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KRON for sale-Young hires advisers to help make a deal by first-quarter end

"KRON-TV, Young's San Francisco MyNetwork affiliate, which has been treated as a discontinued operation in the Company's financial statements pending sale...Fourth Quarter Local and national revenue grew approximately $1.1 million or 2.8% during the quarter compared to the same period the prior year."

Sounds like another form of financial reporting hanky-panky to me. I guess they can call KRON "discontinued" , then subtract the bleeding from their bottom line and claim that their financial picture is improving. That's amazing - if I understand correctly.

But I also understand they're not likely to find a buyer in the two weeks before the end of the quarter, or for some time to come. So as far as I know, they still have to empty their now shallow pockets to keep KRON on the air...unless they decide to go dark. But then what would it be worth?
 
Sorry for being late to the party, even though you West Coasters are three hours behind us back east! ;D

I didn't see this mentioned or alluded to in the other posts, but what everyone has forgotten is this simple fact: while Young Broadcasting is certainly responsible for KRON-TV's current state of disarray, they only share the blame. NBC deserves just as much of it as well.

Remember, it was NBC who scared off any potential suitors for the station with their arrogant demand of reverse compensation should they lose the KRON auction. On the other side, Young Broadcasting should have realized their financial limitations and not have submitted a bid so damn high -- and followed that with two successive bids, each one higher than the previous one. Even more so, Young should have realized that keeping the network affiliation would be beneficial to both parties, so they should have worked out some kind of deal with NBC (either lowering their reverse comp price or dropping the demand altogether).

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA15645.html

When I was researching television history, I came across at least two separate instances in the early 1960s when NBC tried to purchase KTVU. If I recall correctly, they were before and after KTVU was sold to Cox. Then there were the battles over KRON pre-empting network programming, culminating in the "Early Primetime" experiment of the early 1990s. Perhaps it wasn't just unsatisfaction with its affiliate -- rather, NBC wasn't happy with an affiliation in San Francisco. It appears to me that NBC had held onto sour grapes for an entire half-century after losing its bid to build channel 4 to the Chronicle, and wanted to stake its claim to the station once and for all. Of course Young called NBC's bluff and walked away, a gamble which ended up a double-edged sword.

I do wonder something: NBC spent over $200 million on KNTV, but how much did they spend in upgrades? All told, would it have been less or more than a potential purchase of KRON might have cost?
 
Rollo-Smokes said:
Sorry for being late to the party, even though you West Coasters are three hours behind us back east! ;D

I didn't see this mentioned or alluded to in the other posts, but what everyone has forgotten is this simple fact: while Young Broadcasting is certainly responsible for KRON-TV's current state of disarray, they only share the blame. NBC deserves just as much of it as well.

Remember, it was NBC who scared off any potential suitors for the station with their arrogant demand of reverse compensation should they lose the KRON auction. On the other side, Young Broadcasting should have realized their financial limitations and not have submitted a bid so damn high -- and followed that with two successive bids, each one higher than the previous one. Even more so, Young should have realized that keeping the network affiliation would be beneficial to both parties, so they should have worked out some kind of deal with NBC (either lowering their reverse comp price or dropping the demand altogether).

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA15645.html

When I was researching television history, I came across at least two separate instances in the early 1960s when NBC tried to purchase KTVU. If I recall correctly, they were before and after KTVU was sold to Cox. Then there were the battles over KRON pre-empting network programming, culminating in the "Early Primetime" experiment of the early 1990s. Perhaps it wasn't just unsatisfaction with its affiliate -- rather, NBC wasn't happy with an affiliation in San Francisco. It appears to me that NBC had held onto sour grapes for an entire half-century after losing its bid to build channel 4 to the Chronicle, and wanted to stake its claim to the station once and for all. Of course Young called NBC's bluff and walked away, a gamble which ended up a double-edged sword.

I do wonder something: NBC spent over $200 million on KNTV, but how much did they spend in upgrades? All told, would it have been less or more than a potential purchase of KRON might have cost?
Click to expand...

Thanks for that thoughtful reply, Rollo Smokes. You are always welcome to travel to the California TV board - hopefully the jet lag isn't too serious :-\

If I may quibble about wording, there is no doubt that NBC shares responsibility for what happened to KRON, but in my opinion, Young deserves the blame. Pardon an analogy: if I shoot myself in the foot, it's my fault even if you lent me the gun. Young TV should have backed out of the deal with Chronicle Broadcasting, or at least lowered their offer when it became clear that there was a chance they would use the NBC affiliation. Yes - NBC was arrogant, but so was Young by thinking they could out-muscle NBC. There was no way they could come close to pulling a profit without NBC affiliation considering the debt they would have to surface. And as we have seen, the KRON debacle has pulled down the entire company.

There was no way they could survive without gutting a formerly high-class operation. On top of that, NBC reportedly made a final offer to purchase KRON from Young in the weeks before they purchased KNTV, but Young didn't want to lose any money, and wouldn't accept less than the $750M they had paid for KRON. NBC ended up saving a half-billion dollars by buying KNTV instead. As an NBC executive said at the time, it was a "no brainer."
 
Lkeller said:
Thanks for that thoughtful reply, Rollo Smokes. You are always welcome to travel to the California TV board - hopefully the jet lag isn't too serious :-\
Click to expand...

Believe me, the jetlag can be a killer at times! :D

There was no way they could survive without gutting a formerly high-class operation. On top of that, NBC reportedly made a final offer to purchase KRON from Young in the weeks before they purchased KNTV, but Young didn't want to lose any money, and wouldn't accept less than the $750M they had paid for KRON. NBC ended up saving a half-billion dollars by buying KNTV instead. As an NBC executive said at the time, it was a "no brainer."
Click to expand...

Gutting the whole operation may be the way to go for Young to get someone -- anyone -- to buy the station at a fire sale-like price.

Then again, one look at the KRON schedule tells me the gutting is pretty much underway. Middays look awful, with three hours of infomercials followed by low-budget crud like Byron Allen and Jack Hanna. There's even more paid programming in overnights and weekends. The only saving grace is the few decent syndicated offerings they do carry. Don't even get me started on MyNetworkTV; they mind as well have became an Ion affiliate. But, perhaps reduce the news output and find takers for some (but not all) of the syndie shows, and perhaps they'll entice a potential suitor.
 
The only piece of information we have about how this sale is going is the station swap that was being thought about with an Orlando Fox O & O and another UHF station in that same market. Where that is a press time is unknown. The other similarity we are noticing is that KRON and KTVU are sometimes using the same stories on thier news - that could just be a coincidence or a hint that Cox Communications could be working on a deal.

We are not seeing any indication or possibility yet that NBC may be in negotiating at the moment with Channel 4.
 
"The other similarity we are noticing is that KRON and KTVU are sometimes using the same stories on thier news - that could just be a coincidence or a hint that Cox Communications could be working on a deal."

Huh? Don't all stations use most of the same stories on the news...that is to say - the stuff that happened that day? Even if Cox was thinking about buying KRON, why would they decide to use the same stories? Now if they used the same reporters, and shot the same video for both stations, that would be an indication that something was afoot.
 
Lkeller said:
Don't all stations use most of the same stories on the news...that is to say - the stuff that happened that day?

Now if they used the same reporters, and shot the same video for both stations, that would be an indication that something was afoot.
Click to expand...

I think that was what the original poster meant to say -- that KRON and KTVU are using the same reports, reporters, etc., and not exactly the events themselves.
 
I haven't seen any similarities between KRON and KTVU. Especially as KRON uses them rookie VJ's. There is no comparison between a professionally shot and edited story and a KRON VJ story.

Maybe the buyer will shock everyone and seem o come out of left field, if there is ever a buyer.
 
Perhaps if they change the background of their logo from red to green today only that might give them the Luck of the Irish in selling this station!
 
1069_KIFR said:
A little over a week to go!

So who is in the running to take over this discontinued operation?
Click to expand...

With the financial markets in an uproar... would you be thinking of buying a perhaps overpriced also-ran in the sixth largest television market?

If anyone's likely to buy, I still think the companies I listed in an earlier post would be the potential suitors, for the reasons outlined.

Ted.
 
NBCU selling WVIT in Hartford and WTVJ in Miami

With NBCU announcing today that they plan to sell their Hartford and Miami O&O stations to concentrate on the top ten stations could this mean a deal with Young to make NBC4/Telemundo 11 a reality?
 
Re: NBCU selling WVIT in Hartford and WTVJ in Miami

Newschannel4SF said:
With NBCU announcing today that they plan to sell their Hartford and Miami O&O stations to concentrate on the top ten stations could this mean a deal with Young to make NBC4/Telemundo 11 a reality?
Click to expand...

Why bother?

As others have pointed out, NBC's already got an investment in the Bay Area. NBC on 11 and Telemundo on 48.

Especially with the coming shift to Digital TV transmission, NBCU doesn't need to spend more money, when it would do little or nothing to improve its NBC franchise coverage, and might do more to harm its Telemundo viewership if switching from 48's analog and digital facilities in the hills above Milpitas hampers existing coverage in the Hispanic rich South Bay and Salinas-Monterey areas it now covers.

Briefly: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Ted
 
The only advantage I see is having a COL of San Francisco instead of San Jose, plus they could have their studios in the city as well without causing an uproar. Also, they're know as the San Jose station. Contrary to beliefs by some people in the south bay, San Jose is NOT the media center of the Bay Area. Even though San Jose proper is larger, it's 85 percent suburban.

Even with a San Francisco address, it would be hard for NBC to justify paying what Young probably wants for KRON.
 
I've started to notice NBC is now starting to refer to their station here as NBC San Francisco not the Bay Area's NBC11 - sounds like something could be brewing....
 
Well, considering that KNTV is on 11 on satellite and over the air, but on cable 3 in a lot of places, it makes sense to drop the channel number branding. Lots of viewers probably see it on channel 3, and calling it "NBC11" doesn't help that cause.

- Trip
 
"Well, considering that KNTV is on 11 on satellite and over the air, but on cable 3 in a lot of places, it makes sense to drop the channel number branding. Lots of viewers probably see it on channel 3, and calling it "NBC11" doesn't help that cause."

Exactly - much like "CW Bay Area." Though they still say "44 - Cable 12" in commercials...I assume only because the CW is a new brand, and a few people might not know where to find it.
 
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