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In Jacksonville, WJXT is leaving CBS behind but says, with the help of news and Kelsey Grammer, it can be just as profitable
Months before the announcement of the breakup between CBS and Post-Newsweek's WJXT(TV) Jacksonville, Fla., other stations in the market had figured out that Post-Newsweek President Alan Frank and station General Manager Sherry Burns were not bluffing.
The cost of syndicated programming in Jacksonville was rising. That meant Frank and Burns were stockpiling shows so that they would be prepared to dump CBS and take WJXT independent.
Everybody knew that the station's 53-year affiliation with CBS was on the rocks. In 2001, the network and station had been able to hammer out a one-year extension of the affiliation, but they continued to squabble. The big issue was compensation, the estimated $2 million CBS paid the station each year for carrying network commercials.
CBS wanted to eliminate the compensation. No compensation, no deal, said WJXT
As the other station executives had guessed, WJXT wasn't bluffing. But neither was CBS. So, in April, WJXT announced that the affiliation under which it had prospered and dominated the 53rd-- largest TV market was ending. WJXT would become an independent on July 15.
"It will be hard to do as well as or better than we've done," says Burns. "But, obviously, we think we'll do very well. We've got a lot of the same advertisers; we don't expect to lose any. We've opened up the schedule, and people are assuming our audience is going to be younger-although our demos are good right now. We're in control of our own destiny."
The WJXT-CBS breakup has transformed "sleepy little Jacksonville," as one GM calls it, into one of TV's liveliest markets.
Here's what's happening: Post-- Newsweek's WJXT drops CBS; Clear Channel's WTEV-TV drops UPN and picks up CBS. Clear Channel's Fox affiliate, WAWS, picks up UPN and schedules its programming to run after Fox prime time and local news.
Meanwhile, Gannett's strong NBC liate, WTLV, and weak ABC affiliate, WJXX, and Media General's news-less WB affiliate, WJWB, sit, content in the knowledge that viewers know where to find them.
Come July 15, thanks to the CBS-WJXT breakup and liberalized local-ownership rules, Jacksonville will have five network...