I am hearing trough the grapevine from people in the know that News Corp is interested in Palm Beach FOX affiliate WFLX! Other info is speculative as to what News Corp wants to or plans to do with WFLX.
It’s an open secret Murdoch has been wanting a FOX affiliate of his own in South Florida for some time. WSVN owner Ed Ansin is said to have rebuffed every advance by Newscorp to sell so short of swiping WBFS from CBS, WFLX seems like News Corp’s best bet for a station in the SFL
Currently WFLX doesn’t have a news department. For about twenty years the station’s news have been produced by WPEC CBS12 trough an agreement with owner Raycom. Though they have their own studios on Blue Heron in West Palm Beach where many FOX News guests visit for appearances via satellite. West Palm residents Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter being just two of them
News Corp already owns the FOX affiliates in Tampa and Orlando and FLNewsCenter says Newscorp is showing interest in WTLH in Tallahassee as well
WFLX does have its own studios/building tho in West Palm Beach, which more than anything are used by Fox News for interviews (ie Rush Limbauh, Ann Coulter). WFLX news has always been done by WPEC, at WPECs Mangonia Park Station, but under direction of Raycom.
It would be interesting to see what WFLX would be like as a Fox O&O. Especially since they’ve been using a logo similar to the O&O stations since February 2008 (although their generic, non-news logo does not use the actual FOX logo, which kinda bugs me).
If this goes through, it would also mark West Palm’s first O&O station since CBS left the market a few years back, selling former UPN station WTVX and several others to Cerberus/Four Points.
I would imagine that their format would be similar to WOFL in Orlando, and graphics similar to MyFoxPhilly which is also Fox 29.
i doubt this highly. Fox has been in the business of divesting of local stations in middle-sized markets. The local business is in the tank overall.
Fox owns more midmarkets than any major network. and this isnt just any place, its a place they have wanted to be in for some time now.
I would imagine that WFLX will finally hire Scott Chapin (currently the VO of WSVN) as its new vo.
GB87 check your facts. The only mid sized markets they own are Memphis & Austin.These are both legacy stations of the New World Deal from 15 years ago. All remaining stations are market 27 and up with focus being in top 20. Ocala really is just a sister feed of Fox Orlando WOFL.
Non duopoly Birmingham, Greenville, St Louis, Kansas City, Cleveland, Milwaukee, San Antinio, Portland Oregon, and even Denver stations have ALL been sold in recent years. Fox’s focus is top 20 stations, especially those with duopoly.
The broadcast biz model is perceived as broken anyway so don’t look for a FOX 29 sale unless it was some sort of distress and even then NewsCorp would not likely be interested.
Its not Ocala first off, its Gainesville that has the Fox station. Also I would have considered large market being like 20 and down from there.
I’m not the one who is interested in buying WFLX??? No need to convince me. You need to talk to Murdoch. What I do know is that News Corp wants a station somewhere down here. All business models aside, i really dont know if they are thinking about all the insight you are.
Also, remember, News Corp is a far more aggressive company than say NBC Uni, or something. News Corp cares little about some of the things that might worry their competitors…and you know that!
KSWB San Diego (owned by Tribune) has had its current FOX O&O-esque logo since August, 2008. I believe most of the former FOX O&O’s that were sold to Local TV, and WBRC Birmingham still have the FOX O&O-esque logos too.
Not to mention, WTIC Connecticut I believe also has a FOX O&O style logo.
most of the non-newscorp owned affiliates have the corporate look or a variation of it. I think WTVT in Tampa which hub the graphics lend a hand to the smaller affiliates. Just as many smaller affiliates also get the corporate web site design and CMS