ABC 40 Springfield, Mass sold

[ynkeesfn82]

ABC 40 WGGB in Springfield, Mass has been sold by local ownership Gormally Broadcasting to the Merideth Corporation. Nearby to Springfield Merideth ownes WFSB Channel 3 the CBS affiliate in Hartford and in Springfield they own WSHM-LD, a Low-Power CBS station on Digital Channel 21 that goes by the name CBS 3 Springfield because of its position on Cable. Although they have their own newscasts and commercials "CBS 3 Springfield" is considered a satellite station of WFSB because its master control and I believe syndicated programming is based at WFSB.


http://www.wggb.com/2014/06/18/meredith-corporation-agrees-to-purchase-wggb-tv/

What I think will happen is WSHM-LD will cease to exist as its own station. All of its programming most likely will move to a sub channel of Channel 40 - much like how WGGB operates a FOX affiliate "FOX 6" on Channel 40.2

I wonder if they'll switch WGGB's main signal from ABC to CBS. I believe except for the Morning Network Program CBS outperforms ABC in the ratings.  It will also be interesting to see if they keep the WGGB call letters. In my opinion they should make them WSHM. WGGB stands for Guy Gannet Broadcasting - a previous owner of the station. WSHM stands for Springfield Holyoke Massachusetts.

[BillyGr]

But if they did move the WSHM to one of the subchannels, that subchannel might keep the WSHM letters and the main one keep the WGGB? 

Just checking ours here and it seems to vary:
The CBS station shows WRGB-HD and this TV for 6.1 and 6.2
The NBC station shows WNYT-DT, WNYT-ME and WNYT-WX for 13.1, 13.2 and 13.3
The CW station shows WCWN-HD and WRGB-SD for 45.1 and 45.3 (the .3 is just a simulcast of 6.1 to cover more areas with the signal).

Seems like an interesting setup, though - having 3 networks on 3 subsets of one channel.

Not surprising that ABC morning would be better than CBS - CBS has had trouble with that time period for about as long as Good Morning America has existed (prior to that they still didn't beat Today, but with only 2 morning shows #2 did OK, whereas splitting the market into 3 made it harder for #3 to do even OK).

I guess since here all the networks already had channels, all the subchannels are other things (like ME or THIS or such) and the 2 networks that have both .2 and .3 use one of those as a 24 hour weathercast.  The only one that has 3 with programming is the PBS (Create and World plus the main channel).

A couple of the stations have set up joint agreements (for example the ABC now does the newscasts for the FOX station, and the CBS does a newscast on the CW station, while NBC does one on a more or less "independent" station) but not combined onto subchannels or anything like that.