The Cox empire may own Dayton with the “numbah 1” TV station, the only newspaper and a few radio stations (K99, the Eagle, WHIO Radio), but the competition are the biggest players in TV- and one just got a lot bigger.

Sinclair Broadcast group is the largest conglomeration of local TV stations in the country- owned by a bunch of right wing nut jobs. They control ABC 22 and Fox 45.

LIN Media owns NBC 2 and WBDT 26 and just got bought by another huge conglomerate making them the “numbah 2” vs. Sinclair.

This happened yesterday and was in the NY Times- a real newspaper:

Media General said on Friday that it would acquire LIN Media for $1.6 billion in a cash-and-stock deal that will create the second-largest local television broadcasting company…

Both Media General and LIN Media operate local television stations that act as affiliates to the big broadcast networks like ABC, CBS and NBC.

The combined company will own 74 stations in 46 markets and reach 26.5 million households, or 23 percent of the market in the United States. It will rank behind only Sinclair Broadcast Group in terms of number of stations operated.

via Acquisition by Media General Creates 2nd-Largest Local TV Owner – NYTimes.com.

What does this mean for the average viewer- not much. What does it mean for political ad buys? It’s getting easier and easier to buy up local inventory for political ad season which is becoming the multi-billion dollar cash cow that keeps these stations in business. Watch for the first wave of political mudslinging to begin to hit the airwaves this Monday for the May primaries. As usual, Ohio will not be spared, big money will flow into the Boehner campaign since he’s facing “opposition” in the primary, and look for a ton to be spent by people like Bill Beagle in OH-5 with a ton of opposition.

Local TV used to be the checks and balance on local newspapers- somewhat. With this latest move there is zero local control of our media- unless you count esrati.com or the Dayton City Paper as media. Even the Dayton Business Journal which started out as a local operation is controlled by a media conglomerate.

#resistanceisfutile