KRON-TV, The "VJ Model," Files For Bankruptcy

 

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (February 17, 2009) – Unable to find a buyer for KRON-TV, the once-strong former NBC affiliate in San Francisco that sank into obscurity and debt after Young Broadcasting bought it in 2000 for a record $820 million in a bidding war with General Electric, NBC's parent company, the owners late Friday filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

When NBC dropped out of the bidding war and Young bought the station from the Chronicle Publishing, NBC pulled their affiliation from KRON-TV which left the station without the network's strong prime time line-up of shows and network news.

In January 2008 Young put KRON-TV up for sale, and when there were no buyers they took it off the market in November, and the company underwent rounds of layoffs across the year.

By January 2009, many thought Young Broadcasting – the owners of 10 television stations – was headed for bankruptcy when KRON-TV cut back its news broadcasts and started airing infomercials during prime time.

Young skipped a $6.125 million interest payment on January 15, 2009, to "preserve liquidity." Then on February 9, 2009, for the second time in three weeks they skipped another payment, this one for $4.513 million, for the same reason.

In late January, Young Broadcasting was delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market when they failed to meet Nasdaq's requirements for stock price and market capitalization.

Many in the television industry remember that KRON-TV "embraced" the one-man-band VJ (videojournalist) model of news gathering and hired consultant Michael Rosenblum in 2004 to teach traditional video photojournalists (as well as young, less-experienced new hires) how to operate on their own.

The philosophy at the time was that it would save money, using inexpensive and lightweight pro-sumer video cameras, while increasing the story count. The station touted a public relations line that reporters, and even some anchors, would be trained to be VJs. The station manager at the time, Mark Antonitis, said the move would "Empower a new breed of broadcast journalist."

Empowered or not, it was too little and too late. The station became mired in debt, was impotent in the market after losing its network affiliation, and the VJ newscasts lost in the ratings against stations with traditional news crews.

 

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