NBC Nixes Shift in Prime Time

The general manager of NBC’s San Francisco affiliate expressed some disappointment Tuesday at the network’s decision to prevent several of its Northern California affiliates to shift prime-time ahead one hour next fall, but she also said she was optimistic that the network would eventually permit the shift.

KRON’s Amy S. McCombs and the general manager of several other affiliates had hoped to move NBC’s prime-time entertainment programs up from 8-11 p.m. to 7-10 p.m. by next September in order to air late newscasts one hour earlier and to help distinguish those stations from the pack during the highly competitive 7-8 p.m. time period.

Bill Fouch, vice president affiliate marketing for NBC, said Tuesday that the network was neither “stonewalling” nor “looking at this issue negatively,” but it simply did not have enough information to make the change at this time. NBC said it will conduct further research, including a life style attitude study, before making a decision on whether to permit the shift in the fall of 1991 or somewhere further down the road.

Fouch also disputed reports that NBC stands to lose as much as $100 million if all 17 Pacific Time zone affiliates advance prime-time one hour, saying that such a loss would be realized only if “everything that could go wrong does go wrong. That’s why you want to plan. So you don’t run into an economic hit.”

On another KRON-NBC matter, McCombs said she was encouraged by a letter NBC News President Michael Gartner sent Friday to all of the network’s affiliates, in which he apologized for the network’s slow start in covering the Oct. 17 Northern California earthquake. KRON, which was initially knocked off the air by the quake, had been held chiefly responsible for NBC’s trailing both ABC and CBS on the story by nearly two hours.

McCombs said that the apology at least in part vindicated her station, which, despite its power problems, was able to supply programming well before NBC began carrying it.