Detroit TV station saga takes another turn
NAACP, Operation PUSH urge sale of WADL
The saga involving Detroit’s WADL has taken another turn with the owner getting support from unlikely sources.
Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the NAACP have each sent a letter of support of Kevin Adell to the FCC in his efforts to sell his WADL to Mission Broadcasting.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson sent a letter to FCC Commissioner Geoffrey Starks earlier this week and sent a follow-up letter Monday. Detroit NAACP President Rev. Dr. Wendell Anthony recently sent separate letters to FCC Chairperson Jessica Rosenwarcel and Commissioner Brendan Carr last week. In both cases, they urged the agency to approve the sale of WADL to Mission as they represent the dependents of the original investors of the station, who were African-American.
“Most of the original investors, like Horace L. Sheffield, Jr. (who once hosted a political talk show on the station), O’Neal Swanson, and George White have passed away leaving their hopes and dreams that their children and grandchildren would inherit the fruit of their investments,” Anthony stated in the letter. “These families are finally, after all these years, in a position to do just that, if, and only if, this sale of WADL is allowed to proceed and be approved.” (You can read all the letters here.)
Despite losing population for much of the last sixty years, Detroit is still one of the largest Black media markets in the country. The nation’s first Black-owned TV station was founded here in 1975 with the sign-on of WGPR-TV, who was sold to CBS in 1995 by the International Free Masons and renamed WWJ-TV a year after the network was ousted from its longtime WJBK-TV home due to the Fox/New World deal. WADL signed on in 1989 and was originally owned by a group of minority investors – the ones mentioned above with Adell, a white person, taking over as majority owner some 20 years ago.
As you probably know by now, the sale of WADL is being held up as lawsuits were filed by groups representing cable and satellite companies and others against Mission and Nexstar to stop the sale, claiming Mission is nothing more than a “shell” company for Nexstar to circumvent the FCC ownership rules, which caps broadcasters’ U.S. reach at 39 percent as Nexstar is close to reaching. Nexstar runs the day-to-day operations of most of Mission’s stations including WPIX New York, where NewsNation’s prime-time shows originate. NewsNation is wholly owned by Nexstar.
Based in Wichita Falls, Tex. and founded in 1996, Mission has its own website and lists the 29 stations it owns including WTVO in Rockford, whose duopoly partner WQRF is fully owned by Nexstar. Mission’s stations are off Dish and DirecTV in separate retrans disputes, as they have for months.
In recent years, The Rainbow PUSH Coalition has written to regulators regarding the NFL blackout rules and set-top boxes. In 1985, Operation PUSH (as it was called then) was influential in boycotting CBS-owned WBBM-TV after it demoted longtime anchor Harry Porterfield. The boycott had some impact as Black viewers tuned out in droves but it was mainly the success of WLS-TV’s lineup driven by Oprah Winfrey who did the most damage, whose effects are still felt by WBBM today.
This is the latest in a saga involving these parties, the most recent coming two weeks ago when The CW signed a deal with Scripps’ WMYD after just eight weeks at WADL, who agreed to take affiliation of the Nexstar-owned network and getting compensation – which abruptly stopped for some reason, leading WADL to pull the plug. Adell is now suing Scripps and WMYD after unsuccessfully filing a cease-and-desist order; it is unknown what would happen to The CW affiliation in Detroit when – or if- the FCC approves the deal with Mission.