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Decent Duopolies

Markxxx

Markxxx

In Chicago I noticed WPWR (My Network TV) owned by FOX seems to be a dumping ground for shows that WFLD (FOX) already paid for.

I noticed the same in New York with WWOR. Was wondering is this a FOX thing and if not are the are decent duopolies, where the owners do well by BOTH stations?
 
No. In a southern city (that's as far as I'll disclose since I work for them), there's a duopoly that does the same thing. They're really trying to up the "sister" station by putting their news on, and bringing a decent syndication lineup. But, they know where their bread and butter is, and it's not the station with the "My" in the name.
 
I'd hardly call the WNYW/WWOR duopoly a decent one.
WWOR is more like a farm team for the news talent as well as another source for video.
We would be better served with a non-Fox owned independent station that maybe actually focused on New Jersey, as was the original intent of the moved station to the Garden State.
 
We have the (mis) fortune of having 2 duopolies here in Hartford/New Haven.

LIN TV's - WTNH NewsChannel 8 ABC and MY TV 9 WCTX/59.

Tribune's FOX 61 WTIC-TV and CW-20 WTXX.

FOX 61 and CW 20 are actually the worst of the 2. 1/2 Million Hours of Infomercials between the 2 stations. The FOX 61 News at 10PM is 100% (including commericals and the CT Lottery) is simulcast on CW 20. Neither one of these stations have any other newscast besides the 1 hour 10PM news, which is just 1/2 hour on The Weekend.
 
Two duopolies here in Albuquerque as well.

The KRQE/KASA one has been good. KASA always has had a successful syndicated daytime line-up and we're hoping to start a morning newscast on KASA in addition to our 9PM newscast, which was originially started by KOB until Lin bought KASA last year.

Then there is the KWBQ/KASY duolopy owned by ACME. KWBQ, the CW station is the stronger of the two with higher-rated talk shows, The Daily Buzz etc. KASY seems to be the dumping ground of second-string sitcoms, courtroom shows, and infomericals. Which is interesting because before ACME bought it was the other way around.
 
The Fox duopoly of KDFW/KDFI in Dallas/Fort Worth used to be a pretty good one, a couple years ago, back when KDFI was an independent station. At the time, the station was fairly heavy on older syndicated shows (Perry Mason, Hawaii Five-O, Little House on the Prairie), many of which got pretty good ratings.

However, KDFI has steadily been turned into more and more of a dumping ground for third rate syndicated product that Fox has group bought. Between that and the fact that it's become a MNTV affiliate, it is a pretty pitiful station now.

Interestingly, some of the old shows that KDFI dumped to make group for third-tier court shows and the like are now running on KFWD, where they seem to be doing reasonably well. If nothing else, they're doing well enough to beat out the junk on KDFI.

For some reason, duopolies seldom seem to work well in television -- the temptation to turn the second station into a dumping ground instead of giving it a distinct identity just seems to be too much for most of the large station groups to resist.
 
Atlanta - Gannett's WXIA (NBC) and WATL (My Network TV). So far, they are doing a good job with it.

Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy moved from WXIA (where for the past 3 years Jeopardy aired at 4:30 PM and Wheel at 7:30 so WXIA could do a 7 PM news) to WATL back-to-back at 7 PM.

During severe weather, cut-ins are done on WXIA and WATL (and WXIA WeatherPlus) simultainiously. 10 PM news uses a combination of the WATL and WXIA brandings (My 11 Alive News at 10), as well as full use of NBC logos and chimes.

Obviously, the bread and butter is going to be with the bigger station in the duo. I always say that WATL will not boot MNTV to protect NBC programming on WXIA (we all know about NBC's problems, let alone MNTV's). In fact, whenever there is a news or weather cut-in duiring NBC time, the WXIA anchor will always say that they know the viewers want to see the NBC show, and make an on-air defense of their decision to cut in to programming. The money is with the big one, not the little one.
 
TexasTom said:
The Fox duopoly of KDFW/KDFI in Dallas/Fort Worth used to be a pretty good one, a couple years ago, back when KDFI was an independent station. At the time, the station was fairly heavy on older syndicated shows (Perry Mason, Hawaii Five-O, Little House on the Prairie), many of which got pretty good ratings.

However, KDFI has steadily been turned into more and more of a dumping ground for third rate syndicated product that Fox has group bought. Between that and the fact that it's become a MNTV affiliate, it is a pretty pitiful station now.

Interestingly, some of the old shows that KDFI dumped to make group for third-tier court shows and the like are now running on KFWD, where they seem to be doing reasonably well. If nothing else, they're doing well enough to beat out the junk on KDFI.
Click to expand...

The downturn of KDFI can be traced to one event: the creation of My Network TV. Undoubtedly, the programmers there wanted to find younger programming for the station to fit in with what My Network was trying to accomplish. Running Perry Mason, Hawaii Five-O, etc.. just didn't fit. They do have some decent sit-coms like Seinfeld, Scrubs, King of the Hill and Still Standing. But those all play to a younger audience than what they used to run.

The overall duopoly is still a good thing for KDFI. The station airs a bunch of Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars games. This year it's picked up two Cowboys games that will also air on the NFL Network. Those will likely provide the highest ratings the station has ever seen since so few folks can actually watch the NFL Network.
 
tested said:
The downturn of KDFI can be traced to one event: the creation of My Network TV. Undoubtedly, the programmers there wanted to find younger programming for the station to fit in with what My Network was trying to accomplish. Running Perry Mason, Hawaii Five-O, etc.. just didn't fit. They do have some decent sit-coms like Seinfeld, Scrubs, King of the Hill and Still Standing. But those all play to a younger audience than what they used to run.
Click to expand...

I'm sure that you're right about their desire to get "younger" programming to match up with MNTV. However, from the last ratings that I've seen (household numbers only, for the week of September 17), it doesn't look like those newer shows are really getting the ratings for KDFI, especially in early fringe where KDFI fails to even reach a 1.0 rating in any time period. About the only shows that the 5:30 and 6:00 showings of "Scrubs" and "King of the Hill" seem to be competitive against are "Happy Days" and "Hogan's Heroes" on KFWD. Both KDAF and KTXA are trouncing the early evening lineup on KDFI.

The late night performance of the KDFI shows is a little bit better, since they're at least managing to crack past a 1.0 rating with a couple of their shows ("Seinfeld" and "MASH").

It will be interesting to see if KDFI is able to improve on this pitiful performance in the coming weeks and months.
 
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