Tag Archives: WYZZ

Television

Sinclair buying WHOI, selling WYZZ

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PEORIA — Sinclair Broadcast Group is buying 18 television stations from Barrington Broadcasting, including WHOI (channel 19) in Peoria, Ill. Sinclair already owns a television station in the Peoria/Bloomington market, WYZZ (channel 43), but FCC rules say they can only own one due to the size of the market. Thus, Sinclair has also announced they will be selling WYZZ.

Currently, WHOI is being operated by Granite Broadcasting (owner of WEEK, channel 25) through a shared services agreement. WYZZ is operated by Nexstar Broadcasting Group (owner of WMBD, channel 31) under a local marketing agreement with Sinclair. How the changes in ownership will affect these agreements is unknown at this time since the story is just breaking.

WHOI is an ABC network affiliate; WYZZ is a FOX network affiliate.

Television

Barrington Broadcasting, owner of WHOI, to be sold

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PEORIA — Barrington Broadcasting, owner of 24 television stations including local channel WHOI (19, ABC), may be bought out by Nexstar Broadcasting Group or Sinclair Broadcast Group, according to TVNewsCheck.com. Nexstar owns or manages 55 television stations including local channel WMBD (31, CBS), and Sinclair owns or manages 74 television stations including local channel WYZZ (43, FOX).

Under FCC ownership rules, one company cannot own two of the television stations in a market Peoria’s size, so if the sale of Barrington goes through to either Nexstar or Sinclair, it appears they would have to divest themselves of one of Peoria’s channels.

Television

It’s like MTV was in the 80s, but it’s over the air

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There’s a new subchannel for those who get their television over the air. It’s 43.2, a subchannel to WYZZ Fox 43. They’re showing “The Cool TV,” which plays music videos like you may remember seeing (if you’re old enough) back when MTV used to show music videos. “The Cool TV” says their programming is customized to the demographic of the city. On a recent evening, I saw “Wang Chung” sing their big hit “Everybody Have Fun Tonight,” followed by the more recent song “One” performed by Bono and Mary J. Blige. Then they showed a performance of “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf. As I write this, they’re showing Katy Perry’s “Teenage Dream (Remix).” I’m not sure what these selections say about the demographic of Peoria.

Television

WYZZ leaves baseball fans with no signal

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WYZZ-TV, channel 43, went off the air tonight during the eighth inning of the National League Championship Series. It could have been the final game, as the Giants led the series three games to one. As it turned out, the Phillies won, sending the series back to Philadelphia. Not that WYZZ viewers could know. All they could see was “No Signal.”

Nothing has been posted even yet on their website explaining the outage or apologizing. If you call the studio for information, forget it — you get sent to someone’s voice mail. I did get a real person in the news room who politely informed me that they were having “technical difficulties” and that “engineers are working on the problem and will get the station back on the air as soon as possible.” It wasn’t soon enough. The game ended with WYZZ still off the air.

I hope they get their “technical difficulties” fixed before the World Series starts.

Television

WMBD and WYZZ to split

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Nexstar Broadcasting Group, owner of WMBD channel 31, entered into an outsourcing agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of WYZZ channel 43, on December 1, 2001. In April 2002, WYZZ added a 9 p.m. newscast, produced by WMBD’s news department.

It appears that arrangement is coming to an end.

Requests for comment from Sinclair and local General Manager Coby Cooper have gone unanswered. But a reliable source tells me WMBD and WYZZ are splitting as of April 1, 2010. My source says that WYZZ will move back to 2714 E. Lincoln in Bloomington, and the WMBD news bureau that is currently occupying that building has been asked to relocate. A job posting on CareerBuilder.com shows Sinclair is looking for a “General Manager/GSM at WYZZ-TV in Bloomington, IL.” Reportedly they’re in the process of building a separate staff altogether.

Not known is whether that staff will include a news director or reporters. If not, then this move will likely be the end of Fox 43 News at Nine — not that it would be any great loss, considering it’s essentially the same newscast that’s on WMBD at 10:00.

Television

Goodbye, analog

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I admit it, I stayed up until midnight last night to watch all the analog TV signals go off the air. WTVP had a short countdown just before midnight that said, “after 37 years” on their analog frequency, they were shutting down “in just a few moments,” but that programming would continue on 47.1, 47.2, and 47.3. Once the countdown hit 0, the signal was gone. Nothing but snow.

When I went to WMBD (31), they were already off the air. WYZZ (43) and WEEK (25) ceased regular programming, but kept their transmitter on to broadcast a public service announcement loop on how to make the conversion to digital television. WHOI (19) did not go off the air yet, opting to keep their analog signal on until the extended cutoff date in June.

There’s no question that the quality of picture and audio is far superior on digital television. The only thing I will miss is the ability to pull in weak signals of television stations from other cities. For instance, I could get an analog signal from channel 8 in the Quad Cities and channels 12 and 17 from Urbana and Decatur, respectively. They were a little snowy, but could still be watched. I cannot get the digital signals from these stations. Not a big deal; just a little something I’ll miss. When I was a little kid, I remember getting a snowy picture of channel 55 out of Springfield, and once — just once, on a freak night — channel 44 out of Chicago.

Farewell, analog. Welcome, digital. I’m looking forward to seeing the St. Louis Cardinals win the World Series in beautiful high-definition glory!