Moving to Charleston means...?

[Greg Goodfellow]

Folks, how is the move to Charleston going to change things this coming year? Will individual WVMH stations send their individual news and sports items to the central hub in Charleston? What about the future of present ND's? Will this be the statewide show on steroids?

If this has already been covered, type more slowly, and I will try to comprehend more quickly.

[---]

To my understanding, all WVMH stations will continue operations as usual. WOWK, however, will move all of the staff to World Headquarters at Brickstreet. WOWK, The State Journal, and Bray's head honchos of the company will operate out of this new location. Anybody else with extra info would be great.

[genlock]

Bray's dog Blondi will also move to Charleston.

[rfhertz]

Eva as well??

[rfhertz]

[Mr. Tom Jones]

It means Bray's largest station is moving from a fully paid-off building built for television broadcasting in Huntington to leased or rented space converted to broadcasting purposes in Charleston which may make his balance sheet look attractive to somebody that matters.

Draw your own conclusions.

[Hoosier Daddy]

In reference to the photos above, does this mean Jack Kane will open the morning newscast with "This is Jairmany Calling ..."

[genlock]

We shall have to wait to see how much consolidation he implements.
Actually, all he needs in Ghent, Clarksburg or Wheeling is a sales staff, enough news staff
to do the first 6 minutes of the noon and 6 o'clock and a production person/engineer.
Minimal capital investment.
Many groups have hubbed master control operations over great distances.
99% of the viewers would never know they don't have a real TV station in their hometown.
Everything else could located centrally or farmed out. As the operating funds diminish
we may well see this happen. Market forces will dominate.

[Clay JD Walker]

Do the viewers care about having a tv station in their hometown? Kinda the same thoughts of the origination points for radio stations, however this time we can look at a group of tv stations that, outside of news products have programming from a variety of syndicators and networks. What does it matter to me if a master control operator in Clarksburg or Charleston mashes the 'play dr Phil' button? Gonna see the same crap regardless...just sayin.

[genlock]

Computers mash the button now.
Cheaper, more reliable and non-union.
No, It makes no difference.

[Greg Goodfellow]

What I'm wondering is how much of a news staff will be required per station, how much air time allocated for news per location, the fate of ND's per location, and so on. Also, sports is huge in the upper Ohio Valley, as with WBOY and its coverage of all things WVU. Will this require a one-hour (or more) news operation at 5 p.m.? Who is going to be videotaping all the sporting events...the current sports people, or will this be farmed out to local college/university TV programs? Union regs (allowing that a union can survive all this) would no doubt prevent that.

There's a lot-or should be-a lot more to this than who pushes the button for syndicated/network programming, which does make up the majority of a broadcasting day. Who will be selling this? Will they keep the current sales staff, which has a relationship with the remaining mom and pop type stores?

Just curious, y'all.

[Scott Reppert]

In reference to the photos above, does this mean Jack Kane will open the morning newscast with "This is Jairmany Calling ..."

THAT was funny...

[Mr. Tom Jones]

We shall have to wait to see how much consolidation he implements.
Actually, all he needs in Ghent, Clarksburg or Wheeling is a sales staff, enough news staff
to do the first 6 minutes of the noon and 6 o'clock and a production person/engineer.
Minimal capital investment.

Bray tried this before with his weekend newscasts when he took over. Those newscasts flopped with a resounding "thud." I don't think he's going to try this again any time soon. Then again, he is Bray.

Many groups have hubbed master control operations over great distances.

NBC tried this with their O & O's. I'm told it only worked as well as it did due to GE's IT network. We note that much of this at NBC was dismantled when NBC sold off stations like WCMH in Columbus.

IIRC, Gray is doing this with some of their stations, perhaps even with WTAP and WSAZ (don't get over to Parkersburg much). H.264 compression might have changed things these days. The satellite and cable operators are doing this a bunch as well, but they don't have live shows the way local stations do (for now).

Try being a solo master control op with two live shows on, say, NBC and ABC at the same time. Not. Fun. Yes, Bray is doing stuff like this, but due to the multicasting nature of stations in his group, I'm not sure he's going to try this idea. Depends.

99% of the viewers would never know they don't have a real TV station in their hometown.
Everything else could located centrally or farmed out.

If you had said "99% of the viewers under 25 would never know..." I might agree. Otherwise, I disagree. Maybe in 10 years that would be accurate.

As the operating funds diminish we may well see this happen. Market forces will dominate.

The key phrase here is "As the operating funds diminish...". We know the telecoms want the TV frequencies. How soon they get them may depend on how effective the local media outlets are with the public service function. That remains to be seen, as well as how effective the bigger corporations are at buying the federal legislature.

[Waveguide]

Oh, just wake me when the station ID's say:
WOWK TV 13 Charleston.
Serving Charleston and Huntington

What the hell are they going to do next, move the damn transmitter to the Charleston area

Are they actually going to have to get any FCC license changes for this sick joke
Or does the FCC give a damn about the city of license, and all that other crap

Just my 2 quarters........

[oldtvman2]

they have been identifying as Charleston-Huntington for several years. other owners did the same. they can't move the transmitter as they have to protect a station in Virginia, I believe around Norfork, several years ago this virginia station spent several thousand dollars to equip WOWK with precsice frequency equipment so that they were exact frequency and offset another 12 cycles to prevent interference. they were moving closer to wv. also bray owns 300 acres on Barkers ridge. at this time WQCW occupies most of the building on Barkers Ridge. I was in downton Huntington this evening and I could not get a signal on 13 but could on 30. as far as the FCC they don'care what the stations do as long as they pay their money.

[lastone]

....as far as the FCC they don'care what the stations do as long as they pay their money.

The FCC no longer serves a useful purpose and needs to be abolished.

The Commerce Department can sell the frequencies.

Interference complaints can be handled by the Consumer Protection Zar.

With any luck, it will all go the way of CB and self implode.

JMO