Sinclair Jumps in on the Duel GM Game

Sinclair announced it was doing the dual GM approach with its Pittsburgh and Steubenville, Ohio stations, naming longtime WTOV station manager Tim McCoy the station manager for WPGH/WPNT.

In many instances, the "dual market" approach is strictly a cost cutting move, and this one is no different. Sinclair even opted for McCoy from the 163rd largest market over longtime WPGH/WPNT station manager Rich Cook in the 28th largest market--I would assume McCoy, despite being a 32 year veteran at WTOV, was the cheaper option.

However, when you look closer, unlike in other "dual market" approaches, this makes sense.

Steubenville is less than 40 miles from Pittsburgh, and the driving distance in between the two stations is less than an hour. Many talents that work at WTOV--or even Nexstar's WTRF in nearby Wheeling, West Virginia--live across the Ellicott Line in Pennsylvania in what is firmly the Pittsburgh media market. WTOV, until relatively recently with market exclusivity rules, was widely available on cable in the western portions of thr Pittsburgh market, and ths same can be said of the Pittsburgh stations in the Upper Ohio Valley. McCoy, a Steubenville native, can easily spend an ample amount of time at both stations.

While he did acknowledge that WTOV and the Pittsburgh properties would be working more closely going forward, it doesn't appear that WTOV (which frequently covers Pittsburgh news in addition to its primary Ohio Valley viewing area) is going to start producing a newscast for WPGH, however.

In an interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review about his new title, he did praise his former employer Cox (who owned WTOV from 2000 to 2013) for Sinclair's "strong partership" with Cox's WPXI over producing news for WPGH.

Could this mean Sinclair could be looking to buy Cox, which is for sale at the moment?

Stay tuned.