RE: Dish Network and local station packages...

["Pete Ferrand" <petef@sprynet.com>]

Had about a fifteen minute interview last week with Paul Sands, the GM
of both WNNE and WPTZ.

First thing he told me was that the Valley News (W. Lebanon) had got
it wrong about the four minutes and that this was supposed to be a
flexible amount of time changeable as needed.

All anchoring will come out of Burlington with tech ops in
Plattsburgh. Local Upper Valley ads will continue to be sold as they
are now, physically running out of a machine in Plattsburgh. He
described WNNE as a "satellite" station of channel 5.


Evening news will start with a regional overview, then the second
segment will be the local split, both of which will also be anchored
out Burlington. The sports and weather will also come out of
Burlington.

Obviously there will thus be a major cutback in employment at NNE, but
there will continue to be a three-person local news staff.

Sands claimed that because they will now concentrate on the Upper
Valley they can produce as much or more news as is presently being
produced, i.e. the reporter doesn't have to go to Montpelier to do a
state story.

Should leave the station with about a dozen employees in White River
Junction, as compared with 40-50 a couple years ago. I do recall then
regularly seeing help-wanted ads for master control operators. They
wanted a fair amount of experience and were paying $8/hr, and 30
hrs/wk so no benefits, far as I recall.

There will be no weekend news of any kind on either station. I
unfortunately ran out of time before I could ask him how this makes
them competitive in Burlington, where Channel 3 I know has weekend
news.

There may eventually be some news connection with WMUR but he said
there were problems with that because of the different network
affiliations, so it would take time to work that out.

I have no way of assessing the veracity of any of his statements but
seems like a reasonable company line to me.

-Pete
Enfield, NH (which is in a white area so I get all the networks on
DishNet without need of waivers! Have to pay for 'em though.)

By the way, was Charlie Ergen the inventor of ergonomics? :-)

-p