Hi, and welcome again to Bucholtz Sports Media. You can read the intro post about what I'm trying to do with this site here, and sign up for a free or premium email subscription if you like what you see. But the story isn't about me, so let's get on with some content.
Jimmy Kimmel drama reinforces the importance of local broadcast affiliate ownership
The big story in the general media world this past week has been about ABC suspending Jimmy Kimmel Live, then bringing it back, only to have Sinclair and Nexstar-owned ABC affiliates refuse to air it. That's a notable media story (Tom Jones' Poynter piece here is a good summary), but it's not a sports story in its own right. But it does show just how much local broadcast affiliate ownership can matter, and that's something with increasingly more importance in the sports realm.
There are two separate parts to this story, but they collide in an interesting way. The first is the massive increase in sports tonnage on broadcast TV over the last decade. This shows up in a few ways, including networks like The CW and ION jumping into national rights and local affiliate owners like Scripps and Gray striking deals to carry local teams' games (previously usually seen on regional sports networks, but those are having their own set of issues) on their broadcast affiliates. But a particularly notable part of this is with companies such as ABC owner Disney and NBC owner Comcast opting to put more sports content on their broadcast channels.
At ABC in particular, there's been a massive historical back-and-forth there. ABC and ESPN have a long and convoluted stake and shared ownership history dating back to the 1980s. Essentially, ABC first took a small stake in ESPN, then bought the whole thing, but there wasn't much integration between ABC Sports and ESPN until Disney bought Capital Cities, the parent of both, in 1996. They then started bringing the two together before shutting down a separate ABC Sports in 2006 and completely combining it into ESPN.
For most of the next decade-plus, ESPN became the biggest sports priority for Disney, and only limited sports events aired on ABC. But over the last eight or so years, there have been more and more sports and sports programs airing on ABC, either as simulcasts of what's on ESPN or as their own thing. Particularly notable elements there include specific NFL broadcasts (including some Monday Night Football and playoff games) and a separate NFL Draft feed. And ABC's larger reach than ESPN has been particularly important in dealing with leagues and bringing in viewers, especially in an era where MVPD (multichannel video programming distributor, or cable, satellite, or virtual bundle) households continue to drop. The distribution gap between broadcast and cable TV has been on the rise recently, with more and more people either getting limited bundles that include broadcast channels and not some cable ones, or watching broadcast feeds over the air with a digital antenna or similar solution. And that means more and more sports are likely to have at least some of their games wind up on broadcast.
Broadcast TV's accessibility over-the-air is only part of the key difference between it and cable, though. The other part of that picture, and the part that's often been surprising to people I've talked to who aren't that plugged into the media world, is how many local broadcast stations are not owned by the company that owns the network they're affiliated with. Indeed, all of the major networks only have small lists of owned-and-operated affiliates, usually in the biggest markets. (ABC, for example, has eight.) The rest of those stations are owned by other companies, such as Nexstar and Sinclair.
This leads to differences in programming on several fronts, from syndicated programs and commentary to corporate emphases for local news broadcasts. But it's unusual for it to lead to an outright refusal to run a major national program, as we're currently seeing with Kimmel. However, there have been some decline-to-run moves on the margins, such as the CBS-owned CW affiliates (and some others) that opted not to carry the network's LIV Golf coverage in 2023. And local affiliate ownership matters in some other cases, such as when a station will break into network sports programming for news or weather.
Where local affiliate ownership has really mattered in the past is about carriage disputes with MVPDs. For many of these local stations, the retransmission fees they get from cable, satellite, or vMVPD distributors are a crucial part of their income, and negotiations over those fees sometimes lead to channels being removed from those packages. They're usually still viewable with a digital antenna, but that's not workable or desirable for everyone, so carriage can matter (and even streaming options are often blocked amidst disputes). If you want to watch a Monday Night Football game that's on ABC, but your local ABC affiliate is owned by, say, Nexstar, and they're battling with your provider, such as Comcast or YouTube TV, you may need to turn to an antenna or another alternative.
The Kimmel situation itself is again not particularly sports-focused, but what it does show is the rising power of local broadcast station conglomerates. For a lot of the history here, the networks have held much of the power in that relationship; there seems to be a shift happening with that. And that's crucial to note at a time where some of these conglomerates are getting into sports (local or national) in their own ways, and where they're expressing dissent against the networks they're affiliated with. It's also worth noting that many of these companies are looking to grow even larger and more powerful, as with Nexstar's planned merger with Tegna (which will need FCC approval, which is an important subplot in the current dispute).
The key sports impact here may come in decisions about what sports air where. Broadcast TV looks likely to continue to be an important place for many sports, and a lot of leagues have some level of broadcast TV requirements built into their contracts. And putting a fair bit of sports to a broadcast channel like ABC has made a good bit of sense for a company like Disney over the last number of years. But this current situation illustrates some of the challenges that can arise from broadcast networks that aren't owned-and-operated, and strained relationships between broadcasters and affiliate owners could see less prime content sent to networks. (It's also notable that Disney now finally has their own way to get consumers to pay them for sports directly without a MVPD or local affiliate intermediary thanks to the recent rollout of full-linear ESPN on streaming; that might make ESPN a more attractive destination for content again.)
It would be going much too far to suggest that a dispute over Jimmy Kimmel alone is likely to have a significant sports impact. But the Kimmel situation illustrates some of the divides that can arise between broadcasters and affiliate owners. And it's an unusual case outside of a carriage dispute where local station ownership really matters. At the very least, it's a good reason to be curious about who owns the broadcast affiliates in your area, and to keep tabs on what they might be doing separate from the network they're affiliated with.
