Oregon Media Insiders

Meredith has signed an affiliation deal with .2 network as a digital subchannel, run by Guardian Enterprise Group out of Ohio. It is not known which side of the house will inherit the channel, although my bet is on KPTV as this looks to be a solid contender for movies and content based on the website.

I have an email into KPTV.com to see if they can tell me where the subchannel will end up.

KPTV ND Patrick McCreery is now Station Manager for the KPTV/KPDX duopoly. From the press release:

"This promotion is in recognition of Patrick's significant contributions to the performance of KPTV," said Kieran Clarke, Vice President and General Manager of KPTV/KPDX. "Over the past five years, Patrick has demonstrated a superior ability to build a winning news team. He is always focused on a winning strategy."

McCreery will oversee numerous station functions for the Portland properties including KPTV FOX-12, KPTV.com, KPDX MYN-49, KPDX.com, and LivePDX.com. Newsroom management will report to him. McCreery will report directly to Clarke.

Also at KPTV, to quiet the person in another thread, Greg Flock has been promoted from general sales manager to director of sales.

Update: Aaaand, not long after, he was shown the door. No one seems to know why, but apparently it was quite abrupt. Apologies for not having the second half of the story, guys.

Update 2: Apparently it's not clear from what I posted: Patrick is still the ND, guys. He's ND *and* Station Manager now, though I can't imagine that there won't be someone taking over some of his ND functions now. Maybe he doesn't sleep much, who knows.

Over the transom I hear that Chief Engineer Ed Williams is leaving the KPDX/KPTV duopoly, and the biz. Williams oversaw the building of 12/49 HQ in Beaverton and the joining of the two stations. More than that I do not know.

I'm hearing rumors that Meredith is laying off some folks at 12/49 and not filling some open positions. I heard the newsroom went pretty much unscathed, especially compared to other Meredith outlets, but that one longtime station staffer was let go. Confirmations and details, please!

On Wednesday, August 16th, Meredith Broadcasting announced the sale of KFXO (FOX 39 in Bend) to the News-Press Gazette Company -- the company that owns KTVZ (NBC 21) in Bend. So, Bend is getting a TV station duopoly and a new ABC station (KOHD) all in the next two months.

This sale means that all ties between KFXO and KPTV/KPDX in Portland will be severed. It's also likely that KFXO's four-month old News operation will be dismantled, as the larger and more-established KTVZ News operation will probably produce a 10pm newscast on KFXO from the KTVZ studios. Will KTVZ hire some/all of KFXO's people? Too early to say.

Also noteworthy is that Bend's new ABC-affiliate, KOHD, is scheduled to begin airing on September 19th. The current General Manager of KFXO is rumored to be headed over to KOHD to be the General Manager there, and a News Director has been hired as well. I don't know if KOHD will be ready to launch newscasts on that day or not. Either way, Chambers Communications (KOHD's owners) will likely get several resumes from soon-to-be ex-KFXO staffers...

KPTV and KPDX have rolled out their new templated sites. Haven't really had a chance to dig but the first thing I noticed is that the wx section doesn't have a link to the 12 Weather Blog, not even from Mark's profile, which is criminal. Is it going away?

ALMOST INSTANTANEOUS UPDATE from the blog in question:

We are busy with an imminent web change here at KPTV. At noon tomorrow KPTV.COM will move to a different provider, and it might take a short time to get all the content moved to our new provider. So don't panic if you can't find this blog for a day or two. Or at least bookmark it right now.

duh.

Second thing I noticed is that the site seems even more infotainment-y than ever.

Not much to say about KPDX, really.

[Bumped and updated.--L]

As a web wonk I'll be watching this closely--KPTV is among five Meredith stations getting new websites from Internet Broadcasting:

“This agreement further enhances Internet Broadcasting as an attractive TV/Web convergence marketing vehicle that in one ad buy, gives advertisers a national presence, to a desirable audience, in a trusted environment,

As the kids at the Merc say, My, What a Busy Week! I haven't even had a chance to blog this choice tidbit from WWeek's Murmurs. Former KPDX/KPTV account exec Cindy Bennington is suing Meredith for wrongful termination:

Bennington, an account executive for more than four years, says in her wrongful-termination lawsuit against Iowa-based Meredith Corporation that she was fired a year ago because she objected to "fraudulent billing" by the sister TV stations. Bennington's suit filed Feb. 21 in Multnomah County Circuit Court alleges Meredith engaged in "deceptive accounting practices that involved under-reporting" and "artificially inflated corporate quarterly earnings." Bennington's attorney, Richard Busse, wouldn't elaborate when Murmurs telephoned. KPDX general manager Kieran Clark also declined to comment on the lawsuit.

This is a great quote from Erika Engle's column today, from KHON GM Joe MacNamara:

KHON's MacNamara said his company is "not looking to reduce staff just to reduce staff."

"It all has to do with equipment that is more efficient and more effective." ...

Software upgrades will increase efficiencies and likely cause staff cuts in other departments as well, he said. "But it's not because we want to operate with less staff."

shyeah.

At KHON, no full-time news people are being cut at all. None. No on-air folks, no photogs. Interesting to compare to KOIN, huh?

Tonight the Hawai'i International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union Local 1260, Unit 6 meets--that's the unit that covers KHON. Union members are being offered an "extended severance package." I don't know how it differs from the severance package offered to KOINers (who knows about KSN in Wichita, I can't find out much about those guys at all). I'll see if any of the Hawai'i folks can fill us in tomorrow after the meeting.

So--going back to that "more efficient and more effective" equipment. Erika says Meredith bought an Ignite system for WSHM in Springfield, MA back in September. 12/49 folks, are you guys running on Ignite now, or have you heard murmurs to that effect?

Shoulda edited this a while back. This open thread is now turned to discussion of the UPN/WB merger this fall, which looks right now as if Tribune (KWPB) and Meredith (KPDX) are going to split the difference. Each of them owns stations in Portland and Seattle; Meredith gets the network affiliation in Seattle, Tribune in Portland. So KPDX is left without an affiliation come fall, unless another crappy network starts up.

UPDATE: Apparently I'm wrong about Meredith owning a Seattle station. So I don't know what the heckity-heck the deal is.

Categories: UPN, WB, KWBP, KPDX, Meredith, Tribune, CW, network, television, Portland, Oregon