I see your point, a production wing to bring in revenue and balance their budgets. If Crawfords, for example, still produced content that any of the networks were willing to spend big money on, the revenue could then be reinvested back into WIN’s local news.
Problem is, WIN’s the only one with a production wing and it’s been almost a decade since Crawfords made anything. Being bought out by the networks seems the only plausible fate of the affiliates.