Chief of Tribune stations named

Veteran television executive Ed Wilson will become president next week of Tribune Broadcasting, stepping into a job that carries the task of re-energizing 23 TV stations that have been squeezed in recent years by falling advertising sales.

Wilson, currently president of News Corp.’s Fox TV network, is among the first high-level appointments for Tribune Co. Chairman Sam Zell and the company’s executive vice president, Randy Michaels. Chicago-based Tribune was taken private in late December in an $8.2-billion buyout engineered by Zell and made in conjunction with an employee stock ownership plan. Tribune owns the Los Angeles Times and KTLA-TV Channel 5.

Wilson’s last day with Fox will be Friday. He will join Tribune next Monday, replacing John E. Reardon, who spent 22 years with Tribune, including eight as general manager of KTLA. Reardon, 54, is expected to leave the company.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Wilson, 50, said in an interview. “There are going to be a lot of challenges as we position ourselves for the future. We have to have the strongest local TV news, we have to have the best salespeople out there and we have to work with our entertainment partners to produce better programming.”

Long the cash cows of the industry, TV stations have seen their profit margins decline as advertisers steer more of their dollars to the Internet. Wilson’s priority will be to boost ratings and ad sales at the stations within Tribune’s group, one of the nation’s largest.

His timing might be fortuitous because, despite signs of an economic recession, TV stations are likely to rake in much of the $2.8 billion expected to be spent this year by presidential candidates and other political campaigns. That should make up for any cutbacks in ad spending by carmakers, retailers and movie studios.

“This is not a dying business. Local television still has viability,” Wilson said. “But we have to be more aggressive about our approach to the Internet and more aggressive about providing information.”

Wilson advocates greater collaboration between Tribune’s stations and newspapers, saying that KTLA should benefit from the resources of The Times, particularly its entertainment coverage.

Another mission is boosting ratings for the CW television network, which provides programs for 14 of Tribune’s TV stations, including KTLA. Ratings for the network, a joint venture between CBS Corp. and Warner Bros., are down 21% this season in its key demographic of viewers aged 18 to 34.

Meanwhile, local newscasts, which target an older audience, are the most profitable programs for most TV stations. Being a news leader, Wilson said, should improve ratings.

“They have to be the local station,” he said. “And that means doing things like carrying the Hollywood Christmas parade, covering local news and local sports.”

Despite concerns within the company about more cost cutting, Wilson said Zell and Michaels had indicated he would have the resources he needed. “They have given me every indication that the support we need will be there,” he said.

The Arkansas native started in television 28 years ago as a sales trainee for Viacom in New York. He ran sales for an ABC affiliate in Little Rock, Ark., and then rose through the ranks at several major TV companies. He went to Fox in 2004, and was chief liaison for Fox’s affiliated stations.

Wilson said although he would miss the team at Fox, he had always wanted to manage a station group. “I like the station side,” he said. “I think this is going to work out well.”

meg.james@latimes.com