Bray Cary Interview

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Mr. Jones
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Bray Cary Interview

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From TVNEWSDAY:

[quote]EXECUTIVE SESSION WITH BRAY CARY

BIG PLANS FOR SMALL MARKET TV STATIONS

TVNEWSDAY, Feb. 27, 8:37 AM ET


The operator of four West Virginia stations has learned a lot of lessons in the past six years, the most important that local trumps everything else. And while he's optimistic about the future, he would be more so if the FCC would allow small-market duopolies and if his fellow small-market broadcasters would share ideas and technology.

Back in 2001, Bray Cary and his partners put into play an innovative and ambitious small-market TV station strategy.

They bought four network affiliated stations in West Virginia that together covered about 90% of the state and tied them together with digital microwave and fiber links so they could readily exchange news and other programming.

“We thought a lot of the people in the state shared the same values and a lot of the same hopes,â€
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Hoosier Daddy
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Post by Hoosier Daddy »

Since when was WOWK an NBC affiliate?

I thought WBOY was NBC.


:?
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Post by SPIKE NESMITH! »

Ha, I caught that too. I think they've got it arse-for-elbow. Isn't the rest of the network NBC, but 13's CBS?

Where is "Clarkburg" anyway...?
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Post by Big Media »

So Don gave up the NBC affiliation to WOWK? Will WSAZ now be exclusively MyZ? :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Post by genlock »

I wonder who Mr Cary would like to merge/collaborate with?
If he wants some tips on using new media,he should look at WSAZ.
WSAZ is using MyZ for everything they can sell but don't have a place for on the main channel. You can't reasonably expect to put High School Basketball on WSAZ primetime and make money over your regular schedule, but you can do it on MyZ. You can counter program WVAH news at ten on MyZ.
You can run Kentucky basketball and other available sports on MyZ and give the sales slugs more avails to getrid of. The best WOWK could do was run a weather scan and audio from the main channel. WCHS best effort was to run a music channel and they quit that because of kids tv FCC requirements.
WSAZ has improved their web site greatly over the past few months but is still slow with adding news. Their use of streaming video has been excellent ehrn there is actually something to cover. Technically, WSAZ has the sharpest local, live picture on their digital channel. New digital cameras and probably not bouncing from analog to ditital and back help to keep things sharp. WSAZ/Parkersburg, I mean WTAP, also uses ithe digital subchannel to give added value to the signal. I wonder if Bray Cary is just talking out his ass on new media and is terrified of it or he is truly bewildered with the whole mess. After all, it took him two years to realize localism was the key to local stations.
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Post by genlock »

I just checked TitanTV for program listings of WV Media "Fox" subchannels and there were no listings.
Has WVMH ignored TitanTV? How about Wheeling and Beckley/Bluefield/Oak Hill listings in other media? Does West Virginia Media even try with these potential moneymaker channels? Did they just grab Fox to keep someone else ftom getting it? Who is at the helm of this ship?
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Post by TVOUTOFBUSINESS »

I don't understand the orginial post. Was this a Bray Carey clone who sent this in? What is the point?
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Post by AmpedNow »

In the B-B-OH market, WVNS is CBS. Their HD subchannel is FOX.

Which is kinda odd, because they were originally FOX when they first signed on...

I also hear through the grapevine that another TV station is coming to the market before long. I wonder if WVNS grabbing FOX had anything to do with that...

But even then, I would imagine FOX would rather have the OTA analog exposure rather than being on a subchannel viewable pretty much by cable only.

If this happens, B-B-OH will no longer be a "short" market, with the exception of CW.
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Post by cgarison »

TVOUTOFBUSINESS wrote:I don't understand the orginial post. Was this a Bray Carey clone who sent this in? What is the point?
Actually, my hats are off to AB Cary for putting together a good interview. Things in local have changed considerably over the last 6 years. Even old guard stations in large markets have been forced to modernize and even consolidate operations in order to make things more efficient. It surprises me that we still have for TV broadcast newsrooms in Philly and only had the WB (now CW) merge into NBC's operations.

Transition to HD? Hell, I still have to spend two bills to add new digital tuners to my media center plus upgrade the system to Vista although I need to check out the Linux offerings in the media center category. So I may not be able to watch HBO, but that is not going to be a big deal when Sopranos goes off the air this summer.
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Post by oldtvman2 »

They have always wanted WOWK to be a charleston station. They are licensed to the city of Huntington but they have identified as Charleston- Huntington which is illegal as you are supposed to list city of license first then other. did you see Sandra get on the other night with her ifb coard over and in front of her right shoulder? she likes to be late to the studio and likes to primp off camera but gets caught a lot of times primping when the camera comes on. WOWK has been CBS since 1984 before that they were ABC. they changed just after they moved to 5th ave. they have been CBS then ABC then CBS Charlie Good said he could have saved $60,000 if he had known the change to CBS was in the works. He had just completed the instalation of the ABC sat dish and had to pay for a complete set of hardware as they could not reuse the bolts. it was a SA dish.
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Post by oldtvman2 »

by the way Clarksburg is near Weston WV.
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Post by Mr. Jones »

oldtvman2 wrote:They have always wanted WOWK to be a charleston station. They are licensed to the city of Huntington but they have identified as Charleston- Huntington which is illegal as you are supposed to list city of license first then other. did you see Sandra get on the other night with her ifb coard over and in front of her right shoulder? she likes to be late to the studio and likes to primp off camera but gets caught a lot of times primping when the camera comes on. WOWK has been CBS since 1984 before that they were ABC. they changed just after they moved to 5th ave. they have been CBS then ABC then CBS Charlie Good said he could have saved $60,000 if he had known the change to CBS was in the works. He had just completed the instalation of the ABC sat dish and had to pay for a complete set of hardware as they could not reuse the bolts. it was a SA dish.
Arp Alert!

Also, WOWK has been CBS since June of 1986.
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