This is Part 2 of a post that began with a Jimmy Kimmel monologue, but really wasn’t about that. It was about the grave situation in which over-the-air (OTA) TV finds itself. Here is Part 1.
Even people who don’t like leftish comedy should admit that Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue after he returned to the air was brilliant. It was also, judging from this—
—a success.
And yet, says Stephen Levy in Wired, Broadcast TV Is a ‘Melting Ice Cube.’ Kimmel Just Turned Up the Heat — After Sinclair and Nexstar pulled Jimmy Kimmel off air, the old affiliate model looks shakier than ever. Even Disney might do better without broadcast.
So let’s dig into that.
The “affiliate model” is the current TV show distribution system. Simply put, networks (primarily ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, and PBS) sell programming to affiliates, which are TV stations with channel numbers.
Put another way, they wholesale it. Payments by affiliates to networks for programming is called reverse compensation. It’s “reverse,” because from the 1940s to the late 1990s, networks paid stations to carry programming. Now it’s the other way around. (I suppose the same applies to the lesser networks—ion, CW, Daystar, Bounce, Cozi, etc.—but nobody cares much about those.)
Here is a table of major affiliate station owners:
Top U.S. Owners of Big Four Network Affiliates
| Owner | Total TV Stations (owned/operated) | Big Four Affiliates | Notes | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nexstar Media Group | ~197 | ~28–32 ABC (subset shown); majority of portfolio is Big Four | Largest U.S. station owner; more than 200 owned/partner stations across 116 markets. | Wikipedia; Nexstar; WTOP (ABC count) |
| Sinclair Broadcast Group | ~294 | ~41 ABC (subset shown); also major owner across NBC/CBS/Fox | Among the largest owners of Big Four affiliates nationwide. | Wikipedia (station list); NY Post (ABC count) |
| Gray Media | ~180 | Largest owner of NBC affiliates (28); strong on ABC & CBS as well | Name changed from “Gray Television” to “Gray Media” in 2025; expanding via pending deals. | Wikipedia (station list); Wikipedia (NBC=28) |
| Tegna | 68 | 56 (22 NBC, 15 CBS, 13 ABC, 6 Fox) | Largest owner by audience reach of NBC affiliates; portfolio is predominantly Big Four. | Wikipedia (counts by network) |
| E. W. Scripps | 60+ | 42 (18 ABC, 11 NBC, 9 CBS, 4 Fox) | Mix of Big Four & CW/MyNet; numbers exclude recent pending swaps until closed. | Scripps investor highlights |
| Hearst Television | ~34–35 | ~28 (15 ABC, 11 NBC, 2 CBS) | Heavy ABC/NBC footprint; minimal Fox. | Wikipedia (affiliate mix) |
| Cox Media Group | ~12 | Primarily Big Four in major markets | Portfolio trimmed in recent years; still holds key ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox outlets. | The Desk (count) |
| Allen Media Broadcasting | ~28 | Mostly ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox | Exploring station sales; partial divestiture to Gray announced Aug. 2025 (pending). | Wikipedia; TheWrap |
Sources :
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Nexstar station total and footprint; ABC subset count via recent reporting. Nexstar Media Group, Inc.
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Sinclair total and ABC subset. Wikipedia
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Gray total and NBC=28 claim (plus active list). Wikipedia
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Tegna totals and per-network counts. Wikipedia
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Scripps Big Four=42. ir.scripps.com
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Hearst totals and affiliate mix. Wikipedia
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Cox current station count. TheDesk.net
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Allen Media size and 2025 divestiture news. Wikipedia
Notes: Counts are from those sources, as of late September 2025. “Total TV stations” often includes stations that are not owned outright, but operate in one of these other ways:
If you follow those links to understand how this stuff works, note that Wikipedia’s LMA article covers JSAs and SSAs. The SSA page redirects to the LMA page, and the JSA section is anchored on that same page. Complicated shit, but I feel it’s my duty to lay it out.
I don’t list PBS stations because all PBS affiliates are independently owned. While PBS stations also buy programming wholesale from the network, they retail it to viewers as well as to corporate sponsors.
When Trump and Carr want to politically correct (MAGA-align) station owners by threatening to revoke their broadcast licenses, they are mostly talking about the Big Four networks’ O&O (owned and operated) stations, most of which are in major markets. Here are those, in four tables:
NBC — NBCUniversal Owned Television Stations
| Market | Station |
|---|---|
| New York | WNBC |
| Los Angeles | KNBC |
| Chicago | WMAQ-TV |
| Washington, D.C. | WRC-TV |
| Philadelphia | WCAU |
| Dallas–Fort Worth | KXAS-TV |
| San Francisco–Oakland–San Jose | KNTV |
| Boston | WBTS-CD |
| Miami–Fort Lauderdale | WTVJ |
| San Diego | KNSD |
| Hartford–New Haven | WVIT |
ABC — Disney’s ABC Owned Television Stations
| Market | Station |
|---|---|
| New York | WABC-TV |
| Los Angeles | KABC-TV |
| Chicago | WLS-TV |
| Philadelphia | WPVI-TV |
| San Francisco–Oakland–San Jose | KGO-TV |
| Houston | KTRK-TV |
| Raleigh–Durham–Fayetteville | WTVD |
| Fresno | KFSN-TV |
CBS — CBS News and Stations (Paramount Skydance)
| Market | Station |
|---|---|
| New York | WCBS-TV |
| Los Angeles | KCBS-TV |
| Chicago | WBBM-TV |
| Philadelphia | KYW-TV |
| Dallas–Fort Worth | KTVT |
| San Francisco–Oakland–San Jose | KPIX-TV |
| Boston | WBZ-TV |
| Miami–Fort Lauderdale | WFOR-TV |
| Baltimore | WJZ-TV |
| Detroit | WWJ-TV |
| Minneapolis–St. Paul | WCCO-TV (with satellite KCCW-TV) |
| Denver | KCNC-TV |
| Pittsburgh | KDKA-TV |
| Sacramento–Stockton–Modesto | KOVR |
| Atlanta | WUPA (CBS since Aug. 16, 2025) |
FOX — Fox Television Stations
| Market | Station |
|---|---|
| New York | WNYW |
| Los Angeles | KTTV |
| Chicago | WFLD |
| Philadelphia | WTXF-TV |
| Dallas–Fort Worth | KDFW |
| San Francisco–Oakland–San Jose | KTVU |
| Washington, D.C. | WTTG |
| Houston | KRIV |
| Atlanta | WAGA-TV |
| Detroit | WJBK |
| Tampa–St. Petersburg | WTVT |
| Minneapolis–St. Paul | KMSP-TV |
| Phoenix | KSAZ-TV |
| Orlando | WOFL (semi-satellite WOGX) |
| Austin | KTBC |
| Milwaukee | WITI |
| Seattle–Tacoma | KCPQ |
Note that some sources (at those links) also list subchannel affiliations as well. Subchannels are secondary channels that stations transmit along with their main affiliate channel (ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox). This is why, when I said in Part 1 that I would watch Jimmy’s monologue on WRTV channel 6.1, rather than just “channel 6,” it’s because WRTV also mooshes a bunch of these subchannels into the same signal. From Wikipedia’s WRTV page:
| Channel | Res. | Aspect | Short name | Programming |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6.1 | 720p | 16:9 | WRTV-HD | ABC |
| 6.2 | 480i | Grit | Grit | |
| 6.3 | Laff | Laff | ||
| 6.4 | QVC | QVC | ||
| 6.5 | HSN | HSN | ||
| 6.6 | HSN2 | HSN2 | ||
| 29.2 | 480i | 16:9 | WTTV4.2 | Independent (WTTK) |
| 29.3 | COZI | Cozi TV (WTTK) |
Note that the channel with the highest resolution on that list is 6.1, the ABC channel called WRTV. They ever say “-HD” on the air, mostly because why bother, but also because a resolution of 720p is barely HD. If WRTV-HD channel 6.1 were full HD, it would be 1080i or 1080p. But WRTV broadcasts its main channel in lowest HD resolution because it wants to all those subchannels inside the limited bandwidth of its OTA TV channel (in WRTV’s case, channel 25). All OTA TV stations with a mess of subchannels like this one suffer the same trade-off between picture resolution and subchannel count. If you watch TV network streams over the Internet, however, you may get higher resolutions, including 4K. That’s an advantage of having an Apple TV 4K, Roku, Fire TV, or Google TV plugged into one of your TV’s HDMI inputs.
Channel-packing like this was a big advantage in the early days of digital OTA TV. Those subchannels were meant to take up shelf space on cable guides, thanks to must-carry rules. Back then the best TVs were also “full HD,” which was 1080i or 1080p (the latter is better). Now all the good TVs sold are 4K. You won’t see Best Buy or Costco showing off a 4K TV using an OTA or cable station, because the resolution is too low, and the compression artifacts are too obvious, especially on the largest screens.
Back to the political game being played here.
Trump and Carr want MAGA-aligned affiliates. Simple as that. Sinclair is already there. Nexstar is leaning that way. If Nexstar gets the green light to acquire Tegna, we can assume that all the former Tegna stations will also veer from mainstream to redstream.
But, as broadcast television dies off, those moves will matter less and less. Broadcasting’s viewers and listeners are already herded into their political echo chambers by algorithms that optimize for rage, because that’s what best drives engagement.
The economics of local TV are also awful. For example, the Indianapolis station I most like to watch for local news is WISH/8, which is locally owned by Circle City Broadcasting. Alas, MSN reports, WISH-TV scrubs these names off its ‘Meet the Staff’ page after 21 employees depart station. Here’s an excerpt (the italics are theirs):
IndyStar examined WISH-TV’s “Meet the Team” page on its website using the Wayback Machine, which archives billions of webpages across the internet. Between Aug. 24 and Sept. 9, the profiles of more than a dozen employees were scrubbed off the site.
The WISH-TV employees listed below were either terminated or they resigned, left voluntarily after their contract expired, were not offered a new contract, or are otherwise missing from WISH-TV’s current staffing page. They include:
- Jeremy Jenkins, daybreak anchor
- Brittany Noble, daybreak anchor
- Kody Fisher, investigative reporter
- Reyna Revelle, Hispanic culture reporter
- Kyla Russell, reporter
- Danielle Zulkosky, reporter
- Felicia Michelle, lifestyle host
- Parker Carlson, digital journalist
- Emily Reuben, digital content producer
- Jason Ronimous, digital and assignments manager
- Kyle Fisher, photographer
- Guillermo Lithgow, photographer
- Kat Lowder, news producer
- Al Carl, vice president of news at WISH
IndyStar public safety reporters Noe Padilla and Ryan Murphy contributed to this article.
John Tufts covers trending news for IndyStar and Midwest Connect. Send him a news tip at JTufts@Gannett.com. Find him on BlueSky at JohnWritesStuff.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: WISH-TV scrubs these names off its ‘Meet the Staff’ page after 21 employees depart station
I include all that linky credit-passing because professional journalism is shrinking away, and we need to recognize and support the journalists who are still among the employed.
Since newsroom employment turned negative after 2008, U.S. newsrooms have shrunk by about 26%—from roughly 114,000 jobs in 2008 to about 85,000 in 2020—with newspaper newsrooms down 57% over the same span. And those numbers are from a Pew study published four years ago, when the broadcasting’s melting cube was much larger.
As a professional journalist, I’ve been unemployed since 2019 (after 24 years with Linux Journal). But that’s fine with me. I’ve aged out of the talent pool and would rather focus on remaking the way news is done, from the ground up. That’s what my News Commons series is about.
What I want is to see is What’s On replaced by What Matters. It will take some time for us to institutionalize that. But I believe we will.
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