Mississippi ABC affiliate to shut down

[T.L. Hughes 752]

Many television station groups argue that shared services agreements and local marketing agreements are ways to keep a struggling station from shutting down, this piece of news single-handedly debunks their argument. ABC affiliate WKDH/Houston, Mississippi (serving Columbus and Tupelo, Mississippi) will shut down on August 31, WTVA, Inc. management confirmed Tuesday (August 7). The station signed on the air on June 18, 2001, operating under a local marketing agreement with WTVA, Inc., but has never carried any local newscasts despite being operated under the same corporate umbrella as two stations that do (NBC affiliate WTVA, which has an in-house news department and Fox affiliate WLOV-TV, which is also operated alongside WTVA through an LMA with Lingard Broadcasting and incidentally dumped ABC for a Fox affiliation in 1995, WLOV carries a WTVA-produced newscast nightly at 9 p.m.).

[WXmanTim 88]

Not a surprise. WTVA saved all the best syndicated programming for them and WLOV, leaving second rate sitcom reruns for WKDH.

 

And there's plenty of other options when it comes to ABC programming. When I was living in Starkville, Metrocast (and before that I don't recall what the cable company was called) carried WAPT out of Jackson. Comcast, which more-or-less services the rest of the market, carried the ABC's from Memphis (north), Birmingham (east) and Meridian (south).

 

My guess, ABC will end up on the .2 of WTVA or WLOV.

[T.L. Hughes 752]

My guess, ABC will end up on the .2 of WTVA or WLOV.

 

Incidentally, WXmanTim's prediction was right. WTVA has now signed an affiliation agreement that will keep ABC programming in the Tupelo-Columbus market. It will flip its second digital subchannel to the alphabet network on September 1, a clean transition (possibly) from the shutdown of WKDH to the affiliation changeover. Me-TV, which has been fastly gaining affiliates since it became a national network in December 2010, will actually lose an affiliate this time around as the network will be an apparent casualty of the switch (barring a move to a digital subchannel of WLOV or the less likely addition of a third subchannel on WTVA). They will apparently add local news programming on WTVA-DT2 as well, possibly similar to the mix of simulcasts and exclusive newscasts that Raycom has done with the digital subchannels that have added a previously-absent Big Three affiliation in a few markets the past two years.