Changes are underway in the Louisville media market.

Two prominent television stations are headed toward new ownership, and it's leading to speculation over possible mergers and staff reductions.

Our Laura Rogers speaks with longtime Kentucky radio personality Terry Meiners of NewsRadio 840 was about the restructuring.

Terry, I think you describe this as the shifting sands and local media, which is a really good way to put it.

We're seeing a lot of changes like this and TV markets really across the country.

But tell us about some things we're seeing developing now in Louisville as far as, the owner of wave TV now seeking to purchase W Derby, that's great.

Television already a big firm.

They owned stations all around America.

In fact, after they bought the Or.

Excuse me, it is in progress to buy block communications, which is the parent of Derby.

Gray went on and bought another set of stations from Byron Allen.

So there's they're making themselves bigger and bigger.

Nexstar is buying Tegna that owns 11.

So there's a lot of shifting sands for sure.

The tectonic plates of media are shifting, with various TV stations finding new ownership.

The interesting part of this is the duopoly.

And that means having two signals, two prominent signals in the same marketplace.

The law just changed recently.

That allows the NBC station that happens to be Wave in Louisville to own another one of the major signals, which is Derby, which happens to be Fox in Louisville.

And so, so not sure what this will mean for those newsrooms or those this is a staffing situation there if we'll see some downsizing.

We do know that longtime anchor and journalist Scott Reynolds made an announcement this week.

He was no longer on the air at DRB.

I'm sure that's coming as a shock to a lot of viewers.

It is.

Scott is beloved, and I'm only guessing it's part of this thing because the sale, the potential sale of FB to wave's parent company has to go through a process yet, and it could be another nine months.

We don't know how long that takes.

Same thing for us going under the next wing.

But Scott Reynolds was in contract negotiations.

And then suddenly the wind shifted and all of a sudden they said, you're out and, that's what he's told us publicly.

And so that's all we really know about that.

And so companies in general, it happens everywhere.

The Courier Journal has pushed out more people.

That happened last week.

And we've all seen the downsizing in general of companies.

I work for iHeart radio.

We went through a lot of changes over the years.

And so when companies merge or one buys the other, of course they look at numbers.

And I think that that sometimes leads to figuring out ways to save money, whether that means we're not going to buy another satellite truck, another bit of equipment or some recording device, or it could get into the human resource as the actual employees, we don't really know yet.

And you talk about Courier Journal, I understand they're leaving their longtime location there on Broadway.

We'll be moving to some new offices, I presume a smaller space since they have a smaller staff but still staying downtown.

Right.

And that's an iconic building.

That whole look was so big a long time ago.

They the building was actually sold.

The Courier sold it in 2022 for about $11.2 million.

And now that company that bought it or that group that bought it is trying to find a new buyer.

And I can't imagine it's worth that much anymore because there is so much vacancy in downtowns across America, especially in Louisville.

There's a you know, the vacancy rate is huge.

So that Big Courier Journal building is up for sale again.

They've spent, 80 something million dollars on new printing presses probably 15 years ago.

Last year, I was walking through the parking lot of the Courier Journal, and there it was in a trash heap outside.

They took the 80 something million dollar investment from within the last 20 years and threw it out in the trash.

Instead of printing to make money with the printing presses that they purchased.

So it's all changing.

And, you know, the Courier Journal is printed in another city, the Lexington Herald-Leader is printed in another city.

It's just interesting how all that works now.

But again, these are companies that take over and decide what can we do to reduce costs, whether it's paper and ink or it's computers or other equipment that we use in media.

But media is definitely going through a massive change right now.

Absolutely.

And you've seen a lot of changes in your nearly 50 years in broadcasting, which is a huge anniversary that you're approaching and you've weathered all those changes.

And as relevant as ever.

So what's the secret for the rest of us?

I, I love what I do.

This company has been great to my heart, but yeah, we've gone through some reshaping and reductions in force.

Whatever.

But, you know, I offer my service as long as I heart's interested.

And my current contract runs through the end of 2029.

Terry Meiners, wonderful catching up with you.

Thank you so much for your time.

Laura.

I always appreciate you and Rene and everybody else.

I'm just, you know, for all of us in whatever capacity, whether it's CT or iHeart radio, let's stay strong and stay together.