NBC/Affiliates - DTV Weather & Alerts

[Todd Wiedemann]

NBC Execs Reassure Affiliates
Source: Hollywood Reporter
04/15/2004


By Cynthia Littleton

Top NBC executives convened a daylong meeting with the network's affiliate station managers Wednesday in New York in an effort to reassure affiliates that the broadcast network remains the focal point of NBC, even as the company is poised to grow in size and scope once its merger with Universal Studios is finalized next month.

"There is one thing that does not change at all with the Universal deal: our commitment to you and to the network-affiliate system as the engine that drives our entire enterprise," Robert Wright, vice chairman of General Electric and chairman and CEO of NBC, told about 200 affiliate station managers during the meeting held at the Equitable Center in Manhattan.

The gathering included detailed presentations on NBC's long-term business plans from most of its division heads, including NBC Entertainment, News and Cable Group president Jeff Zucker, NBC Sports and NBC Olympics chairman Dick Ebersol, NBC Research president Alan Wurtzel, NBC's Washington lobbyist Bob Okun and NBC Agency marketing presidents John Miller and Vince Manze.

Affiliates and NBC brass also spent much of the day hashing out plans for two joint ventures - an Olympics-themed Web site and a weather-driven digital cable/satellite channel - that the network intends to launch as 50-50 partnerships with affiliates. The Olympics.com Web site is expected to bow in June in advance of the network's coverage in August of the Summer Games in Athens, Greece.

Planning for what has been dubbed NBC Weather and Alerts Channel has been under way for about a year, NBC Television Group president Randy Falco said in an interview after the meeting.

"This is a coming-together of the affiliate body and the network," Falco said. "It will emphasize the hyper-local aspect of weather reporting to differentiate it from the Weather Channel."

The vast majority of the channel's programming will be tailored for each television market and produced by affiliates using their local on-air personalities.

"Our value proposition to consumers is that we're local," said Terry Mackin, executive vp at Hearst-Argyle Television and a member of NBC's affiliate board. "We all spend a lot of money on weather (reporting). We'll leverage all of that and extend that brand to a 24/7 channel."

Falco said he is confident that the channel will be able to secure carriage on the digital tiers of major cable operators because of its highly local flavor. But Falco, Wright and others made a big point at the meeting of stressing the need for the affiliates to fight along with the network for the FCC to extend its must-carry rules to new digital channels offered by broadcast TV stations.

The FCC has long mandated that cable operators carry the signals of local broadcast TV stations in the markets they serve. But the FCC has yet to decide whether its must-carry rule should apply to new digital offshoot channels that broadcasters will be able to offer once local stations complete the transition from analog to digital broadcasting and once more consumers have digital-ready TV sets to access those new local channels.

"We need digital must-carry," Wright told affiliates. "We need it to protect our investments in digital. We need it to move forward with the digital transition. And our viewers need it to reap the benefits of digital TV."

[Todd Wiedemann]

Sean -

Any comments or rumors from Journal Broadcast Group ??

[oflaherty]

I have not heard anything about a local plan. I'm sure it would have to be highly automated.

The biggest problem would be taking those bits away from the main HD channel. We experimented with doing that a few years back and it hurt the HD pictures.. especially programs like Leno.
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Sean at TMJ