It used to be that most TV stations in the US were owned by a panoply of small station groups, many of which also had other assets in print, publishing, and/or radio. Even the New York Times owned a bunch of random small market TV stations at one point, mostly in the south.
But since then, print has shifted from being a lucrative way to diversify profits into a profit liability, and regulations have been loosened. Starting in the late 2000s, we started to see a pattern happen across the industry: smaller station groups either spun off or sold their print assets, and station groups started consolidating en masse. Today, aside from the network-owned stations in large cities, most US TV stations are owned by the same 5-6 companies. The same is true for newspapers.
NPG is one of the outliers and is a bit of a throwback in the sense that they still own a smattering of TV, print, and radio, though it looks like even theyâve sold off most of their newspapers.
The FCC also used to forbid one company from owning a newspaper and TV station in the same city. That was relaxed in the early 2000s and then eliminated as a rule altogether a few years ago.
At least there wasnât a host-to-host handover, brief introduction, âletâs get back to these speechesâ. Just a quick âcoverage continues when this concludesâ.
Its sister CNBC would unveil a graphic oddity of its own minutes later: 4-stock âbug stackâ. It has been utilized rather frequently since this timestamp.
Not sure if these have been posted yet, but I just discovered this terrific (local) channel on Youtube. Some of the best TV related history lessons Iâve seen in a while:
