Subscriber Benefit
As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe Now
It was the day after Thanksgiving, and I was settled in for an evening in front of the TV. I had a fire burning, the kitchen was cleaned up, and I sat down to watch the live Circle of Lights tree lighting on Monument Circle, followed by the Old Oaken Bucket game.
Except I missed the tree lighting. So did everyone else watching WTHR-TV Channel 13. Due to a technical glitch, a commercial ran during the flicking of the light switch. That came at the end of what was a sloppily produced broadcast.
I bring this up not to shame WTHR but rather to point out how the quality of local television has declined across the dial because of diminished resources prompted, in part, by consolidation and corporate ownership.
Look at this ownership issue from my perspective. I grew up watching TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. My first TV appearance came when, as a child, I got to press the button to start the cartoon on the “Captain 11” show on KELO-TV Channel 11. Nexstar Media Group Inc. now owns that station.
My first job in television was at a station in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, known as WMT-TV Channel 2. It’s now known as KGAN-TV, and it’s a Nexstar station.
My second job was at WOTV-TV Channel 8, a station in Grand Rapids, Michigan, now known as WOOD-TV. It’s now a Nexstar station.
Then I came to WISH-TV Channel 8 in Indianapolis, where I retired in November 2016, just weeks before it became a Nexstar station on Jan. 1, 2017.
Since then, Nexstar sold WISH so it could buy local stations WTTV-TV Channel 4 (CBS) and WXIN-TV Channel 59 (Fox). Now, Nexstar has a deal to acquire Tegna Inc., the parent of WTHR, which is awaiting approval by the Federal Communications Commission.
When Nexstar and Tegna announced the deal, a reporter from The Washington Post contacted me for reaction. I told him it would mean fewer reporters on the street and less meaningful reporting. Bad news for Indianapolis viewers.
It might not happen. Current FCC rules prevent the ownership of three stations in the same market. But the Trump administration is considering deregulation under a plan FCC Chair Brendan Carr titled “Delete, delete, delete.”
Regardless, at a time when the rise of the internet and a corresponding drop in broadcast advertising revenue has other corporations getting out of the TV business, Nexstar seems intent on owning as many TV stations as possible.
The Texas-based corporation now owns 197 stations in 116 markets. It brags that it serves 220 million people in 44 states and Washington, D.C. If the Tegna merger wins approval, Nexstar will own 265 stations.
How did Nexstar grow so big? Cost cutting and economies of scale have something to do with it.
As Nexstar was purchasing WISH, a higher-up invited me and a colleague to lunch. Based on his familiarity with Nexstar, he believed our salaries as senior staffers would make us targets. He told us to make sure we had a backup plan. It was a moot point for me, because I planned to retire.
Based on that experience, however, I think it’s fair to assume WTHR is cutting back in anticipation of the potential arrival of Nexstar. And that might have something to do with the tree lighting debacle.
It might have been a computer error. It might have been simple miscommunication. Maybe poor planning. But it also might have been a sign of things to come.•
__________
Shella hosted WFYI’s “Indiana Week in Review” for 25 years and covered Indiana politics for
WISH-TV for more than three decades. Send comments to [email protected].
Click here for more Forefront columns.
Please enable JavaScript to view this content.