audiences and communities, collaborating with your colleagues, and driving results for our customers.”

Of course!

Click here for a look at many other Sinclair sins, from must-runs, to forced network preemptions, to the script the local anchors where you may live were forced to read, plus John Oliver’s take on the man in charge of Sinclair holding more licenses than anyone else to broadcast over the public airwaves (at least in TV) despite being “charged with committing a perverted sex act in a company-owned Mercedes” in 1996, according to The Baltimore Sun — and also how to have your say and influence the FCC to deny Sinclair the chance to buy Tribune. Plus, get updates from StopSinclair.com.

Other stories of interest: Big changes when Sinclair bought Seattle station Veteran reporter fired after report on climate change April 18 report DOJ days away from clearing the deal Sinclair ABC station with no news fires commentator for threatening Parkland teen Sinclair president/CEO email after forcing anchors to read the script Top journalism schools voice displeasure with Sinclair Sinclair allows paid ads attacking it, but sandwiched inside its opinion Sinclair boss Smith’s response to criticism: ‘You can’t be serious!’ Confessions of a former Sinclair news director Trump: “So funny to watch Fake News Networks … criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased” Cincy Councilman says he’s boycotting local Sinclair station Nick Clooney: ‘I have no idea what these folks are doing for a living, but it isn’t news’ Sinclair Chairman Claims Entire Print Media Has ‘No Credibility’ Sinclair’s “Terrorism Alert Desk” segments are designed to gin up xenophobia Tom DeLay: Why Trump should block the Sinclair merger Sinclair TV boss donated to Montana congressman who attacked reporter

Enough of big media controlling everything from corporate headquarters! This is what happens when it does. Locals should be in charge of local programming, following the rules of the FCC for using OUR public airwaves!

OK, since you read everything, I’ll give you John Oliver here!

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Media mega-merger may be moving closer, impacting Miami I've avoided writing much about Sinclair Broadcast Group trying to buy Tribune Media because I’ve been busy and I don't want to jinx any possibility the merger will fall through.