Dak’s Take: Welcome to start of a busy summer in the media world

Monday’s media news felt like watching three different dominoes fall in sequence, each pushed by the same invisible hand: the slow-motion collapse of the economic foundation of linear television.

All three stories are chapters in the same narrative: how traditional TV players are trying to outlast, outgrow or outmaneuver the inevitable fade of linear.

Some are calling it quits. Some are clawing back control. Some are reinventing the format altogether.

Dak’s Take: Journalism isn’t dead, but it’s being rewired in real time

Byron Allen putting his 28 TV stations up for sale shouldn’t surprise anyone who’s been watching station groups hemorrhage value.

Allen Media Group has been cutting costs and refinancing debt while running 90 days late on network payments. The company invested over $1 billion in these stations during the past six years, right as cord-cutting accelerated and automated ad buying gutted traditional revenue streams.

Now Allen wants out, potentially joining others that are heavily backed by private equity in what will become broadcast television’s great liquidation sale.

This comes as the FCC investigates removing ownership caps and allowing industry deregulation, which is ironic given that station ownership is looking less attractive by the quarter.

The math is brutal. Local stations built their business model on retransmission fees from cable subscribers and predictable advertising rates. Both are evaporating. When your core revenue sources are declining and your debt service isn’t, you sell assets or go under.

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Allen chose the exit strategy.

But here’s where Monday gets interesting. While station groups flee linear television, NBC doubled down on it by handing Tom Llamas the “Nightly News” desk.

The move highlights NBC’s recognition that evening news faces an existential question… How do you maintain appointment viewing in a world where audiences consume content on demand?

Llamas keeps his streaming show “Top Story” on NBC News Now because NBC understands the brutal truth… linear television alone can’t sustain these franchises anymore. They need viewers flowing between platforms, creating what NBC calls “cross currents,” which is a nice way of saying survival strategy.

Traditional evening news still draws millions of viewers, but audiences are aging out while younger demographics get news from TikTok and YouTube. Llamas represents NBC’s bet that one person can bridge both worlds, delivering traditional broadcast credibility while speaking to audiences who expect content everywhere, anytime.

Then Atlanta delivered the clearest signal yet of what’s still worth fighting for in linear television.

CBS used an affiliation negotiation with Gray Media as the opportunity to grab another NFL market. Later this year, CBS will move to WUPA, the network’s owned station that’s been sitting on the sidelines since 1994. The driving force? Atlanta Falcons games and the brutal reality that NFL content represents one of the few remaining goldmines in linear television.

CBS and Fox have both adopted the same strategy: own stations in markets where you broadcast NFL games. It’s recognition that sports, particularly the NFL, generate the kind of appointment viewing and premium advertising rates that keep broadcast television profitable. While everything else migrates to digital, live sports remain stubbornly linear.

Gray Media can spin this as their choice, but CBS’s move looks like a corporate necessity. When you own the network that broadcasts the games, owning the local station means you capture both network and local advertising revenue. That’s millions in additional income that affiliate agreements can’t match.

The Atlanta shuffle reveals linear television’s new reality. Content that drives live viewership – NFL games, major news events, local sports – remains incredibly valuable. Everything else is becoming digital first or streaming only.

What connects all three Monday stories is linear television’s harsh sorting process.

The economic relationships that sustained television for decades are dissolving, but they’re being replaced by something more targeted. Own what drives live viewership, distribute everything else wherever audiences consume it, and abandon anything that doesn’t generate sufficient return.

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Each move reflects a deeper truth… Survival now depends on flexibility, not frequency.

Linear may still matter, but only if it’s part of a wider portfolio. The business models built for a broadcast-first world are creaking under the weight of a digital-first reality.

Monday’s moves weren’t random market corrections. They were three different responses to the same fundamental shift. Linear television is now suited primarily for one type of content, with everything else migrating to cheaper distribution models.

If content drives live viewership and premium advertising, fight to control it completely. If it doesn’t, let someone else struggle with the economics.

What we witnessed on Monday was just the opening act of a much bigger sorting coming to the industry. 

This sorting isn’t unique to television.

Print media underwent a similar process – some publications ceased operations, others adopted digital-first strategies and a few discovered they could charge premium prices for content that people couldn’t access elsewhere. Streaming followed similar patterns, with countless services launching before the market decided which models actually worked.

Linear televisions, at least at the affiliate level, is a bit behind.

More station sales are coming. More affiliate shuffles await. More personalities will split time between linear and streaming because the economics demand it.

Linear is transforming into something much smaller but potentially more valuable (especially with regards to spectrum and datacasting opportunities). The question now is who’s building for that reality instead of fighting it.

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Dak DillonDak Dillon is the Editor in Chief of NewscastStudio, where he has been covering broadcast technology, engineering and design for over 15 years. With practical industry experience, Dak's broadcast work has earned a Promax Gold Award and multiple regional Emmy nominations.

A journalism graduate from the Missouri School of Journalism, Dak has also been recognized by the Hearst Journalism Foundation.