The Tyler Courier-Times from Tyler, Texas • 37

BUSINESS Market Digest Sunday Page 3-1 HS.f EDITORIAL i ENERGY" SEPTEMBER 30, 1990 THE Business Scene With Tony Floyd Competing For Vital Advertising Revenue, TV Stations Battle To Attract East Texas Viewers 1 no i ln EAST TEXAS TV RATINGS Wanting And Getting It Both Ways Compared to, say, 10 or 12 years ago, I'll bet it wouldn't be too hard to find a few oil men or financial sector officials who have changed their tunes about the federal role in the marketplace. Oh sure, they still talk a good game about the sacred principles of the "free enterprise system," "free market economics" and all the other fashionable catch phrases and buzzwords. By TONY FLOYD Business Editor New technology enables the television industry to bounce electronic images off distant satellites and into our homes, but the summer Ar-bitron television ratings show East Texans are still partial to telecasts originating at home. AfbitronTatrngs-datBt6mpired" between July 7-Aug. 11 show the Tyler-based ABC Network affiliate and the Jacksonville-Tyler affiliate of NBC led the East Texas market if we learned nothing else from the '80s, it has to be that most of us are devoted to a truly "free" enterprise system for only as long as the good times roll and we're knee deep in positive cash A few industries vital to Texas' economic health learned some hard lessons from the unbridled laissez aire economics that prevailed in the in attracting viewers.

Bus, riding the wave of the so-called Reagan Revolution The survey measured sunrise-to- cable independent "superstation" from Atlanta, WTBS-TV Vi Milton, executive assistant news operations for the Longview-based UHF station, said she could not confirm the latest Arbitron rat-, ings because the station did not subscribe to its services. declined coramenton "the station's summer ratings performance because it is awaiting Federal Communications Commission approval of its sale to Lester Kamin Broadcasting Of Houston. The station's previous owners filed for federal bankruptcy protection earlier this year. Both Stacey and Ms. Pavelka agreed that television stations and advertisers generally were more interested in November ratings due to the traditional decline in viewer-ship during summer months when people are more active outdoors and programming consists primarily of network reruns.

In November, the network's new programs have begun to build audiences and cooler weather promotes higher numbers. Both conceded that the caliber of network programming and local newscasts are of immeasurable value in boosting ratings at the local Aside from bad-mouthing former President Jimmy Carter and his. sunseUelevisionjriewing-habit of -1 I 1 1 I A Cm.tU PkAwtlfAA ilwtni. homes in Smith, Cherokee, Gregg, lumiiy, ine lavunie pastime 01 me lew on men i met, in uie lute ius was convincing others of the need to deregulate the oil industry. With deregu Station RatingShare KLTV-Ch, 7-TyIer (ABC) 519 56-Jacksonville (NBC) 39" KSLA-Ch, 12-Shreveport (CBS) 26 KDFW-Ch.

4-Dallas (CBS) 15 (CBS) 13 KTBS-Ch. 3-Shreveport (ABC) 13 KXAS-Ch. 5-Fort Worth (NBC) 13 KTAL-Ch. 6-Texarkana (NBC) 13 KTVT-Cru 11-Fort Worth (IND) 13 WTBS-Atlanta, Ga. (Cable) 13 CNN-Atlanta, Ga.

(Cable) 12 USA Network (Cable) 12 Nacogdoches, Angelina, Houston and San Augustine counties, New York-based Arbitron spokeswoman Ann Myers said. Arbitron and Nielson are the principal ratings services for electronic media and both conduct their surveys during late summer and fall, area officials said. Because summer results showed a preference in Rusk and Trinity counties for Tyler-based stations over the traditional market leader, Shreveport, Arbitron will add Rusk and Trinity counties to its No- Staff Graphic By Jim Ross man SOURCE: Arbitron Ratings Service, New York level. "Despite its performance nation ally, ABC has always held strong How TV Viewing lias Cloned in the southwest, Macey said. "That still holds true and it (ABC) is bouncing back.

Our strength is total (news) cov erage of East Texas," he said. "We try to address areawide issues and CABLE TV 157 1989 I 320 1980 EE lation and the federal government out of the way, oil men concluded the oil would flow, pockets would fill and the would be over once and for all. Let the good times roll. It turned out they were only about half right. Indeed the oil did flow, but it did so on much a grand scale that before long the world was awash in a sea of unneeded oil and they were parking their drilling rigs and laying off workers.

At a 1978 Panhandle Petroleum and Royalty Owners Association IPPROA) convention in Amarillo, I remember a U.S. Energy Department official being jeered so mercilesly at a luncheon that he finally had to step down from the podium without ever delivering his message to the people who invited him to speak to being with. One red-faced, squatty little guy who look awkward in his coat and tie kept hollering, "Git the guv'ment out of the awl bidness! Git the guv'ment out of the awl bidness! Oh and on it went. When I looked around the room, his PPROA colleagues were looking on approvingly and finally the chant picked up momentum across the hotel banquet hall. They had managed to throroughly humiliate some pencil-pushing bureaucrat from Washington, who clearly knew nothing about their beloved "awl bidness," and, boy, were they ever proud of themselves.

Another West Texas oil man admonished the Energy Department official because oil was the only business other than agriculture that had to deal with government production quotas and price ceilings, or so he said. Still, none of those guys could ever compare to "Mar1 Eddie Chiles," the legendary discenchanted oil man from that era who spent millions of his company's resources on his hokey "I'm mad" media blitz urging the federal government to "deliver our mail, defend our shores and get the hell out of the way!" Well, as it turns out, the federal government got out of Eddie's way and he promptly went broke. He filed for bankruptcy in 1987, lost the Fort Worth-based Western Co. he started in the '30s and, finally, was forced to sell his favorite toy, the Texas Rangers baseball club. Last 1 heard, Chileswas back on the rubber chicken circuit, pleading for federal prices supports and tax incentives for domestic oil.

A Now if that's not a fine how-dd-you-do coming from a dedicated disciple of free enterprise like Chiles. I've often wondered if those hotheads in Amarillo are still hollering at federal bureaucrats ever chance they get. If so, it's a pretty safe bet they're hollering for help. There's a definite pattern to all this, you know, regardless of whether it's in oil, real estate, banking or anything else. The Reagan years gave these people precisely what they'd spent lifetimes advocating: a scaled down federal role in the economy.

While some industries prospered like never before, for others some degree of federal involvement may not look so bad afterall. It apparently doesn't look too bad to Eddie Chiles these day, anyway. For generations to come.taxpayers will be paying for '80s experiments -with deregulation. More banks failed in the '80s deregulated climate than ever before in American history. And, without exception the federal government is there to pick up the pieces because of irresponsible conduct fueled by greed and lust for power.

I suspect it's only human nature for us to want it both ways: We want a deregulated business climate on the one hand and federal protection when things turn sour on the other. We need to think about that the next time another private-sector industry is making its case for deregulation. I know some people who are getting mighty sick of picking up the party tabs. Oil Reserve Test Expanding VIDEO CASSETTE RECORDERS 1989 i vl65 1985 ESI1I16 I REMOTE CONTROLS I72 1989 329 1985 vemeber survey, she said, which will give a slight boost the market's 170,900 households. The additional numbers will elevate the East Texas market to No.

117 nationally from its current standing as No. 123. Coming out on top was KLTV-Channel 7 of Tyler with a 5 rating and 19 market share, followed by newcomer KETK-Channel 56 of Jacksonville-Tyler, which premiered in March 1987, with a 3 rating and 9 market share. Arbitron defines the rating category as the average percentage of households tuned in to a station, while market share means the average percentage of televisiond turned on at a given time. Pat Stacey, marketing director for KLTV-Channel 7 of Tyler, said Arbitron provides two separate ratings for the Tyler station because its sister station, KTRE-Channel 9 of Lufkin-Nacogdoches, is a dominant force in the market's southernmost region.

The two stations provide identic cal programming, with the exception of localized newscasts and advertising, Stacey said. Combined, the two stations earned a 10 rating and 34 market share, but those numbers are compiled primarily for the benefit of national advertisers because, Stacey conceded, commericials originating in Tyler are not shown in Lufkin and vice versa. Stacey said Arbitron ratings have a greater impact on national advertisers' budget decisions than on local advertisers. Despite its lead in the market, Stacey said KLTV-Channel 7 commissioned Arbitron to measure the Tyler-Lufkin alliance because "our feeling is that KLTV is being measured in a larger area than it actually serves in practical terms." Considering the station is still relatively new to the market, Jean Pavelka, programming director for No. 2 KETK-Channel 56, said she was pleased with the summer Arbitron ratings.

"I think they're very good," Ms. Pavelka said. "It takes a long time to build. "But we have consistently grown every year and that's what we're trying to do," she said. Its affliation with NBC, which we are dedicated to getting quality programming." Stacey cited KLTV-Channel 7's syndicated programming lineup including "Wheel of Fortune," "The Oprah Winfrey Show," and "The Phil Donahue Show" following the evening local newcasts as an enhancement for its prime-time ratings.

Ms. Pavelka said "The Cosby Show" is among its most popular programs in the Monday-through-Friday rotation. The proliferation of cable television in the '80s has changed the nature of the television industry, local officials said, but the impact of advertising produced by local cable system operators and shown, for the most part, on cable has yet to be determined. Stacey said cable advertising's market niche is primarily with one-location firm, restaurants and the like which would benefit from their messages reaching local homes only. Cable advertising is limited because virtually all towns have different systems and the advertising message extends only to viewers in a given city, he said.

Accordingly, Tyler advertisers interested in reaching viewers in surrounding cities would not benefit from cable advertising, he said. "Cable has been going through a great growth Stacey said. "Newspaper is a formidable competitor and cable is right for some advertisers' needs," he said. Overall, Stacey said radio is an effective advertising medium, but it is handicapped by fragmentation of major markets, meaning several stations usually are vying for the same advertising dollars. "Basically, we're all vying for the same dollar," Stacey said.

"Smart media buyers know that effective messages in one medium will complement messages in MBB RrttQtP.1883 first Qti. 1830 Staff Graphic By Jim Rossman and local news coverage." Station KLMG-Channel 51 of, Longview, a CBS affiliate station that signed on in 1985, ranked last among East stations with a 1 rating and 3 market share. Its numbers were comparable to those given to stations based in Shreveport, Fort Worth-Dallas, Texarkana and even the so-called SOURCE: Arbitron Ratings Service, New York was has led network programming in national ratings since the Jacksonville-Tyler UHF station signed on three years ago, has been an asset for the station during the developmental stages. Ms. Pavelka attributed the station's success thus far to a combination of several factors, including "promotion, community support Widespread Insurance Fraud Found WASHINGTON (UPI) Congress, seeking to further dampen fears of an energy crisis, moved swiftly Friday to allow the Energy Department to triple the size of a test oil sale from America's strate-: gic petroleum reserve.

The House passed an emergency bill by voice vote to increase, to 15 million barrels from 5 million barrels, the amount of oil the depart-ment can remove from the reserve and sell on the open market under a "test draw-down" ordered Wednes-i day by President Bush. Sens. Joseph Lieberman, and Carl Levin, planned to introduce a similar bill in the Senate later in the day. Lawmakers, moving with unusual speed, acted a day after Energy Secretary James Watkins asked Congress for authority to triple the size of the oil reserve test. Watkins said the purpose of such a drill is to check the government's ability to efficiently tap its 590 mil- greed and amoral behavior to run rampant and cause grievous losses to innocent policyholders.

We feel that the state board has become stagnant, content to sit back and allow the insurance companies to regulate themselves without proper supervision or control." The grand jury made a number of recommendations, including the continuation of state funding of the Insurance Fraud Investigative Unit, harsher sentences for people convicted of large-scale looting of insurance companies and decreased insider insurance at the insurance board. timely because Friday was the last day of the grand jury's term. The report was highly critical of the insurance board, charging that it is influenced by "certain law firms and individuals" and that agency regulators appear to have been intimidated. "During our investigation, we found closed minds, lack of cooperation, a tendency to overlook and wink at misapplication of funds, filing of false financial statements and apparent undue influence by outside lobbyists and law9 yers," the report said. "Such an environment allows 1 lion-barrel emergency stockpile of 1 petroleum, rather than to bring market with 1 million barrels of oil a day?" he said, adding that consumers in the Northeast could expect to pay an average of $500 more for home heating oil this winter than they did last winter.

Tauzin said 5 million barrels represents roughly one-third of one day's consumption of oil by the United States. Bush, who" signed legislation Sept. 15 giving him wider latitude to order a full-scale drawdown, has been reluctant to make such a move absent a demonstrable shortage in commercial petroleum supplies. Recent oil price spikes, accompanied by rising retail prices in gasoline and home heating oil, have been attributed to market speculation rather than actual shortages since the Persian Gulf crisis began. Administration officials have expressed fear that a major drawdown from the reserve could have the unintended effect of adding to market speculation.

Watkins said Thursday he expected oil prices "to remain volatile," but predicted that supplies would be "adequate to meet demand during the winter months," -barring "armed conflict, major accidents or unusual weather patterns." The flurry of activity on Capitol Hill came as the International Energy Agency was scheduled to meet in Paris to discuss an agenda that Watkins has said would include the possibility of a coordinated drawdown of strategic reserves by several industrialized nations. The U.S. reserve was created in 1975 following the Arab oil embargo to ensure the United States a supply of oil during an energy crisis caused by events overseas, natural disasters or acts of sabotage. It has never been tapped for that purpose. The law reauthorizing the reserve expands the president discretion to draw on it under a less severe circumstance "that constitutes, or is likely to become, a domestic energy supply shortage of significant scope or duration." down the price of oil.

Briefcases Qffer Insights cute insurance crooks," she said. Howard added that Earle "is more adept at holding press ences than putting people in jail." "We've had to hold his hand throughout the process and teach his staff theintricacies of state insurance law," she said. During its term, the grand jury returned 27 indictments against 21 people on various charges of fraud and embezzlement. The charges involved companies that represent a combined loss of $60 million to the insurance guaranty fund, a tax-support entity that pays the policyholders of insolvent companies. The potential loss to the guaranty fund could eventually reach 1400 million, Earle said.

"The grand jury believes that the 27 indictments it issued against 21 individuals is but a tip of the iceberg," he said, adding that another special grand jury may be empaneled to continue the investigation. The grand jury report came the same week that Treasurer Ann Richards, the Democratic nominee for governor, made insurance reform a part of her campaign and began airing television commercials critical of the industry and the Board of Insurance. Earle denied any connection, saying he was not even aware that Richards had made insurance reform a part of her campaign. "We may both.be Democrats, but we don't communicate," Earle said. He aruged that the report was AUSTIN (UPI) A lack of supervision and control by a "stag: nant" state Board of Insurance has allowed insurance fraud to flourish -in Texas, according to a scathing report released Friday by a special Travis County grand jury, The grand jury, which has been investigating insurance fraud since April, concluded that "fraud in the Texas insurance industry is widespread and deep" and that, it is "covered up by falsified documents filed with the state Board of Insurance." The report also laid, "the potential exists for a savings and loan type disaster in the insurance industry.

As was true in the savings and loan arena, we see embezzlement and self-dealing by insurance company insiders and regulators who are asleep at the switch." Travis County District Attorney Ronald Earle said grand jury members were shocked by the size of the problem and what it could mean to the state's future economic health. He said the grand jury was also "outraged by the ineffective regulation of the state Board of Insurance." But Jo Ann Howard, a member of three-person board, said the grand jury ignored major reforms that have been implemented at the agency since May 1989. "This is a shallow and transparent effort by politicians to justify, continue and increase funding for what has been a less than productive effort to investigate and prose CHICAGO (UPI) Power lunches. Power breakfasts. Power briefcases? But he acknowledged that attest also "shows resolve" by the gov-ernment to maintain an adequate supply of oil, and heSJHu it would have a significant "psychological impact" on jittery energy markets.

Rep. Billy Tauzin, was more blunt Friday, saying the bill was intended as "a signal to the traders on Wall Street that it is time I to quit taking profits at the expense lj of the American people." I Despite healthy commercial in-; ventories of oil, the benchmark iWest Texas Intermediate crude for November delivery soared to a record $39.45 a barrel on the New 'York Mercantile Exchange Thursday, about 119 a barrel more than the day before Iraq's Aug. 2 inva shoes. In a business meeting it (a briefcase) is kind of status Lekas said the idea came from customers who were looking for just the right briefcase to go to that one. special meeting.

At least in the Chicago area, Lekas said he believed his rental business was the first of its kind. What's inside-the briefcase really That's what Chicago Trunk Leather Works is telling businessmen and businesswomen they need if they want to make sure they get the contract or the bank loan. One way to do it, manager ifflj. Lekas said Tuesday, is to have a top-of-the-line "knock-your-socks-off" briefcase, even if it was rented just for the day. "Who's ever going to "know?" Lekas said of the just-launched rental service.

"Most people will generally spend an enormous amount of time worrying about the stit they're wearing and their doesn't matter, Lekas said. It's the nerceDtion that counts. And what kind of briefcase to most people carry? "About one-third is the Samson sion of Kuwait. Rep. Edward Markey, called on Bush to exercise his existing authority to go beyond a test and order a full-scale release of oil from the reserve.

"Why aren't we flooding the oil ite attache, one-third is really beat up and the other third is something really decent, he said..