Nervousness Over Local News Consolidation

Once the Gannett-Belo merger was announced, University of Missouri journalism professor Kent Collins started hearing from friends and former students working at TV stations in St. Louis, where both companies own stations, wondering what the deal could mean for them.

There is no saying for sure, despite assurances from Gannett Broadcasting President Dave Lougee that Gannett’s St. Louis station, NBC affiliate KSDK, and Belo’s CBS affiliate KMOV will continue to operate as separate — and competitive — entities once the consolidation becomes official, Collins says.

“No matter what good people like Mr. Lougee and others say today, we don’t know what will happen over the long term,” says Collins, chair of Missouri’s radio-television journalism faculty.

“What Gannett and Belo may be able to do to keep both KSDK and KMOV strong and viable — which is good and laudatory — might get washed away in the next great recession or economic downturn,” he says.

“If you believe in journalism, you probably believe that’s not a good thing.”

Gannett’s acquisition of Belo, a deal valued at $2.2 billion, has wide-ranging ramifications. Once done, Gannett will have 43 stations and reach about a third of U.S. TV homes, ranking No. 3 behind Fox and CBS on the TVNewsCheck-BIA/Kelsey Top 30 Station Groups list.

But the deal’s impact on TV news is of particular importance in St. Louis, as well as Phoenix, the two markets where both Gannett and Belo own stations. In Phoenix, Belo owns independent KTVK and CW affiliate KASW and Gannett owns NBC affiliates KNAZ and KPNX as well as The Arizona Republic.

To comply with FCC local ownership limits, Gannett and Belo are setting up a company that will be headed by former top Belo broadcasting executive Jack Sander, who, along with Lougee, has pledged to keep much of the stations’ business running as usual.

St. Louis media watchers, however, are concerned about how having Gannett’s stamp on both KDSK and KMOV will ultimately play out, particularly since the situation involves the city’s two top-performing stations, both of which have deep roots in the market. They also are the only two local broadcasters that go head-to-head in news in traditional time slots.

In the February sweep, in the key news demo of adults 25-54, KSDK managed to beat KMOV in all the evening and latenight newscasts. However, its margin of victory at 10 p.m. was as thin as the local pizza crust. KSDK pulled a 4.6 rating/12 share; KMOV, a 4.5/11.

The third news player, Local TV’s Fox affiliate KTVI, poses some formidable competition, particularly in the morning. In May, the station rated No. 1 with adults 25-54 from 4 to 10 a.m., during which it airs news, according to ratings provided by the station.

“These kinds of deals translate poorly in terms of overall news coverage for local communities because they generally boil-down to being more about serving shareholder interests, [with] less dedicated interest in covering local news,” says Michael Murray, a University of Missouri-St. Louis professor and editor of the Encyclopedia of TV News.

With news producing partnerships already up and running, there are existing entanglements between several of the five TV stations that air news in St. Louis.

Currently, KSDK produces news for Sinclair’s ABC affiliate KNDL, which hasn’t produced its own newscasts for more than a decade. However, a Gannett spokesman says that arrangement will be over at the end of this year, about the same time Gannett could seal its deal with Belo.

Meanwhile, KTVI also produces newscasts for KPLR, Tribune’s CW station. That KTVI’s owner, Local TV, is on the auction block adds another layer of questions about how the market may morph. One of the bidders for that group may very well be Sinclair, which already owns KNDL. Whoever buys Local TV will be KTVI’s fourth owner in 18 years.

Yet, some people who keep tabs on journalism in St. Louis — a city with a rich media history dating back to the late 19^th century when Joseph Pulitzer ran the St. Louis Post Dispatch — say that rolling two TV newsrooms into one would have little benefit for Gannett financially or philosophically, and that Gannett is smart enough to realize it.

“I don’t think St. Louis would stand for it,” says Frank Absher, a longtime St. Louis broadcaster and founder of the St. Louis Media History Foundation. “These stations have got major news operations and they are providing a good competitive environment in St. Louis. There is too much at stake here.”

David Smith, CEO of the TV consulting firm SmithGeiger, agrees.

Smith (whose company consults KSDK but says he has no inside knowledge of Gannett’s plans for St. Louis) says he believes “the public could actually benefit” from this merger, versus others that have led to a reduction in services.

The reason, he says, is that the merger of KSDK and KMOV is being driven by a change in ownership and not economic problems, which is behind many mergers that result in cutbacks.

“St. Louis is not a market that is not making money,” Smith says. “These are profitable stations.”

In turn, Smith says he sees the potential for Gannett to “extend,” rather than reduce, resources so that, between KSDK and KMOV, it could actually produce more news, which the stations could air at different times.

Pooling coverage on stories such as press conferences or breaking news like fires could free up staff to spend their time working on original, more compelling stories, he says. “The idea is to not be doing the same thing at the same time.”

Spencer Koch, KTVI’s general manager, says that tack is what makes the five-year-old news-producing partnership between KTVI and KPLR successful. Together, the stations air 13 hours of news hours a day at alternating times.

And Koch, who’s been through some of the tough decisions associated with newsroom consolidations — personnel cutbacks and the like — says he expects neither his station’s imminent ownership change nor the Gannett-Belo merger to detract from the progress his affiliate has made.

“As we go forward, we are confident … that there is no reason we can’t continue to be as competitive as we’ve ever been,” Koch says.

St. Louis broadcasters, however, are hardly immune to the challenges facing local TV news operations across the country, from competition to finances.

Tripp Frohlichstein, a broadcast journalist who covered TV news for the Post-Dispatch, says that while KSDK and KMOV will likely maintain independent voices, there are other factors that could take their toll on their news output.

“Like in most markets, cost cutting continues,” Frohlichstein says. “Whether it is … getting rid of high paid talent … or hiring new reporters out of college, the face of TV news is changing and not for the better. The quality of the news product continues to erode.”

Murray says some St. Louis media already has done enough damage, bucking the city’s “tradition of local news involvement” that started with Pulitzer by degrading the content they deliver.

“I sure hope that more of that doesn’t happen here,” Murray says. “It’s a very sad — and sorry — legacy.

Read other Air Check columns here. You can send suggestions for future Air Checks to Diana Marszalek at [email protected].