Local TV Could Use a Singing Sheriff

If you grew up in Los Angeles between 1950 and the mid-1980s, you’ll remember independent TV stations as the primary source of fun on the dial. Local television provided everything from children’s shows to “The Million-Dollar Movie,” “Twilight Zone” marathons to UCLA and USC games.

Independents brought us Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone on Saturday nights and Sheriff John’s birthday song each day, before we learned how to skip backward watching “The Three Stooges.” There were afternoon reruns of “The Rifleman” and raucous laughter summer evenings courtesy of “The Honeymooners.”

Yet in the past dozen years, the business of television has changed dramatically, stripping stations of personality beyond their blow-dried news anchors. Thanks to a slew of acquisitions, most broadcasters now operate as part of large groups, airing network shows or jointly buying syndicated programs at the expense of locally originated fare.

KTTV, KTLA and KCOP have each affiliated with networks--in sequence, Fox, the WB and UPN. The two major Spanish-language broadcasters, KMEX (Univision) and KVEA (Telemundo), are owned by networks as well, the latter backed by Sony.

“The groups are getting bigger. The people who are kind of the mom-and-pop [station operators] related to the community are leaving for some sort of monolith someplace else that owns these things,” said Rick Feldman, who recently left his job as general manager of KCOP after 16 years at the station.

In some ways KCOP tried to buck this trend, for 14 years televising a quintessentially local event, the just-staged Los Angeles Marathon, as well as live broadcasts from the Hollywood Bowl. KCOP also engaged in another form of marathon, running uncut films on New Year’s Day and the Fourth of July.

Such efforts to forge a local connection via anything but news have grown increasingly rare; in fact, KCOP--one of eight stations owned by Chris-Craft Industries--has even done away with its “Very Independent” marketing slogan since becoming UPN’s local presence.

Having often lamented that independent stations are the TV industry’s Rodney Dangerfield, Feldman views broadcasting’s future with some alarm as to what lies ahead. He compares the drift in TV to radio, which has experienced its own merger-induced gigantism, shifting from local talent and issues to nationally syndicated hosts.

“Radio is a great example of what’s happened,” Feldman said. “I honestly don’t see how it’s good for anybody, other than the people who own the companies. I don’t see how it’s good for listeners, I don’t see how it’s good for advertisers, I don’t see how it’s good for the community.”

Various factors have combined to fundamentally alter local broadcasting since 1986, when Fox made its debut with Joan Rivers’ late-night show.

Foremost, the cable industry matured, siphoning away independent TV staples like movies, children’s programs and sports. Because cable networks complement their advertising sales with a second stream of revenue from subscriber fees, they are also less reliant on ratings.

“In broadcast, you can’t exist on 1 and 2 [ratings],” Feldman noted. “In cable, you can.”

Cable channels began out-bidding broadcasters for rights to the movies independents ran during prime time, forcing TV stations to turn to networks as a source of programming. Cable also anted up vast sums for sports, meaning fans now frequently need access to Fox Sports West, Fox Sports West 2 or FX to follow the exploits of their favorite team.

Responding to this challenge, major TV companies began seeking economies of scale through frenzied buying sprees, capitalizing on relaxation of rules governing how many stations a single entity can own. Big groups used their size to negotiate better deals with program syndicators, compelling others to get bigger themselves in order to compete.

“Once you start to become part of a bigger group it’s the central buying theory,” Feldman explained. “As a local station operator you lose your autonomy. In some of these markets, they’ve done away with a program director, they’ve downgraded the general manager, because a lot of the decisions are made on a group level.”

While advantageous financially, this strategy overlooks regional differences--how a show that’s popular in Minneapolis or Raleigh-Durham might not work in Los Angeles or New York. Local operators, supposed to know the tastes of their market, often lack the authority now to make that decision, especially if doing so requires breaking ranks with the group or preempting some network-supplied show.

One would think there will be more opportunity for localism thanks to new technology, including the advent of digital television and the related prospect of adding extra channels. A station in Miami has experimented with such a format, from airing high school football to showcasing the city’s beach beauties on a series titled “10’s.”

Still, the ability to produce local shows largely depends on whether broadcasters can make money doing so, which grows more difficult as the audience splinters further. As Feldman put it, “You’ve got 500 channels, but if everybody has 55 cents to spend [on] making a program, you’ve got a problem.”

Though TV stations still reap huge profits in big cities, that formula of declining ratings and rising costs is indeed a problem; moreover, stations must spend millions of dollars converting to digital signals, meaning the pressure to sell out to deep-pocketed groups will only keep building.

So what, you may ask, if localized broadcasting disappears? Almost seven in 10 homes now receive cable, and many people no longer distinguish whether a cable wire, an antenna or a satellite dish ushers a program into their homes.

Yet there is something lost here--not just for those indulging in nostalgia, but for kids who won’t get the small-town thrill of hearing their birthday announced on the air, because there’s no longer a local program to do it.

“I don’t know why people don’t talk about the value of free, over-the-air television,” Feldman said. “There are all these little things that have conspired to make it difficult in the last 10 years to run the broadcasting model. . . . It’s ultimately going to cut down the choices for free television, and I don’t think anybody is paying enough attention to it. If broadcast were to all of a sudden not exist, you’d have 30% of the country not getting television, and then you’d hear about it.”

That’s assuming, of course, the media monoliths decide it’s worth reporting.