| Fox Affiliate Switches Of 1994 |
Article Index for Fox |
Shopping 1994 |
Website Links For Fox |
Information AboutFox Affiliate Switches Of 1994 |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT FOX AFFILIATE SWITCHES OF 1994 | |
| news corporation | |
| american television | |
| fox network affiliates | |
| cbs network affiliates | |
| 1994 in television | |
| national football league on television | |
|
The major impetus for the changes was to improve local coverage of the fledgling network's new National Football League packages. As a result of various other deals that followed as a result of the affiliation switches, most notably the buyout of CBS by Westinghouse , the switches constituted some of the most sweeping changes in American Television history. NFL ON FOX See Also: NFL on FOX For some time, Rupert Murdoch , chief executive officer of News Corporation , the parent company of the Fox network, lusted after a major-league sports presence for his network. He thought that landing a live sports broadcasting package would elevate Fox to the level of ABC , CBS and NBC , the other nationwide broadcast networks in the United States at the time. In 1987 , the network bid for '' Monday Night Football '', then the NFL's crown-jewel program, but the offer was rejected. Six Years Later , Fox stunned the sports and TV worlds by acquiring partial rights to the NFL. The package – covering four seasons of games involving teams in the National Football Conference , as well as several Super Bowl s, a package previously owned by CBS – cost Fox $1.58 billion. CBS, then run by the cost-cutting Laurence Tisch , had reportedly bid only $290 million and was unwilling to even approach the Fox offer. At the time of Fox's bid, most of its affiliates were lower-powered UHF stations. As Fox put together its new sports division to cover the NFL, it wanted to affiliate with VHF stations that had lower channel numbers (channels 2 to 13), more established histories, and carried more value with advertisers. NEW WORLD DEAL See Also: New World Communications In the spring of 1994, months after completing the NFL contract, Fox agreed to purchase a 20 percent stake in New World Communications in a multi-million-dollar deal. The following stations were part of the deal: Existing New World stations
Stations that were acquired from Argyle Television
Stations that were acquired from Citicasters
In addition, two Citicasters stations, WKRC ( Cincinnati ) and WTSP (Tampa/St. Petersburg) were left out of the New World deal. Both would later be sold to Jacor ; today, WKRC is owned by Clear Channel Communications , which bought Jacor, and WTSP is owned by Gannett . Neither station would have been of any benefit to Fox. In WKRC's case, the Cincinnati Bengals aired on NBC and WLWT at the time. Ironically, the Bengals' games now air on WKRC. And in WTSP's case, New World already owned WTVT, which was the higher-rated of the two stations at the time. Not all the stations involved would switch to Fox:
NFL connection to deal The key to the deal was that Fox upgraded its affiliate stations in several markets. Before the deal, of the 14 NFC teams at the time, only four had VHF Fox affiliates, the Los Angeles Rams , New York Giants , San Francisco 49ers , and Washington Redskins . All were Fox Owned-and-operated stations (O&O) with the exception of the San Francisco affiliate, KTVU , which remains the largest Fox affiliate not owned by the network to this day. Most of the stations involved in the New World deal were located in markets with teams from the NFC , considered the more prestigious of the two NFL conferences for two reasons. First, the teams in the NFC were located in nine of the ten largest television markets at the time; the lone exception being Boston , whose only NFL team, the New England Patriots , plays in the AFC . Additionally, many of the NFC teams have existed before the formation of the old AFL and therefore contain longer histories, rivalries and traditions. Many of the stations in affected markets were former CBS affiliates from which Fox won the NFC rights, thus fans would continue to see at least their team's road games on local VHF stations. NFC teams in markets related to deal:
KTBC and WITI served markets containing significant fan bases for nearby NFC teams. KTBC served the Austin area and had aired Cowboys games for years (including during preseason), while WITI had broadcast Packers games to its Milwaukee audience since becoming a CBS affiliate in 1977. In 1995, a year after the Fox switches, St. Louis received an NFC team, when the Rams moved there. This made KTVI the eighth station (and sixth in an NFC market) among the stations involved in the switchover, bringing the total number of NFC teams with VHF Fox affiliates to nine. That same year, the Carolina Panthers joined the NFL as an expansion team, which made WGHP another satellite "home" station for an NFL team as the Panthers are based in Charlotte , which is directly south of the Piedmont Triad region where WGHP is situated. BURNHAM BROADCASTING Just weeks after completing the New World deal, Fox announced another purchase, this one of Burnham Broadcasting. The stations involved were:
Fox would own the stations in conjunction with Savoy Broadcasting, a minority-owned communications firm. The deal gave Fox upgrades for the home markets of two more teams: the Packers and the New Orleans Saints , giving Fox VHF affiliates in eleven of the fifteen NFC markets. REPERCUSSIONS Overnight, the landscape of local television in many areas changed as viewers got used to new affiliations. The transition was straightforward in some cases, as Kansas City, St. Louis, Austin, Cleveland and the Piedmont Triad saw the old Fox affiliates simply swap with the new ones. KSHB replaced WDAF as Kansas City's NBC affiliate, while KDNL and WXLV affiliated with ABC in St. Louis and the Piedmont Triad, respectively. KEYE in Austin and WOIO in Cleveland affiliated with CBS. All five were UHF stations. The largest affiliation swap occurred in Central Alabama, including the Birmingham area, where six different stations changed affiliations due to WBRC moving from ABC to Fox. WCFT and WJSU , the CBS affiliates for Tuscaloosa and Anniston , merged and became the combined ABC affiliate for Birmingham and Central Alabama. WNAL , the former Fox affiliate for Gadsden , became the CBS affiliate for northeast Alabama before eventually becoming the Pax network affiliate for Birmingham. WTTO and WDBB , the Fox affiliates for Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, became independent stations before eventually affiliating with the WB Network . As expected, CBS bore the worst brunt of the changes. The network had already developed a stodgy image under its CEO, Laurence Tisch , and saw its ratings slip following the deal. When it lost the NFL to Fox, the problems accelerated as CBS struggled to compete with NBC and ABC in the ratings, even though the network still finished ahead of Fox. CBS eventually recovered and by 1999, was the most-watched network until it was surpassed by ABC in 2000 and NBC in 2001 before retaking the lead again in 2002 as "America's Most Watched Network", a title it continues to hold to this day. CBS' problems were especially evident in the recruiting of new affiliates. Only four new CBS affiliates were VHF stations. In the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex , KTVT (Channel 11), became the new CBS affiliate after KDFW switched to Fox. The former Fox O&O in the Metroplex, KDAF (Channel 33), became a WB affiliate, and is now affiliated with The CW. CBS also gained a new VHF affiliation in Phoenix, after CBS moved to former independent station KPHO (which ironically was CBS's original Phoenix affiliation), owned by the Meredith Corporation . As part of the KPHO deal, CBS wanted co-owned WNEM-TV (channel 5), an NBC affiliate, to be a CBS affiliate instead of WEYI-TV (channel 25) in the Flint - Saginaw - Bay City Michigan market. WEYI-TV became an NBC affiliate as a result. As a byproduct of the KTVT deal, another new VHF CBS affiliate at the time was then sister station KSTW in Seattle, which replaced KIRO-TV in that area. This affiliation only lasted two years though, as KIRO-TV returned to CBS in 1997 following a sale of the station to Cox Enterprises . Additionally, CBS reached new affiliation deals with displaced VHF ABC affiliates WKRC in Cincinnati and WTSP in Tampa(see below). The affiliate switches also led to another deal involving The E.W. Scripps Company , the parent company of KSHB. Scripps' two highest-profile stations, WEWS in Cleveland and WXYZ in Detroit (the latter of which was previously owned-and-operated by the network until the Capital Cities buyout of ABC in 1986), were being courted by CBS to replace WJW and WJBK, respectively. In order to keep ABC on WEWS and WXYZ, Scripps required ABC to switch its affiliations to four of the company's non-ABC affiliates. These stations were WMAR in Baltimore, WCPO in Cincinnati, KNXV in Phoenix, and WFTS in Tampa, the latter two of which were also slated to lose Fox due to the New World deal. This deal stripped WKRC in Cincinnati and WTSP in Tampa, the two Citicasters stations not involved in the New World deal, of their ABC affiliations, along with top-rated KTVK in Phoenix, which ended up becoming an independent station. But the switchovers especially upset Westinghouse Broadcasting , the owners of ABC's longtime affiliate in Baltimore, WJZ-TV , which had been the longest-tenured ABC affiliate in the nation at the time. Westinghouse eventually sought an affiliation deal of its own, and in 1994, the company agreed to affiliate its entire broadcast station fleet with CBS, two of which ( KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh and KPIX in San Francisco ) were already affiliated with the network. In September 1994, KPIX and KDKA-TV, both of whom along the rest of the Westinghouse stations were known for pre-empting some network programs, began carrying the entire CBS schedule as a condition of the deal. This was followed by WJZ-TV and Boston NBC affiliate WBZ-TV switching to CBS at the end of 1994, and then the switchover before the beginning of the 1995-1996 television season of KYW-TV in Philadelphia from NBC to CBS, whom Westinghouse also sold a minority share of KYW-TV to. The various deals following the New World announcement left CBS with a slew of lesser-known affiliates, especially in Atlanta, Detroit, and Milwaukee, where the new affiliates were all low-profile UHF stations with far less transmitting power than their previous affiliates:
Other repercussions
Newscast-related repercussions The primary plus for the new Fox stations collectively was an increase in the amount of news covered on these stations, which Fox had high interest in doing as the network had (and still to this day has) no national newscasts. Over time, the former Big Three stations which had aired newscasts for years expanded them along with many original Fox stations. Morning newscasts on Fox stations gradually expanded to compete with the national morning shows aired by the Big Three. However, New World's Fox affiliates saw mixed results with their newscasts:
Unfortunately, many of the new Big Three affiliates were not as lucky. As these were former Fox affiliates (or independents) that did not have newscasts at the time, almost all of them had to give in to launching them to back up the nationally-aired newscasts provided by the networks. Generally, the stations that continue to air newscasts to this day have finished in fourth place behind their VHF competitors. However, many of these stations, such as Scripps' KNXV , WFTS and KSHB have seen gradual growth in their ratings, as have former Fox-turned-CBS affiliates KEYE and WOIO . Even WGCL-TV and WDJT have seen growth, yet all stations still rank fourth place on average. Still, other new affiliates that launched newscasts experienced no permanent success. In Detroit, WWJ-TV premiered a newscast in fall 2001 produced by sister station WKBD . Both the WKBD and WWJ newscasts were cancelled in late 2002 under an agreement made by WXYZ to produce WKBD's news. WWJ is now the largest-market major-network affiliate, and the only O&O of any major network, to have no newscasts. WWJ-TV makes light of this fact by using a slogan, Where No News is Good News, during times when other stations are airing newscasts. Two ABC affiliates, KDNL in St. Louis and WXLV in the Piedmont Triad region, also experienced difficulty. KDNL's news department lasted for six years until its cancellation, which was widely blamed on a transmitter problem, and is now the fifth-rated station in the St. Louis market, behind CW affiliate KPLR-TV . KDNL's current position as one of ABC's weakest affiliates, perhaps the weakest among Top 50 markets stands in sharp contrast to KTVI, which was one of ABC's strongest stations. WXLV's newscast was cancelled under orders of its owner Sinclair (through its controversial News Central division) due to poor ratings. WXLV also had run newscasts since becoming an ABC affiliate until January 2002. Fox Kids Repercussions When Fox made the affiliation agreement with New World, all 12 stations that switched to Fox chose not to carry Fox's children's programming due to interest in airing more local news, which is uncharacteristic of a broadcast network affiliate. Big Three affiliates are required to air their network's children's program block and when New World was bought out by Fox, it became the first network which had O&Os that did not air all network programming. However, one New World station eventually picked up Fox Kids. St. Louis' KTVI initially rejected Fox Kids as did all of New World's stations that affiliated with Fox. But religious station KNLC , owned by the New Life Christian Church, chose to air ministry messages in place of commercials as the church's reverend Larry Rice, refused to show commercials during Fox Kids programming. Fox was not pleased with controversial topics such as abortion being shown during Fox Kids programming, which led Fox to move Fox Kids to KTVI. KTVI remains the only ex-New World station airing 4Kids TV, however the station airs it two hours earlier than other stations that carry 4Kids TV, due to a morning newscast airing at 9 am. Although five stations (KSAZ, WGHP, WJW, KTBC and WAGA) had rejected Fox Kids programming (in its Fox Kids, FoxBox and 4Kids TV iterations), none of them filled the timeslots with local news on Saturday Morning s. Many stations that rejected Fox Kids passed it to another station in the market, typically an independent station or a smaller network affiliate, this especially true following Fox's purchase of Chris-Craft/United Television in 2001 . However in four ex-New World markets (Atlanta, Austin, Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point, Birmingham), 4Kids TV does not air on another station in any of those markets due to stations dropping the lineup. In Milwaukee, 4Kids TV has aired on independent station WMLW-CA , a Class A television station, since September 2004. Though the station has extended cable coverage throughout the market, it is much less than former Fox Kids station WCGV . At least three other stations (two of which are owned by Fox) have pulled such a maneuver. WFLD in Chicago, one of the original Fox O&Os dropped 4Kids TV and moved it to sister station WPWR in 2003. Minneapolis' KMSP also dropped 4Kids TV in 2006, moving it to sister station WFTC in the process. KABB in San Antonio (owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group ) moved 4Kids TV to MyNetworkTV affiliate KMYS (also owned by Sinclair) the same year. In all three cases it was due to an expansion of their morning newscasts to Saturday mornings. Because these Fox stations deny clearance of 4Kids TV, 4Kids TV is merely a syndication package, despite Fox continuing to advertise in promos airing during select Fox primetime shows that 4Kids TV programming is part of the network. If Fox limited 4Kids TV to air on Fox stations only, affiliates could be given the choice to broadcast the lineup around local news, as the case is with ABC and CBS. Until such a thing happens, all Fox-owned stations that do not air 4Kids TV air syndicated educational programs that meet E/I guidelines (unlike those seen on 4Kids TV) in its place, either following a newscast or in place of it, such as '' Safari Tracks '' and '' Beakman's World '', so as to not violate FCC regulations requiring commercial broadcasters to air a certain amount of children's programming (deemed educational and informative) each week. POST-SWITCHOVER CHANGES Fox continued to upgrade its stations in at least two unrelated deals struck later:
At least one other station owner has pulled off a similar maneuver. In 2001 , Meredith Corporation moved the Fox affiliation in the Portland, Oregon - Vancouver, Washington market from KPDX , on UHF channel 49, to KPTV , on VHF channel 12. Meredith had just acquired KPTV from Chris-Craft. In an ironic twist, Fox Television Stations Group would later buy all the remaining Chris-Craft stations, which in 2006 would all join MyNetworkTV as part of the 2006 United States Broadcast TV Realignment . This makes for an indirect connection between the last two major changes in broadcast affiliate lineups in the U.S. On the other hand, CBS saw an affiliate downgrade from VHF to UHF in an unrelated transaction, which occurred in the Jacksonville, Florida - Brunswick, Georgia market. In the summer of 2002 , Post-Newsweek Stations , which owns WJXT , terminated that station's longtime affiliation with CBS in a dispute over compensation. The new affiliate became WTEV , which had been the local outlet of UPN (which was then co-owned with CBS). WJXT broadcasts on channel 4; WTEV on channel 47. The new UPN affiliate became Fox affiliate WAWS , on a secondary basis. Both WAWS and WTEV are awaiting a sale from Clear Channel to Providence Equity Partners . LONG-TERM IMPACT The affiliation switches helped elevate Fox to major network status on par with its older competitors. As of 2007, its sports division has expanded to include Major League Baseball and NASCAR . The National Hockey League once aired on Fox as well, from 1995 to 1999. Beginning in 2007, Fox Sports also claimed rights to the Bowl Championship Series with the exception of the Rose Bowl , which has an agreement of its own with ABC . It also airs coverage of the Cotton Bowl and is the exclusive television home of the Daytona 500 . Fox Sports' coverage now also includes four Formula One races and live coverage of two NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series races. Fox Sports' coverage also has expanded beyond terrestrial television with several cable networks, led by Fox Sports Net , which offers 24-hour sports coverage and many home team broadcasts. Fox's entertainment programs have also benefited from the heavy promotion they received during the sportscasts. Some of the beneficiaries include shows already on Fox at the time, such as '' The Simpsons '', as well as newer programs like '' American Idol '' and '' 24 ''. In fact, ''Idol'' has been the number one rated Primetime program on all networks the last three years ( 2005 , 2006 and 2007 ). CURRENT STATUSES To this day, all Fox stations owned by New World which changed affiliations are still owned and operated by News Corporation . However, Fox Television Stations Group , the division of NewsCorp that controls the stations, announced its intent on June 13, 2007 to sell nine of their stations, six of which are former New World stations WJW-TV , KTVI , WDAF-TV , WITI-TV , WBRC-TV and WGHP (the other stations Fox has announced its intention to sell are KDVR in Denver , KSTU in Salt Lake City , and WHBQ-TV in Memphis ). Of these nine, only KTVI is located in an NFC market (by way of the St. Louis Rams ). Fox no longer owns any of the former Burnham stations. Savoy/Fox (SF) sold the stations in 1997 to now-defunct Silver King Broadcasting (later USA Broadcasting ) and later to Emmis Communications to 1998 . Emmis has since sold WLUK and WALA to LIN TV and KHON to Montecito Broadcast Group . It is still seeking a buyer for WVUE, whose sale process has been made more difficult in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina , which greatly affected its New Orleans viewing area. All stations are still Fox affiliates. As a result of the affiliation deals, Fox now has VHF affiliates in 13 out of 16 television markets with NFL teams that are based in the NFC, including the Seattle Seahawks , who moved from the AFC to the NFC in 2002; Seattle's Fox affiliate, KCPQ , broadcasts on VHF channel 13. Only the Carolina Panthers , Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles are located in markets with UHF Fox affiliates. Two of them, WFLD in Chicago and WTXF in Philadelphia, are owned by the network. The third station, WCCB in Charlotte, is owned by Bahakel Communications . SEE ALSO |
|
|