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Group owner takes different tacks in debuting news broadcasts
Using a mix of wholly owned start-up efforts and joint ventures with competing stations, Sinclair Broadcasting is beginning to roll out newscasts throughout its portfolio of Fox affiliates and independent stations. Two upcoming examples: WYE(TV), Sinclair's Fox affiliate in Columbus, Ohio, will launch a 10 p.m. newscast on Sept. 16 in a venture with WSYX(TV), the River City-owned ABC affiliate there. In Pittsburgh, Sinclair's Fox affiliate WPGH-TV is adding a news department and preparing to launch a 10 p.m. newscast that will debut on Super Bowl Sunday (following Fox's coverage of that game).
For five years Sinclair has been mulling the best way to roll out news on its stations, using its flagship WBFF (TV) Baltimore as a kind of news laboratory, says company chairman David Smith. "We wanted to do a prototype [newscast] to really understand what the news business was about, what the cost structures were and what the politics of being in the news business were," he says.
Smith has concluded that despite the costs, his stations will make more money being in the news business because, typically, one-third of a market's TV dollars are earmarked for news: "So if...