WKPT Tri-Cities

One of the unintended or unimagined consequences of broadcasting’s conversion to digital in 2009 is that the networks can play off one affiliate against another because there is no longer a shortage of broadcast outlets in any market. That’s apparently what happened in Tri-Cities where ABC dumped WKPT for Media General’s WJHL.

It will air on a subchannel of WJHL, its CBS affiliate in the Tennessee-Virginia market. The network  had been on Holston Valley Broadcasting’s WKPT.

After ending production of its own newscasts in 2002, the ABC affiliate in Tri-Cities, Va.-Tenn., this month got back into the local news business. With an investment of $250,000 and 13 new hires, News Director-Anchor Jim Bailey and his team on March 4 began producing two half-hour newscasts a day. Shown on the revived ABC 19 News set are Bailey and co-anchor Lizz Marrs.

The ABC affiliate in Tri-Cities, Tenn.-Va., this week launched half-hour newscasts at 6 and 11 p.m., the first broadcasts produced in-house since 2008. The station has spent about $250,000 to rebuild its news department and has added eight fulltime and three part-time staffers, HD cameras and other gear.