- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result wasdelete. I wish this discussion had involved the participation of more editors but the consensus is clear to Delete this article. To the IP editory, we can't close an AFD discussion with a Move outcome as that is an editorial decision that can or can not occur if the AFD consensus is to Keep the article which is what didn't happen here.LizRead!Talk!02:53, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- List of MyNetworkTV affiliates (edit |talk |history |protect |delete |links |watch |logs |views) – (View log |edits since nomination)
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The status of theMyNetworkTV program service's overall notability/relevancy has been brought up before; last September,Mvcg66b3r initiatedan RFC on if MyNet affiliates should be considered asindependent stations instead.
A few rounds of network affiliation realignmentbrought on byNexstar Media Group owningThe CW resulted in changes in several markets, two of which involved the MyNet affiliation. In Cleveland,WUAB added local news and sports with MyNet as a filler between their primetime news block, which was actually coveredin trades and bythe station itself. Prior to that, MyNet was buried in overnights onWOIO 19.2, which otherwise is withMeTV, and that was only sourced throughRabbitEars (archivedhere). The other market, Charlotte, saw Nexstar-ownedWMYT-TV become anowned-station for The CW, but nothing has been made to indicate where the affiliation actually went.An edit was made suggesting MyNet moved to the eighth subchannel of sister stationWJZY-TV's multiplex (which RabbitEars hasnot listed, btw). And that's another problem altogether, because it is two hours of reruns, the "affiliation" is shared with multiple other digital subchannel networks like MeTV; look at the footnotes at the bottom of the page!
The problem we have now is fairly obvious: only one website has reliably been updating a list of MyNetworkTV affiliates, and that is RabbitEars. Because it is a two-hour rerun farm, trades barely reporting on new affiliates (WUAB, again, is clearly the exception to the rule) and this list ultimately may be failing GNG altogether.Nathan Obral • he/him/🦝 •t •c •02:04, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- This is a convoluted story, and I'd like to start by rehashing the large comment I made in the project discussion linked above. MyNetworkTV is a functional oddity in American television. It was designed to function as a traditional TV network when it was created in 2006 and offered first-run programming. But the programming strategy really did not work, and the Great Recession bit hard. OwnerFox Television Stations, beginning in the 2009–10 season, converted MyNetworkTV to a programming service (to use their term). While it still fed the same amount of programcontent to affiliates, MyNetworkTV no longer offered first-run programs as of April 2010. In that time, the prominence of MyNetworkTV branding, including and most especially at stations owned by Fox (the network's nominalowned-and-operated stations), has steadily decreased. Fox Television Stations owns and operates eleven unique MyNetworkTV stations, but only one as of September 2025 brands fully with the network as it did in 2006. Some
affiliates licensee stations (as worded in Fox Corporation's annual report) of MyNetworkTV, including O&Os, no longer air it in traditional prime time. (In fact, one of these is the newly added WUAB, which airs a 9 p.m. local newscast.) As of 2025, just four markets in the top 25 DMAs have stations that are MyNetworkTV licensee stations and use MyNetworkTV-based branding, with one of those being a custom logo and also a CW affiliate. Something else has been happening in the smaller markets, which also have MyNetworkTV licensee stations. The last 15 years has seen the growth and proliferation ofdigital multicast television networks (diginets for short), and in many cases (83 of 228 rows), the MyNetworkTV programming is running on top of one of those. There are two problems with this list. One is that there is only one source seemingly even tracking where MyNetworkTV programming is running in some of these more obscure markets. The other is that MyNetworkTV has continued to be in existence but only remotely of relevance, which amplifies effects of the further decreased coverage of the broadcast TV industry in the press. (Which made handling the WMYT-to-CW switch a mess.) Pretty much every mention is in passing or pertaining to a local station in a press release. We are at a point where it is not possible to maintain, with reliable sources that are not TV guides, a list of MyNetworkTVaffiliates licensee stations. (And at a point where I'd argue every MyNetworkTV licensee is just an independent station for lead and infobox purposes.)Delete.Sammi Brie (she/her · t ·c)02:32, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply] - Note: This discussion has been included in thedeletion sorting lists for the following topics:Lists andUnited States of America.WCQuidditch☎✎02:32, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Delete I have seen Nathan's attempt at trying to clean up this article through the last few weeks (along with their previous ones back to the article's beginning, Sammi's over the years and my own contribs), and as it is now, we're at the point of tolerability with it rather than the longtime mishmash of styles and overnoting we've had for over a decade on it and its CW sister article. But we're also dealing with a service that has just about lost all of its notability from where it started in 2006, and whose affiliate base is fractured and not often documented well.
- As Sammi said, MyNetworkTV started with designs of being a functional television network, but I would argue that it never really was (its premiere night was filled withdirect response advertising which any network at that time would be embarrassed to be placed in primetime), and after those first two years of programming that appealed to few and a bit of time carryingSmackdown, it began to deteriorate from there. Until the mid-2010s, I could argue with it being on equal footing withIon Television as a 'sixth network', but since that point, it has become an oddball curiosity in the television industry, effectively becoming ade facto syndication block of programming fromUniversal Television (its entire ten hours is made up of reruns of NBC shows) somehow being distributed by Fox's syndication arm by circumstance, some times matching programming offered at the exact same time on other independent stations (as it currently does in the Milwaukee market whereDateline airs at the same time on MNTV station WVTV-DT2 and independentWMLW-TV on a couple nights).
- Then of course we get to the heart of the matter; MyNetworkTV no longer airs in primetime in many markets, and when it does air when intended, it is very easily pre-empted by high school or major league sports. On the majority of Fox-owned stations, it airs well after prime time so they can carry newscasts instead from their sister Fox station, which certainly give them more revenue than anSVU rerun. In my other local market, it is carried unpromoted from 1-3am at night on a WBAY subchannel (usually carrying the 'out-of-demographic for the market and an afterthought'365BLK, making it even more invisible because of that placing) as a mere afterthought in the same way many E/I programming blocks are these days.
- As Sammi says, tracking the move of programming from station to station has become worse in the last decade as local arts coverage by newspapers, especially television coverage, has declined (Gannett papers no longer carry TV listings, for one. Several other chains no longer do so either), so outside the big ABC from WPLG>WSVN-DT2 Miami change that did require viewer education, nobody is writing about the day-to-day changes of smaller networks or whereSeinfeld airs in late night locally.WP:NOTTVGUIDE is a proper policy, but it also makes things harder when the only literal sourceis TV listings, as television stations no longer promote programming outside a little-viewed 'what's on' page, and aren't running promos (or if they're owned by a broadcaster that has no local presence andcentralcasts everything, literally cannot do so) for their new additions. Viewers in Miami and Boston haven't even known the network for a few years, as their affiliates removed the service and Fox wasn't able to interest a station in carrying it, even as late-night subchannel paid programming time filler.
- "I dealt with these sourcing issues a couple years ago whenWPHL-TV became the market's CW station after Nexstar bought the network, where I scanned through listings and assumed they did end their MyNetworkTV affiliation...only to be corrected two weeks later when someone found by accident it was stuck on their Antenna TV subchannel from 1-3am. Ihate when I make an error I never intended to make, so that one burned, but there was no way to know if I was even correct without being physically able to watch WPHL-DT2, because WPHL, Nexstar, nor the local media made no mention of where it was going.
- To end this, the only purpose these days for MyNetworkTV is to provide a cosmetic 'skin' (a laCS:GO) anddesign language for the few stations that still prominently brand with the station and air it in its intended timeslot, but cannot afford to brand on their own. Sinclair's stations with the network use the same virtual 'blue TV' look and it's done so that their graphics hub doesn't have to feature multiple different looks for multiple television stations, or even have any originality to their schedule, as HC2/Innovate did in the past when they did have MNTV affiliates. It's a name people are used to, and they don't want to switch viewers from a brand they know as the home of talk shows, comedies and high school sports (and Sinclair does tie 'My'-named brands around it). At this point, the programming is secondary and some might even just brand it as a local offering, no different than they didXena andHercules in 1994, just two hours of procedural and true crime shows they would've likely bought for the timeslot anyways, but Fox gives them a cut of ads and allows the use of 'My' branding; why change that when it's worked fine for 19 years, even if onlyWorld News Now fans are watching? And to Sammi's point with diginets, I've always had the issue where somehow MyNetworkTV's ten hours earn it a 'primary' affiliation, but the week's other 158 hours carryingMeTV are somehow 'secondary'? Anyone with basic math skills would know 94%<6%=primary, but it has been an edit war issue a few times and I had to explain my reasons as to why, since some television contributors are under the assumption that a 'prime time' network is primary, and that MyNetwork TV is.
- Itwas in the past. I do not feel that it is now. Sorry for my own long post.Nathannah •📮03:41, 4 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- Move toList of Fox Broadcasting Company affiliates (table) andList of Fox Broadcasting Company affiliates (by U.S. state), as it has a similar format toThe CW Plus, which is also a syndication service that relies on acquired programming for broadcast syndication, unlikeThe CW, which is a broadcast network that relies on original programming. Even though MyNetworkTV failed as a traditional broadcast network during its first four years, thetelenovelas it made back in 2006 was basicallyFox's attempt at prime timesoap operas that were similar to the daytime soap operas that air onCBS,NBC, andABC. However, it failed to gain an audience in the ratings as the remaining episodes went unaired in the US, but they eventually aired overseas. As of 2021, the six telenovelas were made available on theTubi streaming service, although they are retroactively labeled as Fox programming.2600:6C50:57F:BA33:14BC:AF8F:F61B:785C (talk)00:31, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate.Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article'stalk page or in adeletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
