12.5.12 Bee-otch of the Day: Barrington Broadcasting

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Name: Barrington Broadcasting
Age: 9
Occupation: TV station owner
Last Seen: Schaumberg, IL
Bee-otched For: wanting to sell to Satan
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Looks like in the next few weeks, northern Michigan television will be one big abortion.

Right now, NBC affiliate WPBN 7&4 and WGTU ABC 29&8 are co-managed by Barrington Broadcasting while CBS WWTV 9&10 and WFQX Fox 32 are run by locally-owned Heritage Broadcasting.

But, if Barrington has its way, both stations could have new owners… Again.

The owners of Barrington are apparently shopping their company to new owners, and two of the prospectives include Nexstar Broadcasting and Sinclair Broadcasting. One reason for the sale to either company is because both are leaders in the world of duopolies and owning fake companies (Nexstar has Mission Broadcasting and Sinclair has Deerfield Media and Cummingham Broadcasting) to “co-own” stations in markets too small where it’s OK to own two stations.

Personally, I don’t like either company. Nexstar has had a long history of yanking off certain programs off their stations due to content reasons (i.e. The Book of Daniel), but then again, they might be the lesser of the two evils against Sinclair, whose owners forced their stations in 2004 to air a fake documentary on John Kerry’s war records that was nothing more than pro-Bush propaganda. The fact that the company also ordered stations to air an anti-Obama infomercial in 2010 and the fact that they refused to air an episode of Nightline featuring a tribute to fallen soldiers in Iraq shows that the company is overtly right-wing and doesn’t respect anything having to do with the average American.

Sinclair taking over WPBN/WGTU would be a disaster, especially since WWTV/WFQX are also co-managed, albeit by a company that cares more about profit than programming. Both stations air a sad amount of infomercials and even religious shows such as The 700 Club, yet top-rated daytime shows like Jerry Springer and Maury were taken away by Heritage almost as soon as they bought WFQX.

Yeah, there’s the two tiny indies – MyNetworkTV WLLZ 12 and independent WMNN 26 – and if Sinclair swallows the UpNorthLive stations, those two will be the only local stations to watch in northern Michigan. I personally will not support a company that profits off of hate and lies. I think it’s high time that the FCC looks into fake duopolies and give people more choices for local news and entertainment.

But if Rupert Murdoch has his way… 

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