The Kansas City Star du lieu suivant : Kansas City, Missouri • 30

2 Executive turns sports into beacon for Channel 62 Jim MacDonald visualized Royals other KC sports as vital in gaining niche By RANDY COVITZ Start Writer Channel 62 Vice PresidentGeneral Manager Jim MacDonald has made the most of a challenging task He has built credibility for the independent TV station in the Kansas City broadcast market by landing key sports contracts including the Royals and Big Eight basketball it was the dregs of the Kansas City television market Remember KZKC-TV? The old Channel 62 operated out of a tiny corrugated metal building near Independence Technical problems such as clear reception of the signal were rampant because of the station's inferior equipment The station was in bankruptcy its salesmen were not welcomed in most advertising agencies and its commercial inventory included ads for WO phone numbers that featured scantily clad wonSrn inviting viewers to discuss sexual fantasies Iftjftit wasn't enough KZKC was fined by iha Federal Communications Commission for running the risque movie Lessons" in prime time Jifc MacDonald was searching for a situatrcm as terrible as this was looking for the hardest job I find in broadcasting said MacDonald a broadcast gypsy who joined KZRC as a general sales manager in May 1 984 after working in eight markets in the previous 1 2 years searched far and wide Without question KZKC was it It wasas bad you could find had moved rapidly up the ladder from market to market and was getting the reputation in the industry of having no staying power" said MacDonald whose resume included slops in Tampa Fla Miami Philadelphia Toledo Ohio an (Syracuse NY "'he only way to erase that was to go to a real tough situation gut it out and show the "broadcast community that not only didl have staying power but I could untfcr the most adverse conditions make a difference and improve the conditions MacDonald also had a solution for lifting Channel 62 out of its morass sports programming tie always had the vision that the station should be a sports-oriented station" said Andrew Banks managing director of Boston-based ABRY Communications which bought Channel 62 for 3 10 5 million from bankruptcy and recitristened it KSMO in October I WO OVhen you look around there are certain franchises you can have in a Bank said of those is clearly sports" By using that strategy Channel 62 has begpme the home for most KC area sports franchises Its 1992-93 schedule includes 12 Kansas 10 Missouri four UMKC and two Kansas State basketball games and thme Blades hockey games It has carried three Kansas football games during the Iasi two years and the 1992 Missouri football championship game When WDAF (Channel 4) had an NBC conflict and was unable to show Bijf Eight opener on Saturday Channel 62 pre-empted its movie and carried Ray-coflfs telecast Starting this spring Channel 62 will new ground by carry ing at least 65 Rcftals games in the first year of a thie-year contract 1 5 more games thJt Channel 4 had done in its 1 3 years of coverage Sports was the single-most important thing I could do" said MacDonald 44 nofc She station's vice president and general manager "It came from a need to fintl a local identity and nothing like sports except for news and not going to do news plenty of news in Jh6 market The way I see television evolving are so many choices for the viewer 1 Building an audience Buoved by the success of sports movies and daytime family programming MacDonald said the station turned a profit in 1992 Channel 62's audience has mushroomed from 268000 viewers at any given week in October 1990 to 492000 in the November Arbitron ratings MacDonald said "We want people to say KSMO great movies but great sports" MacDonald said "If a local sports franchise check them lirst It they don have it it's probably not on That w'hat separates us from the clutter of all the options that are out there the reason we would take something that might not necessarily be a huge ratings success like Blades hockey or UMKC basketball or the high school football championship local It gives an extra value in associating the station locally in the minds of the viewer" Not everything has been successful "Sports Rap" a 30-minute talk show on Sunday nights lasted a year before it was dropped in September "One problem is it took a lot of lime to produce MacDonald said sales staff is so inundated with other projects it never got behind it and sold It appeals to a limited That keep MacDonald from more experiments "We gone to the lengths of doing volleyball in the Banks said if enough people were interested Jim would find a way to managers to make the operation MacDonald persuaded Rich Deutsch who had been with the old Channel 62 to return from Minneapolis and serve as general sales manager with the new station MacDonald was one of the only people in the country who could have actually done what had to be done Deutsch said "To take a station that was in as dire straits and in such bad condition as this one was and turn it around in such a relatively short amount of time "He's done a masterful job of defining our goals and objectives on track The station was foundering We wanted to be a family station We did a lot of things to change our image We got rid of the dateline 900 numbers We knew if we wanted to get blue-chip advertisers on the air we had to lose that stuff It was a big chunk of revenue a tremendous amount of easy money we passed on but we're here for the long haul" Sponsors are responding "The Royals have given us entry to people who typically we wouldn have Deutsch said "When you say your station carries the Royals it means a little more than Tm try ing to sell you a talking to zone managers for car dealers who never would have before" The first key sports acquisition was landing syndicated basketball package in the fall of 1 990 Then because Channel schedule was filled with Fox network programming Missouri came over to Channel 62 in 1991 "We pray nightly for the success of Fox" MacDonald said was the person we highlighted in that process and said he was capable and knew the market very well" When Banks interviewed MacDonald one of the first questions dealt with goals for the station the time it probably seemed far-reaching Banks said "but he had the clear ambition of finding a way to acquire the Roy als from the very first day believe two months had passed following our acquisition of the station before he arranged a meeting with Royals management They were not considering a change in broadcast affiliation He made them aware of our interests couldn't respond initially they were under a new contract (with Channel 4) But he had the vision and tried to plant the flag that re going to oiler the Royals the best home in the and he did Moving into new facilities Before MacDonald could be taken seriously by the Royals he had to dean up Channel image He combed the area for new studios and offices and settled on 10500 square feet double the previous facility in a three-story brick-and-glass building on Cambridge Circle overlooking Interstate 35 near the Kansas-Missouri border ABRY pumped more than $3 million into a new antenna production and transmission facilities and other state of-the-art equipment "ABRY gave me everything I needed to turn the station around" MacDonald said "The antenna was the most important thing that had to be done They eave me the money to recruit talented think television stations will start blending into an identityless pool of just another of 50 or 60 options that people have It's incumbent upon us to grab a niche a local identity and the best way to do that if not going to do news is through the local sports teams Impressing the owners MacDonald had no assurances he'd be able to carry out his plan When ABRY took over other stations in its chain it usually brought in new general managers knew the station was going to be sold in about a MacDonald said of the waning days of KZKC took a gamble I had a year to show the new owners what kind of impact I could make They had gone through three general managers in a year and I knew none of those guvs would be considered by the new management goal was to show whoever was going to buy the station that the general sales manager was a real winner and was ready to run the station" The plan worked flawlessly ABRY flew MacDonald into Boston and decided to make him the general manager the station fell on hard times under previous management Jim held the station together as they changed general managers" Banks said all the competing plans who wanted to buy the station the bankruptcy court selected our company because they felt it was the most well-capitalized most responsible and looked at our track record at turning around other stations and said this was the company that can make good On all the debts and act responsibly for the benefit of emoloveesand creditors shift follows industry trends As independent station Channel 62 offered flexibility exposure in three-year deal By RANDY COVITZ Start Writer during the day going to the movies shopping follow them around with a camera" Most of the attention will be focused on the actual telecasts Channel 62 has contracted with the same company that produces the Kansas basketball package Creative Sports of Charlotte NC to produce the games Although this is Creative first major-league baseball undertaking it also packages the Charlotte Hornets of the NBA NASCAR races and other college basketball teams "WDAF did a mcat-and-potatocs MacDonald said "They had four cameras and did all of the graphics in Kansas ity But the announcers were at the site so they never saw what was on the screen do (the graphics) in the truck at the site going to have five cameras and we may use a sixth camera if the occasion warrants it busy hiring the best directors and producers going to be like any major-league broadcast They all use the same pool of people the same trucks The only discernible difference is going to have more cameras better graphics and a new play-by-play announcer in Dave Armstrong" Although the Royals arc confident they made a good decision some trepidation when changing channels any type of change obviously questions" Cryder said "But we knew these people before we signed anything We did our homework We talked with our associates with the Brewers and in Baltimore who almost signed with an ABRY station After talking with people in the baseball and broadcasting industry we knew these people were talented and had expertise in sports nd television" supporting programming and promotions I knew he was familiar with baseball because of his relationship with Milwaukee They were not rookies" Although terms of the contract were not disclosed it is believed Channel 62's bid was comparable to the $3 million per year Channel 4 had been paying in rights fees Channel per-game cost will actually be less because it will be doing at least 1 5 more games but Banks doesn't consider the package a profit maker think anybody on a direct profitability basis makes much money on baseball but it is important to a station that is building and growing in the Banks said "It be a profit maker but something you want to have on the station as part of our identity and a way to bring additional viewers to our station" Supporting programming will include Channel Crew 62 kids club which includes 43000 members who watch shows between 7-9 a and 4-5 pm The host of Crew 62 Sandy ill have a Crew 62 Day at a Royals game and the station plans 60-second spots in which Royals players appear with Sandy will work to develop those young kids into hard-core Royals Ians" MacDonald said "That was important to the Royals" Channel 62 is also committed to produce 1 2 specials which will probably run twice a month for six months during the season and it will probably broadcast a weekly show produced by an independent company specials will be feature-oriented MacDonald said typical special will be a day in the life of George Brett during the off-season or a typical day in the life of a player on Ate road What they do four home games MacDonald started laying the groundwork in the summer of 1991 During the previous two years when Royals telecasts conflicted with NBC programming Channel 62 did WDAF a favor by picking up the NBC shows They stopped being so accommodating in 1991 Without another outlet to dear its network shows Channel 4 had to tape-delay Johnny final shows last spring and it did not broadcast some NBA playoff games because of Royals commitments That only underscored why the trend among major-league baseball teams has been to align with independent stations as the local rights holders Also working in Channel favor was the 1991 retirement of Channel 4 General Manager Earl Beall who had brought the Royals to WDAF in 1980 and had forged a strong relationship with the team His replacement Ed Piette was in a similar position at KSDK-TV in St Louis an NBC affiliate when it lost the Cardinals to an independent station As WDAFs contract neared expiration the Royals became more receptive to Channel 62 and its owner Boston-based ABRY Communications ABRY owns four other stations in top-30 markets and its station in Milwaukee WCCiV-TV carries the Brewers Royals vice prcsidentadmimstration Dennis Cryder who is responsible for radio and television negotiations communicated with ABRY managing director Andrew Banks on almost a weekly basis for several months wanted a strong network revenue and more exposure" Cryder said "and we were willing to experiment with home games We went through oilier things like Jim MacDonald began with a dream Bring the Royals to Channel 62 It seemed ludicrous The Royals had a longstanding relationship with WDAF (Channel 4) as well as a reputation for loyalty and continuity in their radio and television contracts That failed to deter MacDonald the vice president and general manager from lobbying Every chance get for more than two years be it radio talk shows newspaper interviews or chance meetings with Royals officials at different functions MacDonald let people know of his interest in carry ing Royals baseball you start with a pipe dream nothing ever becomes MacDonald said finally got a meeting with the Royals in the fall of 1 99 1 1 993 was up for bid they were cordial but it was like station is going to have to show us a "I had logic on my side We were never going to be an (network) affiliate and all of the teams were switching to independents Also the market had been underserved by (Channel 4 s) carrying 40 to 50 games We can do a lot more And they will Channel 6 ended Channel 1 3-year hold on the Royals last fall when it was awarded a three-year contract Channel 62 with a more flexible programming schedule will carry an unprecedented 65 telecasts including "It's going to bo like any rnajor-league broadcast They all the samepool of people the Same trucks The only discernible difference is we're going to have moire cameras better graphics and new play-by-play announcer in Oave Armstrong (above) Jim MacDonald.