• 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

Question about ION

KML0224

KML0224

How do local ION affiliates make enough money to stay on the air, when many of their stations have nothing local about them? My market is home to WHPX-TV channel 26 of New London, CT. The only thing local one ever sees it the T.O.H. ID in tiny print which says "Your ION station: WHPX-TV New London/Hartford". Surely they have minimal staff which maintain their transmitter for over-the-air viewers and what not! :confused:
 
They probably hire a contract engineer for a few hours a month. The only major expense generated locally for these stations is the electric power and tower space lease.
 
It's a network made up almost entirely of O&O's. To be exact, 59 of their 67 affiliates are owned by the network, yours included. Given that their programming is made up of reruns and the only original programming is really on the subchannels (HSN, QVC, qubo, ion Shop and ion Life), they would appear to make enough money to pay for it all.
 
There is staff maintaining the sales and local operations for each Ion station; for instance the Kenosha-licensed Ion station for Milwaukee maintains an office in Glendale which is open the usual hours for the few ad sales they make for local infomercials and other things such as closed captioning and engineering operations (from what I know, they have the WTMJ engineer help them out with that). Oddly, it's also where ION has the operations for their station for Wittenberg, which serves the Wausau market 200 miles away. But they have to maintain an office somehow for FCC purposes and to allow people to examine their public and E/I files; thankfully not many politicians do ad-buys for Ion stations so they have little to no political files.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom