The popularity of the Seahawks in the Seattle-Tacoma market and of the NFL in general has prompted a long, fruitless negotiation between FOX TV Stations Group to buy Seattle-based KCPQ Channel 13, which this season carries nine Seahawks games, including Sunday’s game at the Clink against the Dallas Cowboys.
Unsuccessful in its bid to own and operate a station in the Seattle market, FOX ratcheted up pressure this week by buying, according to Federal Communication Commission documents, a small station in Bellingham, KBCB-TV. It also gave Tribune Media Co. of Chicago, owners of KCPQ, 120 days notice, per contract, that FOX will end its affiliation in Seattle. If FOX makes good its threat, Channel 13 after Jan. 17 will no longer carry NFL games and other prime-time FOX programming.
The $10 million purchase of KBCB and subsequent notice to Tribune raised the stakes for FOX, which is amid an aggressive campaign to own and operate stations that carry the NFL, to get into even the fringe of the Seattle-Tacoma market.
If FOX, which has 12 stations in the 16 markets of the National Football Conference — for which FOX owns the broadcast rights — leaves KCPQ, that won’t mean much to the typical Puget Sound-area NFL fan who gets FOX programming via cable or satellite TV.
But if your household is among the small but growing number that get football free on an old-fashioned, over-the-air broadcast signal, you will be out of luck if you live south of central Seattle.
That’s currently the geographic limit of KBCB’s southerly signal reach for a channel that carries only a 24-hour syndicated shopping channel and has no staff or news operation. It was owned by Venture Technologies Group LLC.
Nielsen Research data says that as of early 2014, 6.3 percent of households in the Seattle-Tacoma market consume TV via free broadcast signal, compared to 66.9 percent by cable and 27 percent by satellite.
Six point three may not sound like much, but in this market, the number outside of KBCB’s reach is about 70,000 households, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.
That would represent a lot of irked 12s.
The over-air market share for broadcast grew from 5.7 percent a year earlier, largely a reflection of an increasing trend among consumers who are fed up with price spikes for cable and satellite, as well as a small but growing cohort of “cable-nevers,” mostly younger consumers who prefer get their shows from subscription services such as Netflix and Hulu, and use free broadcast channels for sports and local news.
Tribune, which recently grew its ownership of TV stations around the country from 23 to 42 while divesting itself of a struggling newspaper division that included the Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune, is not eager to part with its place in Seattle.
KCPQ produced for Tribune $13 million in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization in 2013. KCPQ uses only 10 hours weekly of FOX’s non-football programming, from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Friday.
Tribune released a statement Sept. 23 that said it is “continuing to engage in discussions with Fox and moreover have prepared for all operational and economic possibilities for our Seattle Fox station. We are confident that our remaining thirteen Fox affiliates will remain unaffected, based on regulatory and contractual constraints.”
According to a Wall Street Journal story Tuesday about the FOX pursuit, “talks have gone nowhere and have gotten increasingly acrimonious, according to people familiar.”
The loss of Fox programming, especially the NFL, would be a blow to KCPQ, which uses the huge NFL audience to promote its prime-time shows and its news programs. The latter are usually fourth in the four-station ratings race in most day parts with KING, KOMO and KIRO in the rapidly shrinking audience for appointment-TV local news.
Pam Pearson, KCPQ vice president and general manager, released a statement that said, “Tribune Media has issued a statement on the discussions between KCPQ’s owner Tribune Media and FOX. As for KCPQ, we are focused on bringing ten hours a day of quality news as well as sports, including the Seattle Seahawks, to Seattle and Tacoma and all of Western Washington.”
A source at KCPQ who did not want to be named said that a loss of affiliation would be hard but not necessarily a death blow. The station could operate as an independent while maintaining its established news programming, the source said.
Despite FOX’s success in buying into other markets, it has found no takers in Seattle, although sales have occurred. KING’s parent company, Belo, was bought last year by powerhouse Gannett, and locally owned Fisher Broadcasting, longtime operators of KOMO, was purchased last year by Sinclair Broadcasting of Baltimore. Cox Media of Atlanta, owners of KIRO, reportedly has resisted FOX offers for years.
In 2013, FOX bought two stations in Charlotte, home of the Panthers, from Raleigh-based Capital Broadcasting. Earlier in 2014, FOX swapped stations in Memphis and Boston for two Bay Area stations owned by Cox.
By owning stations outright, FOX can make more money from subscription fees, called retransmission fees, than by contracting with affiliate stations owned by other companies. In Seattle, there’s also a hotter advertising market around Seahawks and NFL games.
But in buying KBCB, closer to Canada than Seattle 90 miles south, FOX would have to invest millions to build the sort of news and programming operation that it prefers in all of its other owned-and-operated stations. Even then, it would be the fifth news station in the market and the seventh commercial station, which industry observers consider an over-saturation for the nation’s No. 14 market.
And FOX might have to placate angry South Sound Seahawks fans by buying other stations in the market with a signal that can reach them.
Nathaniel Brown, a FOX Television senior vice president for communicationsin New York, said Friday the company had no comment and referred questions to the FCC filing for the station purchase.
Sources say Tribune was aware of pending threat of a loss of affiliation, and has not budged. But now that the 120-day clock has started to an end that is in the middle of the NFL playoffs, FOX is counting on a change of mind concerning KCPQ’s most valuable program.
For South Sound fans who enjoyed their Seahawks on free TV, they may find themselves sidelined in the final minutes of the season.
18 Comments
Fox shaking it’s money maker.
Given the money they fork over to the NFL to keep Goodell swathed in lawyers, are you surprised?
fair and balanced, art.
SPNW reports, we decide. Gotta love it.
Hannity thanks you.
Hannity? Nahhh…I’m holding out for Megyn Kelly. She can stick a mic under my nose anytime.
I see what you did there.
Speaking as a “cable-never,” though not, unfortunately, “mostly younger”, this is bad, very bad news.
Please take a closer look at that map. The signal does not reach Seattle city limits. We live north of the ship canal and close to the top of a hill with an antenna on the roof. We’ve never received a signal from Bellingham.
The NFL is the only league that has made a point of keeping the home team’s games broadcast over-the-air. Monday night games are always picked up by one or another local station when the Seahawks are playing. Might the NFL have something to say about this situation?
The map is an estimation, but I’ll take your word for it. The Seattle situation is believed to the first time in Fox’s new campaign to pursue a station out of the metropolitan area. We don’t yet know whether Fox has a workaround in mind to deliver the signal to the KCPQ reach.
I lived on Camano Is for a long time and moved there before cable arrived in the area. The house we bought already had a very tall antenna on the roof mounted with a motor that would rotate the antenna from an electric control inside the house. Probably long lost technology, but it’s a thought (maybe ebay or Radio Shack?) My parents also had one for their house in San Diego for pulling in LA stations.
All I see is a giant corp strangling a golden goose.
The golden goose is way too big to be strangled by one market’s problems.
For awhile I was wondering if this helps Seattle get an NBA team? Seattle has consistently hovered between 11-15 in media market size in the US. When all is said and done here they might crack the top 10, IMO making it difficult for the NBA to rationalize staying out of the Seattle/Tacoma/Everett market. Especially with a solid offer on the table, assuming there is one.
Would Fox expand into Eastern Washington? Or other parts of the Pacific NW? The Seahawks brand is strong even in BC and a few parts of Alaska. I think it’d be short sighted to stay in just Western Washington.
NBA . . . what?
Everyone knows the market size, and the NBA gets more out of Seattle being empty than filled.
Fox and its NFL games are everywhere via cable and satellite. This squabble will impact, as the story says, the households who who get free over-the-air broadcasts in parts of Western Washington served now by Ch. 13.
If anything, the cable and satellite operators would do cartwheels down the hallway if FOX follows through and pulls the plug on KCPQ because Seahawks fans in the South Sound who do their TV over-the-air would have to subscribe to one of them to watch games (although there is always radio, of course, which is free and requires nothing more than a plug-in/batteries and a little imagination from the listener). Or they could just go to a bar that has the game on the big screen.
At any rate, this is not going to affect a lot of people overall.
Fox is showing a helluva lotta faith in Pete Carroll & co.
It’s the NFL. They televise games besides the Seahawks.
Tell FOX to “GO TO HELL” If the government will not stand-up to them, someone has to.