Speaking with Alan Frank

Alan Frank

Post-Newsweek TV Stations hasn’t been active in station buying or selling for some time, so it was big news when President and CEO Alan Frank recently cut a deal to buy WTVJ-TV Miami from NBC Universal for $205 million to create a rare ABC-NBC duopoly. We also asked him to pick another hit, as he did last year with “Ugly Betty.”

Alan Frank was featured in an interview for our previous print publication in January 2007. We wanted to post that for our online readers, but so much has changed since then that we wanted to check back with him and give you an update. First, the latest news.

The big news since our previous interview was the first station purchase by Post-Newsweek in a very long time. What convinced you to get back into the market as a buyer?

We have looked at buying stations for some time but the prices were always out of line for our liking.  This case was special since we already own WPLG, our great station in Miami, and WTVJ would give us a duopoly.  We like the Miami market and felt it was a good opportunity for us.

How fast are you growing your digital businesses and how much are they being embraced by consumers? What do you see ahead for multicasting, streaming, TV websites and mobile video?

LATV is now a multicast channel on 5 of our 6 stations, KPRC in Houston, KSAT in San Antonio, WPLG in Miami, WKMG in Orlando and WJXT in Jacksonville.  LATV appealed to us because it's a bilingual young Hispanic lifestyle channel that is totally additive to our main channels.  Much of what we've looked at has been complimentary but therefore has not added to our audience reach or sales efforts.  In particular I think Weather Plus, while a good attempt, has been a failure in that regard.  But we do think LATV has a real chance to be quite successful and feel so strongly that we invested in it.

How's business in this tough economy, particularly for your independent station?

Business is difficult everywhere, and that's generally true for all businesses.  TV stations are no exception.  We're concentrating in these difficult times in helping local retailers make an impact with their advertising.  Local TV is a great buy and a great way to increase brand, and in difficult times your brand becomes even more important.  We believe helping retailers succeed will only help us grow our share of the TV advertising pie.

We are also looking at aggressively selling our very successful websites.  The advertising dollars available for web buys is often from different pools of money and we're having real success selling our sites.  

As to WJXT, our independent station in Jacksonville, they are a spectacular success!  Business is difficult for them as well, but they have been growing their revenue share and soon will be at a 30 share of the Jacksonville revenue market.  The reason behind their strong sales effort is the station's remarkable ratings performance.  They have won sign-on to sign-off ratings in November and May, just an extraordinary performance considering they are up against the best programming the networks have to offer in prime time in the sweeps months.  WJXT performs at a very high level day in and day out and clearly advertisers and viewers appreciate that consistency and therefore come to The Local Station, WJXT.

You correctly predicted that "Ugly Betty" would be a big hit. Do you have a favorite pick for this fall?

I don't have any great feelings for this year.  The negative effect of the writers' strike is still hanging over the programming choices and schedules; it will take another half-season to see how shows fall out.

I think the outstanding performance of the Olympics is a great sign; local broadcast TV is still a unifying force in this country and as shows are appropriately scheduled and marketed with time and care they will have a chance to make a mark.  We need more hits; these Olympics confirmed that hits are still very possible with the right ingredients.

That’s the update. Read on for our original interview published in January 2007.

One-On-One with Alan Frank

Alan Frank became President and CEO of Post-Newsweek Stations, the TV group of The Washington Post Company, in January 2000. Prior to that, he had been Vice President and General Manager of the company’s WDIV-TV Detroit since 1988. In 1992 he negotiated the purchase of PASS Sports, Michigan's cable sports system, which was sold to Fox Sports in 1997. Frank joined WDIV in 1979 as program manager. In 1986 he became vice president of programming and production for Post-Newsweek Stations. Prior to joining WDIV, Frank held management positions with Group W.

As if he didn’t have enough to do, Frank is currently both the Chairman of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Television Board of Directors and Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB). He also serves on the board of MSTV and is a member of the board of directors of two “new media” companies, iBlast and Internet Broadcast Systems (IBS).

You have six stations and you’re in three different networks, plus an independent. Do you find that there is really much difference in the relationship between the owner and the different networks?

It does change and the change is cyclical things are sometimes quite bitter than other times.  Depending on where the network is and what’s going on and how they are feeling and what day of the week it is, there are very different answers.

I suspect they are much happier when the ratings are up.

Ah, that doesn’t make them easier to deal with.

How have you been pursuing the issue of online streaming?  Have you been happy with how the networks have been treating the affiliates in that regard?

It’s been really difficult to engage the networks in that regard.  It is really up to the affiliate boards to make sure that we have an alignment of interests—that our interests equal their interests.  If the network does something on a different platform it’s not detrimental to the affiliates if we’re doing it together, because the health of a show is something that is in our benefit as well as theirs.  But if is not doing particularly well in primetime but it’s kept there because the network is making money on numerous other platforms, that is not an alignment of interests.  So what we want to make sure of is that we’re walking together and so we’re promoting together and benefiting together in the same interests.  In that regard, we’ve tried to establish new businesses with some of the networks and sometimes we’ve been more successful than other times because it’s a difficult field and no one can predict exactly how it will turn out.  So it’s been a difficult process.

As far as those new ventures, are you multicasting?

Yes, we have been for some time.  In almost all of our markets we have some form of multicasting going on. For one of the NBC stations have weather plus, but the other stations have some other things going on.  In fact, we’re close to making some commitments on what we think will be significant multicast opportunities.

You don’t have any CW or MyNetworkTV affiliates. Were you interested?

We looked at it; it just wasn’t the right opportunity in any of our markets.  We were close on the CW, but we just didn’t like the deal and weren’t enamored with where Fox was going [with MyNetworkTV] so we just didn’t pursue it.

How is life going with your one independent station?

It should be as good everywhere.  We’re just hitting a homerun there everyday.  We’re on the verge of controlling that market from our ratings and revenue standpoint.  It’s really been spectacular success.  The hard work and the great enthusiasm of the folks at WJXT [Jacksonville, FL] has been remarkable and the community has responded in magnificent ways.  We are the local station, that’s how we bill ourselves.  WJXT, the local station, and it’s been an amazing success.  We’ve doubled the amount of news, more than doubled, we do over eight hours of news every day and our news is all number one and our syndication is very successful.  Frequently we’ll beat two or three networks nightly; some nights we actually win primetime.  We’ve just been doing very well.  Our ten o’clock news is a huge success.  Our four hours in the morning is a huge success.  Our afternoon has remained a big, big number one; we’ve done a lot of very special programming that’s really interesting in that market.  The surprise, I mean we all knew it, but the surprise was when you become a news station you cover news and you not only cover local news you cover all news—otherwise you’re not a news station.  So when things happen nationally, our anchors and our reporters cover that event.  So everything from when President Regan, died we covered that.  We have CNN video, without their reporters, but we have CNN video.  We have Washington Post resources.  We have our other stations’ resources and we cover those events and we are always first or second in the coverage in the market so we’ll beat at least two of the networks always.

By the way the people there really love working under that scenario where they can do what they want to do when they want to do it.  There are no rules; they can do whatever they want.  

You’re sitting there with a very comfortable public company at a time when a lot of the others are having troubles and you’re seeing all the newspaper companies ending up on the auction block. It must be pretty pleasant to be able to sit there and not have the kind of worries that some of the other people do, given the attitude of your ownership.

I think that’s well put.  The other thing that’s happened and I think it’s a story not well reported is the Washington Post Company has performed a minor miracle in that half of the company is not advertising dependent.  So the subscription-based part of our cable and the Kaplan, our education division, which is growing remarkably, are not advertiser dependent.  So while Newsweek Magazine and the Washington Post and our TV stations certainly are [advertising dependent], the rest is not and it’s what the Street has really wanted from companies like Viacom and Time Warner and they now have it with the Washington Post Company.  At some point people will recognize a remarkable turnaround but you know it’s to Don Graham’s credit that that has happened, so it’s a great thing for our company.

And it’s a situation where you have a patient corporate leadership that is not worried about quarter-to-quarter which is unusual in this day and age.

Exactly.  They are as much concerned about the quality of the journalism and the quality of how we represent our communities as anything else.  Of course, we are expected to be strong leaders in all areas including profitability, but that’s an easy thing when you understand that we can draw the best people because they like working where they know it counts what they put on the air.

What new syndicated shows are you excited about?

Well, the one that we have for almost every one of our markets is Rachel Ray and that’s been the best new show.  She has a terrific talent there is no question about it and they are working to get the show to take advantage of who she is and not be the show that it was on cable, but the show that it has to be on syndication.  They have a great production team.  I have real faith in Terry Wood and the people producing the show.  I think they will do it, but it will take a little while to get the show there.  That’s the only one of the new shows that I think really has a chance.

And what are you old favorites?  You have Dr. Phil in a lot of markets.

Yeah, we have it everywhere except one market and that’s been remarkably successful for us.  We only have Oprah in two markets.  We’d love to have had it in more. ET and Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, those shows are all very successful for us.

Now that we are a few weeks in to the Fall season what have you seen on the networks that you think is going to do well for your stations this year?

Ugly Betty.  Ugly Betty is going to be I think a big, big hit for a long time.  I think Heroes could be a hit for a long time. And clearly NBC’s bet on Sunday Night Football was a good move—they needed to do it, they desperately needed it.  It’s been very good for our stations this fall.  I worry what’s going to happen in January, when they’ll have to replace it, but for the fall it’s been a very successful programming move.  I do think what this fall has shown is that the network model of introducing all their shows in September probably needs to be rethought.  I think they would be better off on a gradual basis rolling out shows.  It is just too difficult these days to get viewers to give in to totally new viewing patterns and I think they need to stop with the Fall rollout and do a year-long rollout—you know, do two shows at a time, redo a night, redo a time period, redo this and just continually be reintroducing shows or introducing shows, but I don’t think you could introduce 5, 7, 9 shows in September/October. There are a number of very good shows that have not succeeded and I think in part because they just get caught up in all the new shows.  There are just too many new things to try.

How concerned are you about the FCC’s indecency crackdown?

I think stations and networks have to standup for what’s right and take responsibility for what isn’t right.  I don’t agree with CBS in their decision to fight this Super Bowl penalty.  That never should have happened.  CBS did apologize, said it shouldn’t have happened, but it did happen and they should say we’ll take the punishment.  On the other hand, I think a number of times the FCC has reacted because it has been through public campaigns with tens of thousands of postcards or emails that are exactly the same from people who have never seen the show that they are complaining about.  To me that’s one complaint, that’s not ten thousand complaints and I think the FCC is not putting things in a perspective in any way that is meaningful and everything has been given equal weight—that’s a remarkable way to administer a policy.  I don’t think the whole current procedure has provided any clarity.  On the other hand I think stations have been overly sensitive.  I think it was impossible that “Saving Private Ryan” would have been judged indecent.  It aired twice before. The same happened with that a number of stations didn’t carry the documentary on 9/11.  That was remarkable. There’s no reason to not take that and if the FCC had said that had been indecent that would have been a perfect case to go to court on.  

Are you looking forward to the DTV switch-over date?  Is that going to be traumatic or do you think it will be a non-event by the time we get there?

We’re working hard to make it a non-event, but no, I do not think it will be a non-event.  It’s one of the ways that the government, our government, has failed in this digital transition because they never finalized the rules they started ten years ago or fifteen years ago.  So they allowed analog sets to be sold, they are still being sold.  I think until this year they were selling 20 to 30 million analog sets a year.  I thought that was unconscionable that they allowed that to go on without a big warning label on sets for all consumers.

Let us give you a bully pulpit and ask what concerns you about television?

I think we have to get this digital transition completed in a way that is satisfying for consumers.  That’s not a broadcaster problem, we’re part of the mix, but the broadcasters have to be very active in that.  I think the networks are going to have to decide how they are going to work with the affiliates in the future in long term ways because that relationship is changing.  I think stations are just going to have to continue to understand that their success is going to depend on being hyper-local and have as much community involvement as they can to succeed, because that’s where their viewers are and that’s where their clients are and that’s what they are going to have to do.