Tuesday, September 12, 2006

WREG-TV up for sale

The Grey Lady is getting out of the TV business, selling nine stations, located in eight cities: Oklahoma City (2), Des Moines, Fort Smith, Memphis (WREG), Moline, IL, Huntsville, and Scranton, PA. Apparently all of the stations are profitable, but they claim they want to focus on the paper itself, along with its digital businesses.

This comes at an interesting time for NewsChannel 3, having finally caught their long-time rivals at WMC-TV 5 in the 10 PM news ratings, and running neck-and-neck in the 5 and 6 PM slots.

I hope that the new owners, whoever they will be, will keep a local focus at 3; this, along with the return of Richard Ransom and the revitalized Claudia Barr, is what has led them to this point, IMO.

Hat tip to Mike Brester for the breaking news....

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