On this first day of December, the television business finds itself in the traditional holiday period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, with the arrival of the New Year close behind. There will be the usual collection of holiday events to cover, from Christmas tree and menorah lightings to fundraising efforts to make sure there is some good cheer for all.

Inside the local stations, there will be the typical signs of the season, ranging from managing those pesky schedules when everyone wants to be off at the same time, to the rush of advertisers looking to get last-minute spots on the log to let folks know about all their sales to help stuff Santa’s sleigh bag. (At least the sales department sure hopes so.)

Forgive us for stating the obvious: This year, the sprint to the end of the year seems a bit different.

The news cycle shows no signs of slowing down amid the ongoing political and financial landscape at both the federal and state levels. The early numbers suggest that consumers are spending over the long Black Friday-to-Cyber Monday shopping weekend at a notably higher level than last year. Whether that is a sign of rising consumer confidence or increased chaos is still to be seen.

The sense of chaos isn’t limited to spending on the retail level. Spending on media ownership is also running at an overdrive level. The billion-dollar deals for local stations that we have been chronicling here are still moving toward their ultimate fates, to be decided by the markets or by government regulators who will have to clear the way for the concentration of more outlets into fewer ownership entities.

You know things are running a bit overheated when companies are adopting so-called “poison pill” moves under the guise of the more supportively named “shareholder rights plan” that Scripps announced last week, just before the Thanksgiving holiday. While the plan is purported to enable the company’s board of directors to evaluate any proposal to acquire the company and ensure that all shareholders receive full value in connection with such a proposal, Sinclair's recent announcement of just such a proposal makes this more than a hypothetical exercise in corporate governance.

As we first wrote back in the summer, this game of musical chairs is fully underway. It shows no signs that the music will suddenly stop before the local radio station playing holiday music 24/7 returns to its regular musical genre. And we keep hearing that there may be more players than have even been mentioned to date, still looking to secure an open chair before the tune is interrupted.

While this is all going on for control of local TV stations across the country, there is also the high-stakes game being played out to control Hollywood’s major player in the chase for Warner Bros. Discovery. That drama seems to be headed for another turn this week, as second-round bids are due today. Then David Zaslav and Company will decide if they will enter “exclusive negotiations” with any bidder.

Or not as the case may be. WBD’s board could say “no thank you” and proceed with its own plan to split into two in 2026.

Meanwhile, who knows what else may drop in the whole saga of Bari Weiss’s remake of CBS News for her boss, Paramount-Skydance head David Ellison. We presume he has been busy getting in his second bid to acquire WBD. (We were surprised to see that Ms. Weiss had some free time to send out an email with details of the Black Friday sale on paid subscriptions to “The Free Press” newsletter.)

And speaking of 2026, let’s not forget that the battle to reopen the government only resulted in an agreement that lasts until the end of the first month of next year.

One of the Christmas movies we watched with our family unit over the long holiday weekend past was “Bad Moms Christmas.” It is definitely NOT a Hallmark Channel movie and not intended for the kiddos. In the film, actress Mila Kunis, who plays one of the lead characters, asks the proverbial question that often gets abbreviated into the three-letter acronym, “WTF?” (To be precise, she asks it a time or two with the additional word “absolute” squeezed in between the “T” and the “F.”)

Don’t be surprised if you find yourself asking that very same question in the next 30 days or so.

Just be careful about exactly who might be listening if you happen to ask it out loud, as we often do.

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