ABC News staffers ‘freaking’ out over reports Disney is in talks to sell the outlet

[Graham Wellington]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.co ... index.html

An excerpt from the article:

"With Nexstar already owning NewsNation, the little-watched cable news channel that embraces bothsidesism and was happy to host a town hall with notorious anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. earlier this year, what would that mean for the future of ABC News and its editorial direction? Would Nexstar move to meld the two and supercharge its cable news operation with the more robust resources of ABC News?"

Isn't this scary? ABC news possibly melded with a news outlet that embraces "bothsidesism" and even news coverage? Thank you to CNN for bringing up this scary potential. I can imagine how scary it is for ABC news staffers knowing they may face a future of generating unbiased news reports.

[TC Talks]

Are you suggesting that 5% of our citizens need a voice with major media?

[MWmetalhead]

The ABC News staff is worried about layoffs and pay cuts, not a change in editorial direction.

The much bigger story here if Nexstar were to acquire the ABC television network is the potential avalanche of network affiliation changes across the country. Would ABC programming in Grand Rapids, for example, move to WOOD-TV? CW ostensibly would land at sister station WOTV. Or, could Nexstar leave those two stations as-is and try stripping WZZM of its ABC affiliation once the current affiliation agreement ends?

The prospect of Nexstar acquiring ABC ought to make Scripps nervous. If a tentative deal is announced, I would expect Scripps to lobby the FCC and lawmakers to try to block any sale to Nexstar.

[Graham Wellington]

The ABC News staff is worried about layoffs and pay cuts, not a change in editorial direction.

Good point, it was CNN that appeared to be wringing hands over it. Big surprise....

[Graham Wellington]

The ABC News staff is worried about layoffs and pay cuts, not a change in editorial direction.

The much bigger story here if Nexstar were to acquire the ABC television network is the potential avalanche of network affiliation changes across the country. Would ABC programming in Grand Rapids, for example, move to WOOD-TV? CW ostensibly would land at sister station WOTV. Or, could Nexstar leave those two stations as-is and try stripping WZZM of its ABC affiliation once the current affiliation agreement ends?

The prospect of Nexstar acquiring ABC ought to make Scripps nervous. If a tentative deal is announced, I would expect Scripps to lobby the FCC and lawmakers to try to block any sale to Nexstar.

In addition to the affiliate issues it may cause, I am curious what would happen to all the spillover ESPN broadcasts?

[MWmetalhead]

There is obviously a dearth of quality programming on ESPN2 these days; that network has become a wasteland. Yanking those broadcasts from ABC would presumably allow more high value programming to air on ESPN2.

Of course, Disney/ESPN cannot just move those broadcasts to cable unilaterally. They would need to rework rights contracts with the NBA, NCAA, NFL and NHL.

Any buyer of ABC obviously would factor any removal of sports programming into the enterprise value equation. Removing NCAA football and Monday Night Football from ABC, for example, would likely be significantly detrimental to ABC's value.

Suffice it to say, any buyer of ABC will evaluate the sports rights situation with eyes wide open with most / all ambiguities resolved before an asset purchase agreement is signed.

If I were a betting man - my guess would be that the buyer of ABC would assume the existing sports play-by-play agreements and a revenue sharing or services fee arrangement would be worked out between the buyer of ABC and Disney/ESPN. Once those existing agreements expire, then it'll be a free-for-all with multiple networks bidding against one another.