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Start Free Trial NowTitle: Local stations playing when-to-switch game
Description: Peach 6; WTVG, WNWO
PEACH 8 Local stations playing when-to-switch game CHRISTOPHER BORRELLI BLADE MEDIA WRITER It doesn’t look as if an affiliate switch between WTVG-TV, Chan nel 13, and WNWO-TV, Channel 24, will happen until early next year, even though David Zamichow, Channel 13 president and general manager, has set Aug. 31 as the date that WTVG will sell its station to Capital Cities/ABC. Channel 13 wants to switch to ABC programming before the fall shows are introduced, but WNWO general manager Brett Cornwell said he isn’t sure when he would like to switch to NBC, which wouldn't negotiate an agreement with him until ABC sent a termina tion notice to WNWO. Last week, ABC sent Cornwell notice setting Jan. 29, 1996 — one day after NBC’s broadcast of the Super Bowl — as the last day of its relationship with WNWO. While either Cornwell or ABC can hold the other until Jan. 29, an earlier mutual date of termination can be negotiated. So if Cornwell decides not to switch this fall, he risks losing the Super Bowl, a ratings giant, and having some viewers confused about where their favorite shows are three days before the impor tant February ratings sweeps peri od. “Fbr TVG to suddenly expect us to have a sense of urgency to switch when they haven’t had one for the last nine months ... I don’t think that’s fair,” Cornwell said. “We immediately started asking for a termination notice last Octo ber and didn’t get it until July.” Cornwell said it would be “suici dal” for an affiliation switch to occur during the introduction of new fall shows He said NBC exec utives told him that an effective campaign to alert viewers about a switch takes about a month. “Sometimes broadcasters as sume people are slower to under stand change than they really are,” Zamichow said. “I think peo ple will understand what is going on with the switch almost immedi ately.” It costs money to switch affilia tions. There is the cost of new transmitters, new stationery, new on-screen graphics, nearly new ev erything. As of this week, the only con tract that Cornwell had signed was with the company that will install a concrete block on which a new satellite dish is to be placed.
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Clipped 1 month ago
- Blade
- Toledo, Ohio
- Aug, 4 1995 - Page 40