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MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL'S MINNESOTA TWINS, ONE OF THE TEAMS THAT BASEBALL commissioner Bud Selig had targeted for the scrap heap after this past season, proved to still be a viable franchise by not only making the divisional playoffs, but also the American League championship, where they lost to the eventual World Series champion Anaheim Angels. The other major story in Minneapolis-St. Paul, and the state in general this year, was the body contested political races which dumped an estimated $28 million worth of political advertising into local media coffers.
The huge flow of dollars was attributable to unforeseeable events, such as the death of Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.) in a plane crash on Oct. 25, that made Minnesota a political swing state in last month's election. Democrats tapped former vice president and presidential candidate Walter Mondale to replace Wellstone on the Nov. 5 ballot. Mondale lost to Republican Norm Coleman, the former mayor of St. Paul. Since colorful Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura opted not to seek re-election, the state's gubernatorial race, which was won by Republican Tim Pawlenty, was also hotly contested.
The Minneapolis-St. Paul television market ranks No.14 in the country with 1.59 million TV homes. The Mississippi River splits the market in half, with Minneapolis to the west and St. Paul to the east.
News Corp.'s Twin Cities' duopoly has undergone the most dramatic changes in the last year. The company, which already owned WFTC, acquired KMSP in July 2001 through its purchase of station group Chris-Craft. News Corp. followed through with its plans to swap the affiliations of the two stations on Sept. 8. WFTC, the former Fox affiliate, is now the market's UPN affiliate. Conversely, KMSP, the former UPN affiliate, is now the local Fox owned-and-operated station.
Carol Rueppel, who took the helm of the two stations as vp/general manager on Oct. 1, 2001, says the affiliation swap has created some efficiencies "so we weren't dividing our resources to compete against each other." For instance, rather than producing two competing 9 p.m. newscasts, WFTC now has a comedy block during the 9-10 p.m. hour featuring reruns of Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond. In addition, WFTC launched a brand new half-hour 10 p.m. newscast. KMSP now only produces a 9 p.m. newscast.