DC> On 02 Sep 05  09:18:49, Raymond Yates got back to Mike Roberts
 DC> -> Re: John's Surgery

 MR>> financial trouble. I can understand FOX bein considered the
 MR>> smaller of the networks, but I can't see how they can be in
 MR>> financial trouble. 

 RY>> Times are tough in the TV biz.. Ad sales are down, and equipment
 RY>> costs keep rising... here, the largets TV station just bought the
 RY>> local ABC affialiate and it already runs the Fox affiliate as
 RY>> well. Rules allow it, it seems.

 DC> I'm only midly surprised by that.

 RY>> Combining resources s not a bad thing, it may improve both
 RY>> stations as a result. That however, remains to be seen..

 DC> I guess a lot of that has to do on how the National Networks decide
 DC> that the conjoining is working out.

The way it's structured, the Nationals have little say about it.

At our rcompany, for example, we have two vice-presidents, one for NBC, one
for FOX, and soon, I would wager, one for ABC.. They make their programming
decisions seperatly, but may decide to non-compete when it comes to offering
bids on syndicated shows, that's ok. The Sales staffs are different and
theoretically isolated, but the news staffs are shared, as is Engineering and
Master Control. Since the ABC station has it's own building, I expect they
will stay there, and the bigwigs will commute across town as needed (not
often). Where they save is on resources, staff, equipment, that sort of thing.


As far as National goes, all they do is provide programming, and pay us to be
affiliates, and make sure we have slots in the national blocks we can insert
our advertising. We  set the rates otherwise, based on ratings.


As I said, we'll see how ti shakes out. It may be that the FCC will require
the ABC station to be sold (It's no. 3 in the ratings behind NBC and Fox.)
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