Northwest TV stations duke it out

Arkansas Business, July 23, 2007 by Andrew Jensen

SOME DAYS, MARTY HOUSTON WISHES he were still sitting in front of a wood paneling backdrop fielding calls about the Hogs and rifling with co-host Ernie Witt Jr.

Houston, who hosted the lunch hour talk show "The Huddle" for 11 years on KPBI-TV, is now the station manager at the new Fox affiliate KFTA-TV, Channel 24, in Fort Smith, which debuted in its current form in August 2006.

Instead of spending time on the phone with college students just rolling out of bed or grumpy old men, Houston passes his time dealing with television syndicates, managing a local newscast and waiting on the FCC.

And waiting. And waiting some more.

License transfers and renewal applications are piling up while the ever-backlogged Federal Communications Commission debates whether blurted-out f-bombs on live broadcasts should earn fines for affiliates.

Meanwhile, the local battle for television viewers is escalating in the $36 million broadcast network advertising market, both in capital investment and in the barbs the stations are slinging through their on-air promos.

The designated market area made up of nine Arkansas counties and two in Oklahoma is now ranked No. 102 in the nation, up four spots from 2004 with about 280,510 television-watching households.

Although Houston's life is a bit more stressful than it used to be, he was around for the KPBI launch in 1989 and said there is no comparison.

KPBI's weak and fuzzy signal may have been fine for "The Huddle," but it made watching a == sporting event or other programming nearly unbearable. Houston's show was also the only local programming KPBI and parent company Equity Broadcasting Inc. ever produced.

With a High Definition signal and a professional, larger metro-style newscast, KFTA is light-years ahead and Fox corporate has taken notice.

"I'm happier where we're starting this one," Houston said. "Fox network is very happy with us. They have shared what they have seen with the growth of the station and what they've seen with primetime numbers. They're happy with the newscast and happy with the HD.

"They couldn't be more proud of how we've started off with this so far."

Ratings Battle

According to Julie Magnuson, vice president of the Mullikin Agency in Springdale, ad rates for a 30-second spot in a 6 p.m. newscast range from $250 to $450. At 10 p.m., those rates increase to $350 to $650.

During primetime, most ads start at $400 to $500 and for a highly rated show like "American Idol," rates for a spot can cost $1,500 or more.

Based on the May Nielsen Media Research ratings for local newscasts, CBS-affiliate KFSM-TV, Channel 5 continues to hold its lead in the 11-county designated market area, which includes parts of Oklahoma.

New owners Oak Hill Capital Partners equity group, doing business as Local TV LLC, bought nine stations, including KFSM, from The New York Times Co. for $575 million in late 2006. KSFM president and general manager Van Comer says the new owners are investing heavily in the station; they repaired a long-broken relay tower in Benton County soon after the purchase and provided funding to hire additional sales staff and reporters to cover Benton and Washington counties.

In June, Comer announced James Warner as the station's news director and said for the first time the position would be manned from its Fayetteville bureau.

"Our new ownership is pro growth," Comer said. "They've been very supportive of moving us forward with growth plans."

In the ratings for May in the three-county market (Benton, Madison and Washington counties), ABC-affiliate KHBS/KHOG-TV, Channels 40/29 boasts the top spot (p.18). The station will soon be moving to 14,000 SF of space at The Peaks in Rogers, leaving behind its rundown studios in Fayetteville with plans for its first newscast from the new digs on Sept. 10.

The station will still have a news bureau and sports staff working in Fayetteville. General manager Jim Prestwood calls the move "an expansion, not an exit."

The station has also promoted its Web site as No. 1 in the region.

KHBS/KHOG Prestwood said page view data from Alexa.com shows hometownchannel.com received around 1.3 million page views per month compared to 150,000 when it launched in 2001.

"We're in real good shape," Prestwood said. "We've been the leader in northwest Arkansas for 20-plus years and we don't want to lose that position."

Prestwood said 40/29 has "worthy competitors" in the market but only named KFSM as one of them. With only his station and KFSM covering the entire 11-county DMA and with KNWA so low in the ratings, it's clearly a two-horse race.

Aggressive Approach

NBC-affiliate KNWA-TV, Channel 51--which neither subscribes to nor expresses faith in the Nielsen numbers generated by viewer "diaries" that rate it third in both the 11- and 3-county markets--has the freedom to tout itself however it wants.

KNWA dropped its coverage of Fort Smith when Nexstar Broadcasting Inc. bought the station in 2004 and ran a scoreboard during May with a running tally of "local" stories that claimed to outpace its competitors by a wide margin.