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Young Broadcasting files Chp. 11


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OK well thats not Breaking News, I guess we saw this coming, but here's the 2 things...

 

1. "The New York-based company said it will continue to operate the stations without interruption." OK sure....After they fired like all of the WTEN newsroom like a year ago.

 

2. From: http://www.qctimes.com/articles/2009/02/13/news/business/doc49963928e2444414269421.txt?sPos=2

 

"KWQC representatives said they could not comment on the bankruptcy filing and referred calls to the station’s president and general manager, Rene LaSpina, who also is general manager of station WTEN in Albany, N.Y. LaSpina could not be reached for comment."

 

How can she be the GM of 2 stations? Shouldn't the GM be stationed at 1 station, is this a common practice that I do not not about, or is it another young $$$ saving idea??

 

Thoughts..?

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Rene LaSpina might be the KWQC GM on an interim basis. She was originally at WTEN in Albany after being unceremoniously ousted from WCCO in Minneapolis. (The local gossip columnist in Minneapolis, C.J., referred to LaSpina as "Rene LaSpineless.") Although, it is Young... I wouldn't put anything past them. Young is a far worse ownership group than some of the other "bad" ones like Sinclair and Nexstar.

 

KRON is really the reason behind Young's cash hemorrhaging. They purchased the station in 2001 from Chronicle Publishing for around $850 million; while it was the #1 station in the market at the time, was still too much. It's now valued at around $150 million, and that's on the high end. The KRON news operation has morphed from a respected and highly-rated product into a complete laughingstock. They were doing quite well until the videojournalists and MyNetworkTV came along. VJs simply don't cut it.

 

If Michael Rosenblum needs any more indication that his "videojournalist" experiment is a complete and utter failure, this is it.

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Well, It hasnt been good for KWQC.... last year, In February 2008, 12 KWQC employees got fired and a Saturday morning newscast was ended... (as it said in that article) and in Nov. KWQC lost out to WQAD on there 5PM news... and each news cast for WQAD has gotten better in ratings.

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I hate to say this, but could this be the end of all the Young Stations? i say I hate to see it because people might lose jobs?

 

Agree. Hopefully, someone with a clue would pick them up but it's more likely to wind up with at least a few of the stations getting picked up by a LLC somewhat like Local TV.

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Newsblues continues to push the story (bubbling since this past summer) that Silver Point Capitol is slowly buying up some of Young's major outstanding debt. The company already controls Granite Broadcast (WKBW among others) and Comm Corp of America (KETK, WEVV among others), both of which have gone into bankruptcy in the last 5 years.

 

Only time will tell if they end up with the Young group or not.

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