Duluth, MN loses a news voice.

**Iceberg** · 03-09-2005 10:39 AM

Since we don't have an Broadcast TV (non HD) area, I'll post it here

Sadly, Duluth, MN lost one of its news voices. KDLH (CBS) 3 was sold yesterday to Malara Broadcasting and the owner made a shared-services agreement with the NBC station (KBJR 6) to provide most of the services and news. With only 4 commercial stations and 3 news casts in the town, this one hurts. They are rebranded as “CBS 3” (use to be KDLH TV3) and their website (
www.kdlh.com

) now goes to KBJR’s site (
www.kbjr.com

), which is rebranded as “News 6 & CBS 3”

Hubbard Broadcasting, who owns the ABC station (WDIO 10) and use to own USSB before DirecTV bought them, still opposes the sale and has gone to the FCC. Legally, one owner cannot own more than one of the “Big 4” stations in a town, and Hubbard (and many other people) feels this is happening (even though there are 2 different owners, Granite (KBJR) is telling KDLH what to do).

KDLH has dropped it’s 5, 6, and 10 news and has gone with 5:30 and a 8 minute news at 10. CBS Evening News, which was on at 5:30, moves to 6.

News article on the sale

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/du...e/11085698.htm

The reaction from some people

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/du...e/11085706.htm

I personally think it sucks because I really liked the Sports on Channel 3. Friday night they had a 15 minute “Friday Night Lights” segment that showed lots, and I mean LOTS of high school sports, along with extended highlights of other teams.

**cdru** · 03-09-2005 04:58 PM

Join the club. The exact same thing appened here in Fort Wayne with the same companies.
Local Newspaper Article

Granite Broadcasting Corp, owner of ABC affiliate WPTA, Channel 21, purchased the NBC affiliate WKJG from New Vision Television for $44.2M, then turned around and sold it't interest in WPTA for $45.9M to Malara. Granite will continue to essentially run WPTA as well as WKJG, reairing WPTA's newscasts on WKJG 1/2 later in the evenings. Morning and Noon newscasts will be the same.

Accorrding to Granite and Malara, this is suppose to be good for the viewers. I have no idea how they see this, but I guess I'll wait and see. Our NBC affiliate has always been at the bottom of the rankings in your town, just ahead of Fox that has no news at all. Assuming that the national feeds continue, I honestly doubt that anyone would have noticed. It does suck though for the 60 or so employees who are getting canned. Here, the staff was told around 2:00PM yesterday that they were all laid off, then quickly escorted off property by police (no joke!). Some news agencies actually reported that something was up Monday evening.

**Iceberg** · 03-09-2005 05:36 PM

Originally Posted by cdru

Accorrding to Granite and Malara, this is suppose to be good for the viewers. I have no idea how they see this, but I guess I'll wait and see.

It isnt
Duluth lost around 60 jobs...they say they can run KDLH with 2 people and 3 news people (one of each) and we lost a different opinion.

Our NBC affiliate has always been at the bottom of the rankings in your town, just ahead of Fox that has no news at all. Assuming that the national feeds continue, I honestly doubt that anyone would have noticed. It does suck though for the 60 or so employees who are getting canned. Here, the staff was told around 2:00PM yesterday that they were all laid off, then quickly escorted off property by police (no joke!). Some news agencies actually reported that something was up Monday evening.

CBS is 3rd..Fox has no news here either. ABC and NBC seem to be dueling for #1 (I think ABC is #1 but that may change as 2 of the 3 main people..sports and weather...both with 20+ years there left).

There's pictures on the Duluth News Tribune (which was a major partner with KDLH) of the employees that got canned leaving. Here is a new article, mentioning both of our stations (although they just say "A station" in ft Wayne)

http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/du...r/11092392.htm

**Iceberg** · 03-10-2005 08:50 AM

Watched the Channel 3 news last night......not good

Granite is exploiting the rule as much as Comcast Phillly is exploiting the rule
The rule is one owner cannot own more than one of the big 4 in a market. Technically Granite doesn't own Channel 3. But last night the Ch 3 news is now an 8 minute express news. The graphics they show for a news story have the NBC peacock in the picture and the weather is pre-taped by the guy from KBJR

The weather guy now has to do THREE weathercasts at the 10:00 news
-taped one for CBS 3
-taped one for KRII 11 (this is a translator of KBJR for the Iron Range area, which has drastically different weather than Duluth)
-Live weather for KBJR 6