Double Vision at Networks As Duopoly Era Goes Live
By CLAUDIA PESCHIUTTA and DARRELL SATZMAN, Staff Reporters
It’s the most significant shakeup in L.A. broadcast history.
It will result in job cuts, merged operations and new ways to produce television news.
And if folks aren’t nervous about their futures, they’re certainly wary.
Three of the four major networks are in the process of consolidating six television stations taking advantage of relaxed Federal Communications Commission rules that allow ownership of a second station in the same market, otherwise known as a duopoly. (NBC owns three stations, but FCC rules require that one be sold).
The result is a vastly changing television landscape that leaves the nation’s second biggest media market without an independent station for the first time.
But the acquisition phase was the easy part. Now, network owners Viacom Inc., General Electric Co. and News Corp. must grapple with how best to combine assets and maximize the economic potential of their high-priced duopolies.
“This is a process of trial and error because there is no blueprint,” said an employee at KCBS (Channel 2) news, whose parent company, Viacom, won approval for its $650 million purchase of KCAL (Channel 9) from the FCC in May. “This whole thing is a big unknown even to the people managing it. I don’t think anyone knows how it’s going to shake out.”
Duopolies offer media companies several benefits. Owning two stations in one market creates an opportunity to cut costs through consolidation, makes more resources available to each station and strengthens a company’s position with advertisers by increasing its reach.
Already, officials at two local duopolies said they intend to merge their production operations into a single facility, and layoffs are a foregone conclusion at all three. In addition, local stations with common ownership have begun doing cross promotions and swapping syndicated programs.
At a few of the stations, particularly KCOP (Channel 13) and KTTV (Channel 11), unions could slow down the integration process for an extended period of time, labor industry sources said, but are unlikely to stop much.
“At one point the unions will be brought in, but by then the ink is dry,” said Kent Wong, director of the UCLA Center for Labor Research and Education. “The (duopoly) process is shaking up the industry and unfortunately for the unions they are in a catch-up position.”
Overlapping jurisdictions have undermined the union efforts. For example, technicians at KTTV are represented by one union and their counterparts at sister Fox station KCOP are being represented by another.
At KCBS, which is under its third general manager in the past year, the anxiety level among employees is high, said Mimi Toberman, a veteran writer at KCBS.
“No one has told us anything. We don’t know if we are going to be up here or at (KCAL’s) station at Paramount, we don’t know if we are going to be writing for their shows,” Toberman said.
Critics argue that duopolies lead to homogenization and leave viewers with fewer real choices.
But one former television executive who applauds the move is Kathy Crawford, executive vice president and director of local broadcast for Initiative Media North America. The new model could have substantial benefits for advertisers who can now package deals on two stations in a local market, she said.
“I’m sorry about the (layoffs), but taken from an industry standpoint, things have changed so much this was necessary for the business,” Crawford said.
Here’s how the new landscape shakes out:
– GE-owned NBC recently bought Telemundo Communications Group Inc. The deal, worth $2 billion in cash and $700 million in debt, means NBC now controls three L.A. stations: KNBC and two Spanish-language outlets, KVEA (Channel 52) and KWHY (Channel 22). NBC will have to give up KWHY to comply with FCC requirements.
– Viacom picked up KCAL for $650 million and created a duopoly with KCBS.
– News Corp.’s purchase of Chris-Craft Industries Inc. last year brought KCOP and KTTV (Channel 11) together.
– L.A.-based Univision Communications Inc. owns the Spanish-language duopoly of KMEX (Channel 34) and KFTR (Channel 46). This duopoly was born out of Univision’s launch of TeleFutura, a second broadcast television network, in January. Univision had purchased USA Networks Inc.’s television station group to create the new network.
Here’s a look at what’s happened and what’s to come at the NBC, CBS and Fox duopolies.
KCBS & KCAL
The Viacom duopoly is the fastest changing in town, and that’s creating anxiety among employees. In the month since Viacom’s purchase of KCAL won FCC approval, moves have gotten underway on air and behind-the-scenes that executives hope will help cut costs and raise ratings.
The first surprise came even before the KCAL deal was approved. KCBS Vice President and General Manager David Woodcock suddenly resigned in early May after only eight months at the station. Don Corsini, president and general manager of KCAL, was chosen to head both stations.
Last week, Corsini handed KCAL News Director Nancy Bauer Gonzales control of both stations’ news operations. CBS Corporate Director of News Princell Hair, who had led the Channel 2 news department since December, will stay in L.A. He will continue to oversee news for several CBS stations but not KCAL and KCBS.
With Gonzales in power, some KCBS news employees are worried about their jobs. KCBS is a perennial third in the local news race and its 11 p.m. broadcast earned much lower ratings in this May sweeps period compared to a year earlier. Meanwhile, KCAL improved its ratings.
“Corsini has made it very clear he likes what KCAL does and he doesn’t like what we do,” said one KCBS employee.
Gonzales was introduced to KCBS staff members as news director of both stations during a brief meeting last Monday afternoon in the Channel 2 newsroom. With so much uncertainty about the consolidation, some employees were angry no questions were taken.
After days of speculation, Corsini also confirmed earlier this month that both stations would be housed in one facility as soon as September. He didn’t reveal which station would be moving but Corsini has pointed out that KCAL has a more modern facility. Once in the same location, the stations will share one news assignment desk.
KCAL is on the Paramount Studios lot on Melrose Avenue. KCBS shares the aging Columbia Square building on Sunset Boulevard with some of Viacom’s local radio stations. The plan is to move both stations to the CBS Studio Center in Studio City in two or three years, one Channel 2 source said.
The KCBS facility “is a dump,” said one station employee. “Even Corsini said it has bad karma.” In its years at Columbia Square, KCBS has lagged far behind its network rivals in the ratings race and has been through numerous general managers and news directors.
But moving KCBS to the Paramount lot presents some challenges, sources said. Viacom would have to rent a stage for the KCBS news broadcasts, which could push the cost of the move to more than $1 million, according to a high-level source. But executives are having “big problems” with unionized engineers and other technical workers at KCBS who do not want to move, said one KCBS employee.
An estimated 1,500 to 2,000 employees work at the city’s six VHF stations, according to union officials, with perhaps 200 others at NBC’s new UHF sister station, KVEA. Most of those employees belong to an alphabet soup of half-a-dozen labor organizations, including the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians (NABET) and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (AFTRA).
Estimates of potential layoffs among camera operators, technicians, writers and other behind-the-scenes workers have ranged from a few hundred citywide to more than 200 at KCBS and KCAL alone.
“They’ve made it very clear that they want to run as efficiently as they can,” said Joseph Aredas, international representative in charge of IATSE’s West Coast office. “From our end, we’re going to try to negotiate with them to save as many jobs as we can.”
Even now, KCBS and KCAL are sharing resources. Anchors at both stations promote stories on the other’s newscasts and KCAL pitched the KCBS news during a L.A. Lakers broadcast last month.
KNBC & KVEA
These two stations comprise the first dual-language duopoly in the market. This unusual situation complicates the consolidation process and limits the amount of cooperation possible. That means the prospect of fewer layoffs than the others because the language barrier makes it difficult to bring some operations together.
Paula Madison, KNBC president and general manager, was recently named regional general manager for the NBC-Telemundo stations in Los Angeles. But Manuel Abud, who became vice president and general manager of KVEA and KWHY in April, will continue to oversee day-to-day operations of the Telemundo stations, Madison said.
Like Corsini, Madison told her employees last week that they will soon be sharing one home. KVEA, which leases its facility in Glendale, and KWHY will move to the NBC lot in nearby Burbank. The Telemundo stations will be run out of the local NBC television station hub, a master control that can operate up to seven stations, Madison said. That means the stations will need fewer operators.
The stations’ news operations will be merged. The three will share a newsroom and an assignment desk with separate slots from each station, but a complete integration would be tough, Madison said.
KNBC has about 200 full-time employees. KVEA and KWHY have 250. Madison would not say whether there would be any layoffs. KWHY will continue to operate independently until NBC sells the station, she said.
Cathy Jacquemin, vice president of sales for KNBC, has assumed responsibility for sales at KVEA but both stations are keeping their respective general sales managers for the time being, Madison said.
While the three news departments are sharing resources, such as video, helicopters and satellite trucks, Madison said few of the KNBC or Telemundo on-air personalities are fluent enough in English and Spanish to provide coverage for both languages.
To help bridge the language gap between executives at both networks, managers who don’t speak Spanish will be taking language lessons. Madison and other local executives are set to begin an intensive, three-month Spanish course this summer.
KCOP & KTTV
Changes at the Fox duopoly pretty much have been confined to the programming side. Other consolidation efforts are being slowed by the fact that the stations’ technical employees, including engineers and camera operators, are represented by different unions.
Technical people at KTTV are represented by NABET. At KCOP, by IATSE. While the unions want to protect jobs, they may differ on other objectives and Fox will have to work out deals with both before moving forward with consolidation.
IATSE’s Aredas said he was waiting to see what KTTV and NABET work out before starting formal negotiations with KCOP.
But there is some evidence of consolidation. KTTV Vice President and General Manager David Boylan was named vice president and general manager of both stations and at least 12 KCOP employees were laid off last year.
Boylan declined to be interviewed for this story.
More noticeable changes have taken place on air. The Dodgers broadcasts on UPN affiliate KCOP have a “Fox” look to them. That’s because the same production team puts together the broadcasts for KCOP and Fox Sports Net West 2.
Also, KCOP this month switched from an hour-long newscast at 10 p.m. to a 30-minute broadcast at 11 p.m. The move eliminates some of the competition for KTTV’s 10 p.m. newscast.
KCOP put “Seinfeld” and “Frasier” on from 10 to 11 p.m. KTTV, which used to air “Seinfeld” at 11:30 p.m., now airs “King of the Hill” in that time slot. “Third Rock From the Sun,” which once aired on KTTV, has moved over to KCOP.
The stations also share shows. KTTV runs “Stargate SG-1” on Saturday evenings. KCOP airs a repeat of the science-fiction series on Sundays at 9 p.m. Both also air “The Montel Williams Show” but in different time slots and KCOP broadcasts are repeats of what ran on KTTV a week earlier.
