I hate when this shit happens, but as consolidation of this industry continues, you will continue to see more of this.

WEEK-TV 25 News officially announced a merger with WHOI (ABC) this week. Both stations serve the Peoria market.

In reality, this merger happened back in 2019 when WHOI entered into a shared services agreement with WEEK and moved into WEEK’s facility.

WEEK is owned by Gray and WHOI is owned by Sinclair.

When that merger took place back in 2019, less than a handful of the on-air talent at WHOI was retained and everyone else got pink slips.

The stations were run “separately” with most of the news content being the exact same on both stations. The only difference is anchors, sets, and graphics.

Back in 2016, Quincey Media dumped some money into WHOI, but the ratings never amounted to anything.

Now the stations have announced that they are merging and will no longer have competing newscasts.

The morning show will be simulcast on both stations. The WEEK people will still anchor the big shows at 5,6,10 while they sprinkle in WHOI people in other newscasts.

The change will happen in September. WEEK News Director Leon Hendricks tried to spin the change by saying, “You will have the people that you are used to seeing, they’re just maybe in a couple of different places,” he said. “So that is one of the benefits that we have with this, is that we’re able to expand and keep everyone that you’re used to seeing, you’re still going to see them.”

The truth of the matter is viewers are getting the same news on two different stations.

Consolidation is great for the bottom line for media companies, but viewers get screwed.

Here’s how the stations spun the whole deal to viewers.