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Why doesn't Atlanta have more o&os?

B

bpatrick

Does anyone feel that Atlanta is coming up
short in stations owned by the Big Four
(ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC)? Consider that
only WAGA is owned by one of these four
networks. In comparison:

New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and
Philadelphia have 4 o&os each

Dallas/Ft. Worth has 3 (CBS, Fox, NBC)

San Francisco has 3 (ABC, CBS, NBC)

Detroit and Boston have 2 (CBS, Fox)

Washington, DC has 2 (NBC, Fox)

Houston has 2 (ABC, Fox)

Miami has 2 (CBS, NBC)

Now I'm aware that Pittsburgh and Baltimore
have one (CBS) each; that St. Louis, Kansas
City, Phoenix, Tampa, and Milwaukee have one
(Fox) each; and that Seattle has none.

But even Raleigh/Durham has 2 (ABC, NBC)
and Birmingham has 2 (Fox, NBC).

A market like Atlanta that keeps growing should
be a magnet to some network; look at Dallas/Ft. Worth.
And I'd wager that, as a CBS o&o, WGCL could become
as much a factor in Atlanta as KTVT is in Dallas.

So why haven't the networks rushed into Atlanta?
 
> A market like Atlanta that keeps growing should
> be a magnet to some network; look at Dallas/Ft. Worth.
> And I'd wager that, as a CBS o&o, WGCL could become
> as much a factor in Atlanta as KTVT is in Dallas.
>
> So why haven't the networks rushed into Atlanta?
>

Because Cox is not giving up channel 2 and Gannett is not giving up channel 11. The only real possibility is Viacom buying up 46 from Meredeth and making it duopoly with UPN Atlanta. I am sure ABC and NBC would love an Atlanta but it takes owners willing to sale. I would also say the hold back for many years was the limits placed on O&Os that only allowed 7 and still the fact that I believe nets can only stations that reach 35% of America.
 
> I believe nets can only stations that reach 35% of America.

Ergo the Birmingham, Raleigh, and Providence. Combined, those markets only make up 2.126% of the US Pop. No big whoop since NYC is 6.712% by itself.
 
> > I believe nets can only stations that reach 35% of
> America.
>
> Ergo the Birmingham, Raleigh, and Providence. Combined,
> those markets only make up 2.126% of the US Pop. No big
> whoop since NYC is 6.712% by itself.
>

Also, the formula has a bonus for UHF stations. VHF count 100% toward the 35% cap. UHF count 50% toward the 35% cap.

Using NYC as an example:

VHF sstation counts 6.7% toward the 35%.

UHF station counts 3.35% toward the 35%.

This quirk in the rule is what allowed PAX to own so many statons. They are all UHF.
 
> > A market like Atlanta that keeps growing should
> > be a magnet to some network; look at Dallas/Ft. Worth.
> > And I'd wager that, as a CBS o&o, WGCL could become
> > as much a factor in Atlanta as KTVT is in Dallas.
> >
> > So why haven't the networks rushed into Atlanta?
> >
>
> Because Cox is not giving up channel 2 and Gannett is not
> giving up channel 11. The only real possibility is Viacom
> buying up 46 from Meredeth and making it duopoly with UPN
> Atlanta. I am sure ABC and NBC would love an Atlanta but it
> takes owners willing to sale. I would also say the hold back
> for many years was the limits placed on O&Os that only
> allowed 7 and still the fact that I believe nets can only
> stations that reach 35% of America.
>
Rick, Congress raised the ownership cap a few years ago to a little over 39%. At the time, the FCC was planning to raise the cap to 45%, and some in Congress wanted to keep the caps at 35%. To avoid making this issue the first veto from the Bush administration, Senator Ted Stevens proposed the compromise figure of a little over 39%. This allowed Viacom and News Corp. to keep the stations they had acquired as a result of recent deals (Viacom's merger with CBS and News Corp.'s purchase of the Chris Craft stations). Also, as a result of this legislation, the national ownership cap issue was taken out of the control of the FCC. If the caps are changed again, it will have to be Congress that changes them, not the FCC.

The above legislation does not deal with other station ownership issues, such as the cross ownership of TV stations and newspapers in a market or ownership of multiple stations within a market. That still falls under the oversight of the FCC. However, with Congress not exactly wild about further media consolidation, the agency might want to tread carefully, if it doesn't want more of its authority taken away.
 
Could the Big 3 just not be that interested?

> > A market like Atlanta that keeps growing should
> > be a magnet to some network; look at Dallas/Ft. Worth.
> > And I'd wager that, as a CBS o&o, WGCL could become
> > as much a factor in Atlanta as KTVT is in Dallas.
> >
> > So why haven't the networks rushed into Atlanta?
> >
>
> Because Cox is not giving up channel 2 and Gannett is not
> giving up channel 11. The only real possibility is Viacom
> buying up 46 from Meredith and making it duopoly with UPN
> Atlanta. I am sure ABC and NBC would love an Atlanta but it
> takes owners willing to sell.
>
I'm sure we can all agree that Cox probably wants to keep WSB-TV as long as it can. However, I think that Gannett's continued ownership of WXIA may be due at least as much to a general lack of desire by any of the Big 3 networks to buy it as it does to an unwillingness by Gannett to sell it.

1. NBC and Gannett seem to get along so well with each other that NBC might feel very little, if any, incentive to buy WXIA or any other Gannett station.

2. The only way I can see ABC going after WXIA is if (a) ABC has a very nasty falling-out with WSB-TV or Cox and (b) ABC, which has added no TV O&Os since Disney took it over in the mid '90s and only 2 TV O&Os since the network's merger with Capital Cities in the mid '80s, suddenly becomes a much more aggressive pursuer of TV station acquisitions.

3. Since 1994, when Meredith stations KPHO in Phoenix and WNEM in the Flint-Saginaw-Bay City area of Michigan became CBS affiliates, the relationship between CBS and Meredith has, by all accounts and appearances, become almost as strong as that between NBC and Gannett. Thus, it wouldn't surprise me if a fear of getting on Meredith's bad side is keeping CBS from attempting to buy WXIA, doing more to make either WSB-TV or WXIA its Atlanta affiliate, or even trying to make WGCL an O&O.

Speaking of WGCL, I see several factors that may further limit its attractiveness to CBS as an O&O, let alone its ability to be "The KTVT of the East".

1. While WGCL has both its analog and digital channels on the UHF band, KTVT possesses a VHF analog channel.

2. KTVT has the advantages of momentum and heritage that come from launching sixteen years earlier (1955, as KFJZ-TV) than did WGCL (1971, as WANX).

3. Before affiliating with CBS, KTVT had a consistent and successful image as a mainstream, secular independent station. It never had to deal with the kind of "Is it religious or is it not?" identity crisis that plagued Channel 46 Atlanta back when it was WANX and may have even haunted 46 for some time after it became a clearly secular station under secular ownership.

4. KTVT, despite having had one more parent company than WGCL, is apparently old enough to have enjoyed -- and benefited from -- greater stability in its ownership and management. If nothing else, it's quite telling that the company that sold KTVT to CBS had owned the station for around twenty-eight years, while during roughly the same time frame, Atlanta's 46 debuted -- and then changed owners three times!

For these and other reasons, I think -- and fear -- that a CBS-owned WGCL would more likely be "The WWJ-TV of the South", a station that CBS would probably own and operate very reluctantly and, therefore, put only minimal effort into running properly, as seems to be the case with the network's UHF O&O in Detroit.<P ID="signature">______________
This is AirwaveSurfer, reminding you that portions of this post have been prerecorded.</P><P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by AirwaveSurfer on 08/22/05 10:02 AM.</FONT></P>
 
Re: Could the Big 3 just not be that interested?

> 2. KTVT has the advantages of momentum and heritage that
> come from launching sixteen years earlier (1955, as KFJZ-TV)
> than did WGCL (1971, as WANX).
>

46 started as Pat Robertson's second station - WHAE. (Minor correction - no big deal)

> For these and other reasons, I think -- and fear -- that a
> CBS-owned WGCL would more likely be "The WWJ-TV of the
> South", a station that CBS would probably own and operate
> very reluctantly and, therefore, put only minimal effort
> into running properly, as seems to be the case with the
> network's UHF O&O in Detroit.
>

Didn't WWJ recently drop its late evening news?
 
Re: Could the Big 3 just not be that interested?

> Didn't WWJ recently drop its late evening news?

Well, not that recently. I think it's been almost 3 years.<P ID="signature">______________
Derek
<a target="_blank" href=http://www.tvvancouver.cjb.net>TV.Vancouver</a>: Covering TV stations in Vancouver, BC</P>
 
Re: Could the Big 3 just not be that interested?

> > 2. KTVT has the advantages of momentum and heritage that
> > come from launching sixteen years earlier (1955, as
> KFJZ-TV)
> > than did WGCL (1971, as WANX).
> >
>
> 46 started as Pat Robertson's second station - WHAE. (Minor
> correction - no big deal)
>
I knew that Robertson's CBN was the first owner of 46 (or at least the owner that first put the station on the air), but I did not know about the WHAE calls. Thanks.

> > For these and other reasons, I think -- and fear -- that a
>
> > CBS-owned WGCL would more likely be "The WWJ-TV of the
> > South", a station that CBS would probably own and operate
> > very reluctantly and, therefore, put only minimal effort
> > into running properly, as seems to be the case with the
> > network's UHF O&O in Detroit.
> >
>
> Didn't WWJ recently drop its late evening news?
>
Not only has WWJ-TV been without local news for some time, as Hinto recently pointed out in this thread, but Viacom's other Detroit station, UPN outlet WKBD, recently deep-sixed its last remaining daily newscast, which was actually produced by the Motor City's ABC affiliate under a deal similar to the soon-to-end agreement between WXIA and WUPA.

AFAIK, the lack of local news on WWJ-TV and WKBD has made Detroit the largest DMA in the United States where only 3 English-language commercial broadcast TV stations have any local news programming. If WGCL were to stop airing any local news, then Atlanta would "earn" that dubious distinction. While that could happen easily even if WGCL continues to have a non-network owner, the stepchild-like state of WWJ-TV suggests that ownership by CBS may end up hurting more than helping things -- especially with regard to news -- at 425 14th Street NW.<P ID="signature">______________
This is AirwaveSurfer, reminding you that portions of this post have been prerecorded.</P>
 
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