Can Citadel Broadcasting survive?

[Scott Fybush]

Sean Smyth wrote:

> This baffled me as well. How does WABC (AM) work without being tied
> into a strong TV station such as WABC-TV? Surely, it can, but it's
> nowhere near as efficient or strong, one would think.

One of the interesting things about ABC Radio is just how distant it 
always was from ABC-TV, at least in the last 40 years or so.

WABC/WPLJ in New York and KABC/KLOS in Los Angeles have almost never 
been co-located with their "sister" TV stations. In their most recent 
incarnations, WABC/WPLJ at 2 Penn Plaza and WABC-TV at Lincoln Center 
were 43 blocks apart. KABC/KLOS at La Cienega and KABC-TV in Burbank 
might as well be in different states. WPLJ's transmitter is in a 
completely separate space at Empire from WABC-TV; KLOS rents space from 
KABC-TV on Mount Wilson.

WLS/WZZN in Chicago and KGO/KSFO in San Francisco operated out of the 
same buildings as WLS-TV and KGO-TV (and still do), but in a hands-off 
manner. The radio division actually paid rent to ABC-TV for the space, 
as Citadel still does.

About the only example I can think of of cross-promotional synergy 
between ABC-TV and ABC radio outlets was the afternoon talk show that 
the late KGO-TV anchor Pete Wilson hosted on KGO radio until his death a 
few months ago.

There was a little more synergy on the network level - ABC TV anchors 
and talent were heard fairly often on ABC Radio News, and of course if 
you go back a few decades you had Howard Cosell's radio show and such. 
ABC Radio News operates out of space in an ABC-TV building on West End 
Avenue. I don't know if they pay rent to ABC-TV or how that works.

Perhaps if ABC had taken more advantage of radio-TV synergy, it wouldn't 
have sold the radio division...but I guess we'll never know.

s