Category Archives: Television

Television

WMBD and WYZZ to split

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Nexstar Broadcasting Group, owner of WMBD channel 31, entered into an outsourcing agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of WYZZ channel 43, on December 1, 2001. In April 2002, WYZZ added a 9 p.m. newscast, produced by WMBD’s news department.

It appears that arrangement is coming to an end.

Requests for comment from Sinclair and local General Manager Coby Cooper have gone unanswered. But a reliable source tells me WMBD and WYZZ are splitting as of April 1, 2010. My source says that WYZZ will move back to 2714 E. Lincoln in Bloomington, and the WMBD news bureau that is currently occupying that building has been asked to relocate. A job posting on CareerBuilder.com shows Sinclair is looking for a “General Manager/GSM at WYZZ-TV in Bloomington, IL.” Reportedly they’re in the process of building a separate staff altogether.

Not known is whether that staff will include a news director or reporters. If not, then this move will likely be the end of Fox 43 News at Nine — not that it would be any great loss, considering it’s essentially the same newscast that’s on WMBD at 10:00.

Television

Wireless industry trying to grab TV spectrum

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There’s another television drama taking place — this one is between over-the-air broadcasters and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).

You may recall that TV recently went through a digital conversion. Over-the-air (OTA) broadcasters had to upgrade to digital transmitters at significant cost and switch to new broadcasting frequencies. The portion of the spectrum they abandoned was either used for public safety communication or auctioned off to wireless communication companies. Now there appears to be an effort to take part of television’s new broadcast spectrum away as well. Television Broadcast reported in December:

The focus on spectrum use has intensified since the Obama Administration charged the FCC with developing a nationwide wireless broadband network. The commission must present its plan by February [17]. FCC officials started floating the idea of using TV spectrum for broadband in the fall. Several interested parties have glommed onto the notion, from academics to lobbyists to economists, who say broadband is a more efficient use of the spectrum currently dedicated to delivery TV signals.

Another publication, TV Technology, gives some additional details:

…The Wireless Association (formerly known as the Cellular Telephone Association) asked the FCC to examine reallocation of broadcast spectrum to prepare for the “looming spectrum crisis.” They cited Congress’s directive that the FCC must conduct an inventory of all available spectrum with recommendations for greater efficiency….

In early December, the commission issued an urgent request for additional data from broadcasters, citing a “concern that the United States will not have spectrum sufficient to meet the demand for wireless broadband services in the near future.”

The wording of the FCC “data request” triggered even greater fears, exacerbated by the FCC’s unusually short three-week turnaround period. In its official notice, the commission explained that its “inquiry takes into account the value that the United States puts on free, over-the-air television, while also exploring market-based mechanisms for television broadcasters to contribute to the broadband effort any spectrum in excess of that which they need to meet their public interest obligations and remain financially viable.”

For many broadcasters, that sounded like a threat to reduce TV bandwidth to standard-definition capacity and eliminate ancillary channel bandwidth.

In other words, broadcasters are concerned that the FCC is considering limiting them to one standard-definition channel and no subchannels to free up as much spectrum as possible for wireless devices. They argue this would effectively kill OTA television’s viability and mean the only way to get high-definition content would be through services like www.aaasatellite.tv that provide good quality with a really good price. It would also be “the largest bait and switch [scheme] on consumers in the history of our country,” according to Perry Sook, chairman/president/CEO of Nexstar Broadcasting Group (the company that owns WMBD-TV, channel 31, locally).

Television Broadcast now says that the FCC is backing off the idea of an enforced reallocation of spectrum, and is considering a “voluntary opportunity” instead. Nevertheless, the wireless industry’s “spectrum grab” ambitions aren’t dampened:

Wireless industry lobby chief Steve Largent has said his sector will need 800 MHz of additional spectrum in six years…. “We continue to believe that all spectrum should be on the table for potential reallocation, including the almost 300 MHz allocated for broadcast television use, which is spectrum most favorable to mobile broadband. We look forward to working with the commission and the broadband team to consider mechanisms to put spectrum to its highest use.”

Broadcasters point out that the government spent $2 billion promoting digital television and subsidizing set-top TV converter boxes. Furthermore, broadcasters were required without subsidy to upgrade their transmitters to HD digital. Reclaiming TV’s spectrum for other uses would be throwing all that public and private money down the drain. Furthermore, television has a “public interest mandate” (they are required to provide educational and informational content in order to broadcast OTA) that wireless companies do not, making TV more entitled to the spectrum in many broadcasters’ minds.

The fight for spectrum isn’t over. As they say on TV, “stay tuned….”

Television

Leno’s effect on WEEK’s late news “minimal”

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I don’t generally cover entertainment news on my blog, but for whatever reason, I’ve been obsessed lately with the whole Tonight Show debacle on NBC.

As you probably know, Jay Leno left The Tonight Show last year and Conan O’Brien took over. Then NBC tried putting Jay Leno on a comedy show at 9 p.m. leading into the news — and it bombed. It was so cheap to produce that NBC was still able to make money even though the ratings were terrible. However, the terrible ratings hurt local affiliates because if people aren’t watching Jay at 9, they don’t watch that station’s news at 10. So affiliates demanded that NBC cancel The Jay Leno Show and go back to scripted programming that will bring in more viewers who will carry over to the late local news.

That got me wondering: how has this affected our local NBC affiliate, WEEK-TV 25? I asked the station’s general manager Mark DeSantis. He said local Peoria stations don’t subscribe to Nielsen, but they’re able to gauge viewership by information they receive from national advertising firms. DeSantis says that “while the average national decline in prime and late newscasts for NBC affiliates was in the 30% range, WEEK sustained less than a 10% decline with Leno at 9pm.” In short, “The effect on our late news was minimal.”

Unlike other affiliates who complained to NBC about the 9 o’clock programming, “WEEK made no demand of the network that Leno be cancelled.” But like many observers, DeSantis felt it was a “serious mistake” for the network to take Leno off The Tonight Show in the first place. Now, of course, NBC is trying to put the genie back in the bottle — that is, they’re trying to put Leno back at 10:35, much to Conan’s displeasure. DeSantis believes NBC has “mishandled the announcement” of that decision, “making this issue a real mess for all concerned.”

But he isn’t taking sides. He says he also sympathizes with O’Brien. “[Conan] is getting the short end of the stick after doing what he was asked and contracted to do.” The latest rumor is that Conan’s last Tonight Show will be next Friday, and that Jay Leno will be reinstated as host after the Winter Olympics. Many speculate Conan will get his own late show on the Fox network.

“At this point, my preference is to get through this change quickly so we can move on and stabilize late night once again,” DeSantis concluded. In the meantime, it’s hilarious to hear all the late-night comedians ridicule NBC executives for their dismal handling of the situation.

As for me, I’m on Team Conan.

Television

Dumbest late night idea since “Thicke of the Night”

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According to the venerable New York Times, Jay Leno is tanking at 9:00, so the network is punishing Conan O’Brien and Jimmy Fallon.

The network has a plan in the works to restore Jay Leno to his old spot at 11:35 [10:35 CT] each weeknight for a half-hour, while pushing the man who replaced him, Conan O’Brien, to a starting time of 12:05 a.m. [11:05 p.m. CT] Mr. O’Brien would then have a full hour. […] The third NBC late-night star, Jimmy Fallon, has shown some promising ratings with younger viewers. He would then begin his show at 1:05 a.m. [12:05 a.m. CT], the executives said.

Conan’s show would still be called “The Tonight Show,” thus avoiding a breach-of-contract penalty for NBC. The stupidest thing is their reasoning:

Mr. O’Brien, meanwhile, has had his ratings suffer on “The Tonight Show.” He has trailed the “Late Night With David Letterman” on CBS by about two million viewers a night; Mr. Leno had easily been the winner in that time period previously.

Well, it’s amazing what 15 years does for your ratings. A better comparison would be to see how well Leno did his first year on the job. Answer: third place — behind Letterman and Nightline. This is a knee-jerk reaction to top all knee-jerk reactions, and will result in even more viewers being lost.

Peoria Journal Star, Peoria Police, Television

Kudos to Journal Star on some great reporting

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A couple pieces worth reading, if you haven’t already:

  • Investigative Report on Overtime: With the city facing a budget deficit of $10-12 million, everything is under scrutiny, and that certainly includes the city’s largest expense: salaries. So kudos to the Journal Star — and specifically John Sharp — for the in-depth analysis of overtime expenses in the police and fire departments. All angles of the story were covered between the main article and numerous sidebars.

    I thought it was interesting that the police union would rather see property taxes raised than take a pay freeze, considering almost half the force lives outside of Peoria and would be unaffected by a tax hike. It was also interesting to read that Mayor Ardis is threatening the police department with layoffs if they don’t voluntarily freeze their wages.

  • Local Media Beat: Steve Tarter’s weekly column keeps us up to date on what’s happening in local TV and radio. His article this Sunday included some great news: Fort Wayne weatherman Jason Meyers is going away.

    A grievance filed by Channel 25 employees over displacement of station personnel by using the aforementioned Fort Wayne weatherman for weekend weather on the station’s local-news show was upheld by an arbitrator last week.

    The news is the last bastion for local programming on commercial television, and here’s WEEK outsourcing the weatherman — roughly one third of the local newscast — after they already obliterated WHOI’s independent news team. It’s sad that local content has sunk to such a low.

Television

Why does HDTV go away when the weather is bad?

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Nope, it’s not because you lose the signal. It’s because the local television stations have failed to upgrade a critical piece of equipment in their signal path: the inserter. An inserter is the thing that allows TV stations to put their logo (“bug”) and little severe-weather map in the corner of your screen, and put a text crawl at the bottom of the screen. If the inserter isn’t upgraded to high-definition, guess what? Whenever they use it, it downgrades the picture to standard-definition.

Right now, there’s a severe thunderstorm watch for several counties in the area. So the evening news on channel 19 (which includes several tributes to Michael Jackson) is in standard definition. Any other programs that are on during the watch will also be downgraded. And it’s not just channel 19. I haven’t checked lately, but not long ago when I was watching David Letterman, the opening would pop down to standard def while the channel 31 logo appeared on the screen, then pop back up to high def when the bug disappeared.

My guess is that the TV engineers would really like to get one of these little babies, but the bean counters at corporate aren’t willing to shell out the bucks for it (they can run upwards of $8,000 — not an unusual price for broadcast equipment). So, all the benefits of the government-mandated conversion to HDTV go in the toilet whenever the station puts its logo on screen.

Hey, local TV stations: Buy an HD inserter already. Are you trying to drive your few remaining viewers away?

Peoria Public Schools, Television

Latest D150 happenings; Hinton on “At Issue”

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Parents, teachers, and other concerned citizens will be protesting at 5:30 tonight in front of the District 150 administration building on Wisconsin. They’ll be protesting against plans to close schools — especially a high school yet to be named — in order to plug the district’s budget gap. Also scheduled tonight is a public hearing on the district’s plans to issue $38 million in bonds. A revised estimate by the district indicates that this bond issuance will raise property taxes 23 cents (down from 25 cents in an earlier estimate) per $100 equalized assessed valuation.

District 150 Superintendent Ken Hinton was on WTVP’s “At Issue” Thursday night (replayed Sunday afternoon) along with the superintendent of Normal District 5. A few comments I found most interesting:

  • Hinton stated that he’s been looking at reducing administrative staff “all along,” and that he’s planning to eliminate vice principals. Then he made some equivocal comment that he might not be able to do that this year because of school closures increasing the enrollment at remaining schools.

  • Hinton said that, contrary to popular belief, the district is not top-heavy with administrators, and that he hopes that any administrative positions eliminated now will just be temporary — i.e., that they’ll be able to add those positions back eventually.

  • While he declined to get more specific, Hinton said that “the two schools will be combined.” So, as predicted, it sounds like Manual is safe from closure, and that the district is still looking to combine Central and Woodruff. It’s just a question of which building will house them.

  • Hinton also said they are looking at establishing an alternative school, but didn’t give any specifics other than this one would be bigger than ones they’ve had in the past.

  • Hinton said the new Glen Oak campus is “on the small side” — only 12 acres, whereas the Harrison school campus is 22 acres. When H Wayne Wilson asked him if that was kind of big, Hinton responded, “that’s what they all should be.” He said the research shows that “the outdoors” is important to education — that it increases test scores and makes kids less aggressive. I’ve mentioned this before, but it’s worth repeating: Sterling Middle School has a 26-acre campus — larger than even the new Harrison School campus — yet their test scores are abysmal, and the school was the site of a brutal beating of a boy on the basketball court in 2006. There is no evidence that increased acreage improves student achievement; that theory has been debunked many times, yet Hinton still clings to it, citing district consultant Dr. Judy Helm as his only source.

On a side note, I wish WTVP would put the latest “At Issue” programs up on its website. The last one they have up is from February. I’d like to watch the show again, since I missed the beginning of it both times it aired.

Television

Peoria loses another independent news source (UPDATED)

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The rumors have been flying for weeks. We all knew it was coming. And now it’s here: WEEK has taken over the operation of WHOI:

March 2, 2009 – Granite Broadcasting Corporation and Barrington Broadcasting Group, LLC announced that, effective March 2, 2009, WEEK-TV and WHOI-TV will be operated jointly from the WEEK-TV studios in East Peoria, Illinois. Granite will operate both stations under a shared services agreement (SSA) with Barrington, owner of WHOI-TV.

Under the terms of the agreement, Granite will continue to operate WEEK-TV and provide advertising, sales, promotion, administrative services and selected programming to WHOI-TV. This arrangement between Granite and Barrington will create a better and more efficient operation, which will enhance these outstanding local television stations. A similar arrangement provides that Barrington will provide advertising, sales, promotion, administrative services and selected programming to Granite’s Syracuse, New York station, WTVH-TV.

In making this announcement, Granite Broadcasting’s Chief Executive Officer Don Cornwell said, “This arrangement is an important step in the implementation of Granite’s strategic vision to capitalize on our core strength of operating leading local stations in the nation’s mid-size markets. It provides opportunities for substantial operating efficiencies by allowing us to use our existing infrastructure to expand the breadth of local news and services provided to the viewers of Central Illinois, while enhancing the revenue and profitability of both stations.”

Barrington Chief Executive Officer Jim Yager stated, “We are delighted to be working with a forward-thinking company like Granite. Together, our companies and stations will focus our combined resources on making these great stations more efficient, becoming even better community citizens and, at the same time, providing measurable benefits for our viewers.”

Under the terms of the SSA, Granite and Barrington expect to realize a number of expense efficiencies through the combining of resources and the reduction of some staff positions. Affected employees will receive a generous severance package and extensive job placement assistance will be offered at company expense.

One of the chief advantages of operating WEEK and WHOI under a shared services agreement will be the ability to offer local and national news, as well as programming of community interest in new and varied time periods, giving viewers greater opportunity to watch at their convenience. The Granite and Barrington plan will fully develop this opportunity, offering local newscasts expanded in both breadth and amount. Specifically, the stations will provide newscasts in time periods not currently programmed with local news and extend local news to other time periods, allowing viewers more access to Central Illinois reports and information. Another Granite objective is to improve the emergency weather forecasting and daily forecasting by bringing the latest and best technology to both stations. New programs focusing on all important medical issues and franchise segments highlighting critical issues of public service will also be added to the stations in the next few weeks.

In addition, community charitable organizations presently on either WEEK or WHOI will receive increased exposure using the power of the two stations working together. One example is WEEK’s highly successful Buddy Check and Prostate Awareness programs. Also, the St. Jude Telethon, now in its 35th year on WEEK, will air on both stations. Another is the 25 Women In Leadership program. WHOI’s One Class at a Time, Relay for Life and special programs for the Peoria Zoo, along with numerous other community programs will continue. The stations will now concentrate on these highly popular outreach campaigns to further drive the focus on those deserving of recognition within the community.

Other plans include production of town hall meetings and a variety of community forums on WEEK and WHOI stations at different times, so viewers have greater access to information of local relevance. Granite also will expand its policy of sponsoring political debates and offering free airtime to candidates in every national election on both of the stations.

So now, although we have five commercial station owners, we have only two commercial station operators. And so, practically speaking, we have only two local TV news organizations now. One is the WEEK/WHOI/WAOE organization and the other is the WMBD/WYZZ organization. I fail to see the benefit to the Peoria area of all this media consolidation.

UPDATE: Here’s some more information on personnel and schedules from WEEK’s site:

For you viewers, here are the changes, HOI-19’s early news moves to 5:30 p.m. Then ABC’s World News Tonight on WHOI moves to 6:00 p.m., providing nightly national news so those working later now have access to the national and international information in a new and more convenient time period.

News 25 at 5:00 and 6:00 p.m. stays the same as will the morning and 10 p.m. newscasts on both stations. Jen Christensen will continue to anchor HOI-19’s newscasts and HOI-19’s popular Sports Director Jim Mattson will join forces with News 25’s Lee Hall to make up the best and most aggressive sports team in Central Illinois. News 25’s popular Weather Man Lee Ranson will give the forecasts for both stations.

The two stations will produce newscasts with the combined staffs of both broadcast teams.