• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

KSL refuses to air ‘New Normal’

How many of these pre-emptions will NBC take before they tell KSL to go pound sand? Surely, they can't be happy with KSL. Are they merely affiliated with the station out of necessity at this point? Looking at Salt Lake's channel log, there really isn't anywhere else for NBC to go. The only independent station in the market is also owned by Bonneville.
 
This is nothing new for KSL, since the LDS Church is opposed to gay marriage and airing "The New Normal" would be the last thing KSL management needs. Not only that, KUTV, KTVX and KSTU are already locked into long-term contracts with CBS, ABC and Fox respectively so don't expect KSL and NBC to part ways anytime soon.
 
It's too bad, that they think that way. KSL should air the show and let the audience decide for themselves if they want to watch it. Censorship is always evil. The question is, does this make Mormons evil?
 
only1moore said:
This is nothing new for KSL, since the LDS Church is opposed to gay marriage and airing "The New Normal" would be the last thing KSL management needs. Not only that, KUTV, KTVX and KSTU are already locked into long-term contracts with CBS, ABC and Fox respectively so don't expect KSL and NBC to part ways anytime soon.
Click to expand...

What's interesting - and probably ironic - is that Salt Lake City is considered one of the most gay-friendly cities in the USA. I've heard that Mormons are now in the minority in SLC, which has become more like a regular American big city over the last couple of decades.

Last week, Rock Center on NBC devoted their entire hour to the LDS church. It was very interesting. They interviewed a prominent Mormon who was openly gay. The LDS hierarchy told him that it was OK as long as he remained celibate. He is aware that when/if he decides not to be celibate, he will probably have to give up his position in the church. They also interviewed John Huntsman's daughter, who left the LDS church to marry a man outside the faith.

What's also interesting is the gigantic system the LDS church has put together for providing food and shelter for people - not only for Mormons in need (suddenly unemployed, in poverty, etc), but for non-Mormons who apply. Bottom line is - despite the fact that they tend to be politically conservative, the LDS faith is quite socialist, in practice.

I've spent some time in Utah. The LDS church is certainly not for me, but I confess that I admire what they've done.
 
only1moore said:
This is nothing new for KSL, since the LDS Church is opposed to gay marriage and airing "The New Normal" would be the last thing KSL management needs. Not only that, KUTV, KTVX and KSTU are already locked into long-term contracts with CBS, ABC and Fox respectively so don't expect KSL and NBC to part ways anytime soon.
Click to expand...

How much do those stations censor programming?
 
Bonneville is controlled by the LDS church, none of the other station owners are. So only KSL is known for pre-empting their network.

Also: Utah as a whole is about 60% Mormon, with lesser concentrations in the urban areas. It is likely that SLC is less than 50% Mormon, but the LDS church does not release its membership statistics.
 
Lkeller said:
only1moore said:
This is nothing new for KSL, since the LDS Church is opposed to gay marriage and airing "The New Normal" would be the last thing KSL management needs. Not only that, KUTV, KTVX and KSTU are already locked into long-term contracts with CBS, ABC and Fox respectively so don't expect KSL and NBC to part ways anytime soon.
Click to expand...
What's also interesting is the gigantic system the LDS church has put together for providing food and shelter for people - not only for Mormons in need (suddenly unemployed, in poverty, etc), but for non-Mormons who apply. Bottom line is - despite the fact that they tend to be politically conservative, the LDS faith is quite socialist, in practice.

I've spent some time in Utah. The LDS church is certainly not for me, but I confess that I admire what they've done.
Click to expand...

Plus for now, the older pre-90s hierarchy is still in effect in the Church (as it is for most church and government organizations). Eventually these younger people will move into power, and like the people who killed the African-American ban in 1978, the older people will have to cede to history. I know a few LDS members who enjoy the faith but really ignore most of the politics of the church.

As for The New Normal[/b], I think as usual, it's KSL seeing a big, big bomb on the horizon and not wanting to bother to carry it. They had a great sense when it came to Coupling and The Playboy Club that they would be nothing but ratings poison, and this show just looks bad; it's like a reverse Three's Company with two gay men replacing Krissy and Janet and Jack instead being a surrogate mother with a daughter, annnoying behind-the-times mother in-law (there's your Mr. Roper/Furley analog), and the sassy sidekick (Nene is basically Larry). They definitely have a good 'morality' wall up and the timeslot is terrible (nothing has been successful in the first hour of NBC primetime Tuesdays since the days of Frasier), but in the end, the show is bad and KSL doesn't want it on their schedule. As usual, someone else will pick it up (here, the CW station) and air it to somebody.

Also, in their announcement they cited it'll be online the next day anyways. I'd take a locally-controlled broadcaster who maintains some schedule control any day over some automated station which won't pre-empt anything at all from the network out of fears to corporate.
 
History shows KSL is the smart party here. These NBC sitcoms are awful, and KSL knows their market...honestly, would you run junk like the "Playboy Club" right before your #1 newscast at 11? Kudos to them for standing up to substandard network fare, much like WHDH did over the Leno primetme disaster before they backed down. sorry but its true.
 
KSL's decision has nothing to do with the quality of the show, but what the content of it is. NBC has had a handful of programs rebuffed by KSL over the 17 years that station has been an affiliate of the network because of subject matter that the station didn't feel was appropriate. It makes you wonder why Bonneville/LDS hasn't sold it off, since a religious denomination owning a major network affiliate makes it stick out like a sore thumb and they're going to keep running into these issues as the years go on; in the '50s, this wasn't an issue, but today's TV is different. Their decision not to air some shows has got to frustrate the NBC bosses, even though these preemptions (other than that of Saturday Night Live) are few and far between.

But these shows find a home in SLC anyway, in fact it seems that KUCW is the go-to station for KSL's NBC rejects, which is ironic considering that their sister station is KTVX, an ABC affiliate. They air Saturday Night Live, and almost every show that KSL has declined to air because of objectionable content in the past including God, The Devil and Bob and Coupling. However, I am wondering how far does this go (and this is a longshot question but plausible given the situation), does KSL censor programs that they consider objectionable, but are allowed to air on the station? I only ask that because independent station KSBI here in Oklahoma City, used to censor out language and other objectionable content in their programs until their management changed two years ago, who abolished that practice and turned it into a more traditional indie station.

Also, to say that NBC and KSL wouldn't part ways anytime soon might not entirely be the case. As far as network affiliation goes, what about KMYU and KUCW, how locked in are they into their affiliation contracts with MyNetworkTV and The CW? KJZZ could also be an option, since it has no affiliation.
 
KSL isn't about to be sold off any soon because it is a case of local domination of a market by one station through all forms of media, like WTMJ-TV-AM-WLWK-FM and The Journal-Sentinel dominate Milwaukee media. KSL Radio is the most listened to station in town, and the TV station has been the news bearer for years, and because Bonneville was so forward thinking, they also dominate over craigslist and the newspapers in the market when it comes to classified ads via their website. There's no way Bonneville sells off their crown jewel without at the very least, a contract with iron-clad directives like Pat Robertson did when he sold off the Family Channel.

There's other factors, like a heavy slate of local programming pertaining to LDS and local issues that isn't duplicated on the other stations. The only reason CBS moved to KUTV in the first place was NBC had to sell it off so CBS could make the channel switch with NBC in Miami for the better and more dependable Channel 4 tower and so NBC could get WCAU in Philadephia because CBS was stuck with KYW in the Westinghouse deal. They probably wanted to stick with KSL (and still do on the radio side), but all those factors forced the switch in 1995 in the first place. NBC wouldn't have went with KSL if they didn't know there was going to be heavy local control that they could usually wiggle out with when it came to other station groups. Since until the late 90's SLC was all-VHF, going with a UHF allocation like what eventually became KUCW in their market would've been seen as an insult. There was no way KSL wasn't going to get NBC.

NBC won't ever go to KJZZ. KJZZ is just as entangled in Mormon ownership (Larry Miller's estate) and they shoved out UPN, as was mentioned below, and quickly ran as fast as they could when MyNetworkTV turned out to be terrible, moving it to midnight until their affiliation agreement ran out. And KMYU is based all the way in St. George in the south part of the state; it's carried in SD as a KUTV subchannel in the Salt Lake City metro. Nobody wants to be stuck on SD these days (plus Sinclair doesn't usually take NBC affiliations in the first place), and as a subchannel, forget it.
 
mrschimpf said:
KSL isn't about to be sold off any soon because it is a case of local domination of a market by one station through all forms of media, like WTMJ-TV-AM-WLWK-FM and The Journal-Sentinel dominate Milwaukee media. KSL Radio is the most listened to station in town, and the TV station has been the news bearer for years, and because Bonneville was so forward thinking, they also dominate over craigslist and the newspapers in the market when it comes to classified ads via their website. There's no way Bonneville sells off their crown jewel without at the very least, a contract with iron-clad directives like Pat Robertson did when he sold off the Family Channel.

There's other factors, like a heavy slate of local programming pertaining to LDS and local issues that isn't duplicated on the other stations. The only reason CBS moved to KUTV in the first place was NBC had to sell it off so CBS could make the channel switch with NBC in Miami for the better and more dependable Channel 4 tower and so NBC could get WCAU in Philadephia because CBS was stuck with KYW in the Westinghouse deal. They probably wanted to stick with KSL (and still do on the radio side), but all those factors forced the switch in 1995 in the first place. NBC wouldn't have went with KSL if they didn't know there was going to be heavy local control that they could usually wiggle out with when it came to other station groups. Since until the late 90's SLC was all-VHF, going with a UHF allocation like what eventually became KUCW in their market would've been seen as an insult. There was no way KSL wasn't going to get NBC.

NBC won't ever go to KJZZ. KJZZ is just as entangled in Mormon ownership (Larry Miller's estate) and they shoved out UPN, as was mentioned below, and quickly ran as fast as they could when MyNetworkTV turned out to be terrible, moving it to midnight until their affiliation agreement ran out. And KMYU is based all the way in St. George in the south part of the state; it's carried in SD as a KUTV subchannel in the Salt Lake City metro. Nobody wants to be stuck on SD these days (plus Sinclair doesn't usually take NBC affiliations in the first place), and as a subchannel, forget it.
Click to expand...

In that case, the only way that NBC could ensure that its programming aired in pattern on one station in the Salt Lake City market, with no interruptions (other than breaking news emergencies, of course), would be to build its own O&O station. Though that is probably a longshot possibility.
 
The funny thing is, that I looked up info on KSL on Wikipedia, and it states that the station airs The Nate Berkus Show as part of its syndicated offerings (that will probably last until September, when that show leaves syndication), the host of that show is openly gay. So there is an irony that KSL has a problem with airing The New Normal, but chose to acquire Nate Berkus.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KSL-TV#Programming
 
If the LDS Church was really true to its teachings, wouldn't many NBC shows be off-limits? Any soap opera, comedy or drama that depicts pre-marital sex should get the ax from KSL. I don't understand how KSL-TV lets unmarried straight people jump in and out of bed but won't air The New Normal.

How about the Seinfeld episode "The Contest"? Is that something that the LDS Church is OK with? Someone estimated that several of the characters on Friends had more than a dozen lovers over the course of the show. KSL-TV didn't mind broadcasting that? Or do Seinfeld and Friends get a pass because they're so popular? Does a show have to be BOTH unpopular and sexual to get banned by KSL-TV?
 
Gregg said:
How about the Seinfeld episode "The Contest"? Is that something that the LDS Church is OK with?
Click to expand...
Not to play devil's advocate, but "The Contest" originally aired while KSL was still a CBS affiliate. At that point in time, they were refusing to air Picket Fences.

The following year, KSL started airing the show, but in late night on weekends instead of its regularly-scheduled slot.
 
Don't the management of KSL-TV understand that the viewers can bypass their blackout or censorship rule by going apps and websites that NBC own and find the pre-empted shows there.
All KSL-TV is really doing is to increase hype to shows they removed.
 
recto101 said:
Don't the management of KSL-TV understand that the viewers can bypass their blackout or censorship rule by going apps and websites that NBC own and find the pre-empted shows there.
All KSL-TV is really doing is to increase hype to shows they removed.
Click to expand...

In their statement they did acknowledge that people will go to NBC.com and Hulu to watch if they want-next day. Might not be good if you're stuck on HughesNet or dial-up in the middle of Box Elder County, but the choice is there.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom