Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Television/Television stations task force

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Are MyNetworkTV affiliates essentially independent stations now?

Pinging @Sammi Brie, Nathan Obral, Mer764Wiki, and AdamDeanHall: Should we get rid of the category and state navboxes? Mvcg66b3r (talk) 14:54, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

My two-cents on this topic:

Okay, this is confusing, honestly, Sammi Brie does make a good point about it.

... About my reasoning, it's more like the fact of the branding, and the programming. It's considered (even by Fox themselves) as just a "programming service". Now about the branding, locally, KSMO (Channel 62) brands itself by its callsign, in a way the last time IT branded as MyKSMO was in 2011 (I think).

Meanwhile, like 4 hours east of Kansas City, Missouri is St. Louis, Missouri. Until this year KMOV's 4.3 subchannel was used for MyNetworkTV under the MyNetworkTV St. Louis name until it moved to 32.1, rebranded as Matrix Midwest, and became a Sports-focused station. Also, in Missouri, KXNW (Licensed to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in a whole different market) is.. well, branded as KXNW, St. Joesph and Joplin doesn't have one, as well as in Ottumwa and Hannibal and in Cape Girardeau, WDKA (Licensed to Paduka, Kentucky) is branded as My49. In Kansas, KSAS-DT2, and WIBW-DT2 brands with MyTV. (Note, WIBW-DT2 does most air MeTV under the MeTV Topaka branding, so that doesn't count per se.)

So yea... I say, okay. Also you really putted me in that Coconut tree. But I was there (and here) for a certain propose. mer764KCTV5 / Cospaw the Wolf (He/Him | Talk! • Contributions) 17:09, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

I can't believe it. Just this week, I was writing a possible RfC on this topic. Because of this, I do have a lot of material available.

In 2006, Fox Television Stations launched MyNetworkTV, which at the time was a television network offering original, first-run programming to its affiliates. Formed in the upheaval of the UPN–WB merger that formed The CW (and left Fox's UPN affiliates out), stations generally branded with the network, and some changed their call signs to suit. Fox Television Stations, beginning in the 2009–10 season, converted MyNetworkTV to a programming service. While it still fed the same amount of program content to affiliates, MyNetworkTV no longer offered first-run programs as of April 2010. In that time, the prominence of MyNetworkTV branding, including and most especially at stations owned by Fox, has steadily decreased. Fox Television Stations owns and operates eleven unique MyNetworkTV stations, but only one as of September 2024 brands fully with the network as it did in 2006. Some affiliates, including O&Os, no longer air it in prime time. Even Fox Corporation's annual report differentiates between the two. It states that The FOX Network is a premier national television broadcast network with "affiliates" but calls MyNetworkTV a programming distribution service with "licensee stations" (pp. 8, 10). Further copy distinguishes affiliations and licensing arrangements.

Most affiliates of MyNetworkTV in the top 25 DMAs outside of the aforementioned Fox-owned stations also do not use the MyNetworkTV branding. Of the following 12 stations, 5 use the MyNetworkTV original logo style and a sixth is branded as "My" with a custom logo. There is no affiliate in Boston or Miami.

MyNetworkTV non-owned affiliates in the top 25 DMAs

City	Station	Brand/Notes
Philadelphia	WPHL-TV 17.2	Antenna TV (shared with a diginet). When on main channel, had no My branding.
Atlanta	WATL	The ATL
Tampa	WSNN-LD	SNN
Detroit	WADL	My 38
Denver	KTVD	KTVD 20
Cleveland	WOIO 19.2	MeTV (shared with a diginet)
Sacramento	KQCA	My 58 (custom logo) (also CW)
Portland	KPDX	Fox 12 Plus
St. Louis	KMOV 32.1	Matrix Midwest
Raleigh-Durham	WRDC	My RDC
Charlotte	WMYT-TV	My 12
Indianapolis	WNDY-TV	My 23 WNDY

In some but not all cases, MyNetworkTV stations are becoming contractually indistinguishable from independents when it comes time to collect retransmission consent revenue. Beginning in 2023, the contract between the National Cable Television Cooperative and the E. W. Scripps Company no longer considers MyNetworkTV stations "netlet" affiliates (e.g. The CW stations). On the other hand, the last known Nexstar Media Group retransmission contract for 2024–26 equated The CW, MyNetworkTV, and Telemundo. It is hard to prove this conclusively because retrans contracts, usually confidential, are only publicly available in extremely fleeting circumstances.

There is also precedent in American television history. The Prime Time Entertainment Network existed from 1993 to 1995, though most of its affiliates were secondary in nature. Unlike with the later UPN and The WB, stations did not brand with the network at all, and the stations were still generally considered independents.

Sammi Brie (she/her • t • c) 15:33, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

In the interest of full disclosure, Sammi Brie informed me days earlier about the RfC possibility. And I agree. There is nothing distinguishable about MyNetworkTV; it's just a two-hour rerun block that the majority of affiliates (such as they are) bury in late-hours or even graveyard slots.

Not wanting to fully belabor Sammi's argument, but just think about these things:

• Both WBFS-TV and WSBK-TV, in top 20 markets, abruptly dropped MyNet with no notice or anything and removed the "My" branding from their logos. Neither move had any coverage in local media or in the trades. WBFS is even a good article and yet this still couldn't be cited with enough confidence, only with a trade article from two years later that mentioned their independent status.
• WOIO-DT2 picked up MyNet in the middle of the night at some point in 2019 after WUAB (which also carried it in the graveyard slot after picking up The CW) dropped it, displacing reruns of Cannon and Barnaby Jones on MeTV's lineup. No one mentioned it in local media. I doubt anyone noticed and I could barely cite it with the RabbitEars citation when I redid the WOIO article. (This also makes you wonder how long a contract Gray signed for MyNet, given Matrix Midwest is somehow saddled with this program block.)
• KICU-TV is a station in a top 10 market and there was no mention of that station—again, owned by Fox—actually picking up the network. KRON, the prior affiliate, also buried it in late night and made no announcement of it being removed.

Basically, for individual station articles, the mention of MyNetworkTV should mostly be, if not exclusively, limited to when it was a network between 2006 and 2009. If it can be verified anywhere else than just a RabbitEars listing (no, Facebook or other social media posts don't count, and neither do links to TitanTV), then one could say said station "is an independent station with MyNetworkTV programming" in the lede. But it is getting more and more impossible to find reliable coverage of a station or digital subchannel assuming or removing MyNet, because it frankly doesn't merit SIGCOV.

Bottom line: unless proven otherwise by a reliable source, the affiliates of MyNet are otherwise independent stations or full-on affiliates with said diginet, and that includes in subchannel tables. Remove the categories and nav boxes, and put List of MyNetworkTV affiliates up for AfD. (The main MyNetworkTV article needs a massive cleanup and trimdown, but that's a whole other story lol.) Nathan Obral • he/him • t • c • 19:55, 29 September 2024 (UTC)