KHJ-TV Eyes Three-Hour News Show

Disney-owned KHJ-TV Channel 9 is making plans to expand its news presence this fall and, if the station’s new management team approves, could become the first major station in the country to broadcast three continuous hours of news in prime time, an executive of the Walt Disney Co. said Friday.

Randy Reiss, executive vice president of the Walt Disney Studios, also confirmed that company officials have been meeting with popular local newscasters Jerry Dunphy and Christine Lund and are “most interested” in luring them to its low-rated independent station.

“If you look at doing two or three hours of news each night, you have to have the talent to staff those shows,” Reiss said. “No offers have been made to (Dunphy or Lund), but that kind of talent doesn’t come along too often.”

Disney, which assumed control of KHJ-TV last December after purchasing the station from RKO for $324 million, announced Thursday that it was replacing the station’s general manager, Chuck Velona, 48, who had been running the operation since 1979. Veteran television executives Blake Byrne and Jim Saunders will assume control of Disney’s sole TV station on Monday.

Channel 9, plagued by ownership problems and FCC challenges for the past two decades, has been the lowest-rated station in the Los Angeles market for years.

“Chuck made a difficult transition period easier,” Reiss said, “and he leaves the station in good condition. But for the direction we want the station to go in the ‘90s, these two people are better qualified. The task of running an independent station is not as easy as it once was. Localism is becoming much much more important.

“We’re the No. 4 independent station in the market right now, but with the new programming we’ve acquired and a little bit of luck, we very well could be the No. 1 independent within a year.”

Reiss staked his optimism on his new management team’s record at taking low-rated stations in other parts of the country to the top of the ratings heap. Byrne, who will serve as KHJ’s president and general manager, has been running LIN Broadcasting’s seven television stations, including top-rated outlets in Norfolk, Va., Grand Rapids, Mich. and Dallas. Saunders, who will be KHJ’s executive vice president and manager, ran LIN’s stations in Norfolk and Grand Rapids under Byrne and most recently took the NBC affiliate in Tampa from No. 3 to No. 1 in news.

Although final decisions on KHJ’s news lineup will be delayed until Byrne and Saunders arrive in Los Angeles, Reiss said that, at the very least, the half-hour newscasts that Channel 9 currently airs at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. will be combined into a single, hourlong news program.

But Disney also is considering implementing a two- or three-hour newscast in prime time, he said. The exact format of the expanded newscast will be announced within the next month.

“Programming prime time is the most difficult job we have,” Reiss said. “Across the country, independent stations are dependent on movies in prime time, and we could go out and buy movie packages ourselves. But that wouldn’t be the most unique way to go.”

Currently, the three other independent stations in Los Angeles--KTLA Channel 5, KTTV Channel 11 and KCOP Channel 13--run movies at 8 p.m. and then an hour of news at 10 p.m. In an attempt to distinguish itself from those other stations, Reiss said, KHJ is looking for ways to localize its programming and make the station unique.

Using Disney’s vast resources, that means, among other things, competing with the network-owned stations for top-priced anchors. Dunphy, for example, earns close to $1 million a year at KABC-TV Channel 7, more than twice what the highest-paid anchors at local independent stations currently command. (Lund, who teamed with Dunphy on the top-rated local news programs at Channel 7 before leaving the station three years ago, has also reportedly been negotiating with both KABC and KCBS-TV Channel 2.)

“We won’t pay more and we won’t pay less than the other stations, but we do have to compete with the network-owned stations,” Reiss said. “Viewers don’t think the news they get from independents is any less important than what they get from the network stations, and so you have to give them what they want. And what they want is top talent.”

Under its new management team, KHJ will also launch a few other programming twists this September. Its afternoon block of Disney children’s shows, for example, will be hosted live every day from Disneyland--a move designed to boost both those programs and the parent company.

And its “early fringe” lineup from 5-8 p.m. on weekdays will be filled with reruns of newly acquired sitcoms, including “Who’s the Boss?,” “Alf” and “Perfect Strangers.”