FOX 25 No Longer an O&O

The swap of WFXT in Boston for KTVU in San Francisco closed Wednesday. WFXT will now be owned by Cox Media, and KTVU by FOX Television Stations. Several KTVU managers will move to Boston to replace FOX O&O execs and FOX has already announced managers from other O&O's will move to San Francisco. This means there is one less network owned and operated station in New England.

The deal is fueled by FOX's desire to own the stations in markets that have an NFC NFL football team as FOX has the rights to the NFC. The Patriots in the AFC meant FOX would only get about 2 games to air on WFXT per year. FOX also announced plans to purchase a station in NFC market Seattle in the last week.  This is a new desire for FOX, in 2008 they sold St. Louis (NFC market) FOX owned station KTVI, and may now buy it back.

Still FOX's desire to own more local stations is bucking a trend in television. In fact this post is about the dwindling number of network owned stations in New England in the last decade.

In 2004 New England had the following major network Owned and Operated Stations.

Boston
WFXT- FOX 25
WBZ- CBS4
WSBK- UPN 38 (CBS OWNED)

Providence 
WJAR- NBC10
WLWC- UPN28 /CW28 (CBS OWNED)

WJAR news open from 2005-2006-Final O&O graphics package

Hartford
WVIT- NBC 30/ NBC CONNECTICUT

Today 10 years later...

Boston
WBZ-CBS 4
WSBK- 38 (CBS OWNED)

Providence 
None

Hartford
WVIT- NBC CONNECTICUT

While viewers never notice a change right away, they usually see one over time. For example here in Providence NBC owned WJAR enjoyed the perks of sending Frank Carpano all over the world for live Olympic coverage every two years, live shots from NBC network reporters, and NBC designed graphics.

As soon as WJAR was sold there were no more sports trips to Europe or custom live shots from Washington D.C, those no longer came standard. O&O's are typically fancy looking stations because for the networks running them they are a small expense, but as we have also seen they do not bring in as much money as other ventures for major networks so for most markets they are slowly becoming a thing of the past.

In fact in late 2013 there were rumors that Disney (owner of ABC) was exploring selling all of there O&O stations. In 2008 NBC put WVIT in Hartford and WTVJ in Miami on the market. NBC nearly sold the Miami station to a competitor (which would have eliminated a newsroom), and did not get interest in WVIT. Luckily for the two NBC stations Comcast decided to make major investments in all NBC Owned stations in 2012.

Credit: New England One

What does the future hold for FOX 25? Its hard to say, FOX stations are run in a uniform fashion, and viewers are used to that look and operation. Unions can only fight major change for so long, and many owners can make major changes without changing union contracts.

Bottom line: The next six months will be very telling for what the new era of FOX 25 will look like.

Note: This blog covers primarily Providence TV news, however Boston is a top 10 market less than a half an hour away. Boston stations are still frequently viewed in the Providence market.