THREE-PRONGED PLAN FOR DIGITAL TV SUCCESS

The Dispatch Printing Company is to Columbus, Ohio, what the Tribune Co. is to Chicago—that is, a dominant media presence.

The Dispatch's holdings in the state capital include The Columbus Dispatch; WBNS, a longtime CBS affiliate; an AM-FM combo with the same calls; and the Ohio News Network, a statewide cable outlet.

The Columbus TV and radio assets along with the outlying NBC affiliate in Indianapolis, WTHR, are organized as the Dispatch Broadcast Group and managed by President and CEO Michael Fiorile.

In this edited interview with TVNEWSDAY Editor Harry A. Jessell, Fiorile says he is looking for growth through the Web, digital channels and an even tighter focus on local, regional and state news.

To make sure the digital channels reach all local viewers, Fiorile says the government must mandate that cable operators carry them. And, Fiorile says, he is not alone in his willingness to accept concrete public service requirements in exchange for a multicast must-carry requirement.

From the outside, Columbus looks to be one part Ohio State sports and one part politics. You just lost the local rights to Ohio State football and basketball at WBNS-TV. How did you let that happen?       

All of the Big Ten sports are moving to their own network that will go on the air in late this year.

And how much programming is involved?   

Not much in terms of football. Typically, we were only entitled to maybe two games. But we have a full schedule of basketball.

And you'll be losing that next year?

We will.

That's a bad thing, right? That's a lot of highly rated programming, isn't it?

I will tell you the rights to that programming are not inexpensive, meaning the margin is not as attractive as we would have liked. Also, we acquired the rights at a time when CBS's primetime wasn't what it is today. The network wasn't real happy about it over the years and more so now that their shows are playing better. They're not disappointed the Big Ten is leaving us.

But those games put you right in the middle of Columbus life?      

Yes, but there's other OSU product that we can carry. There's baseball and there's women's basketball, although they are certainly not as attractive as the men's basketball and football.

The other thing that we will continue to do is a lot of special programming around the Buckeyes. We do a preseason primetime hour. We do an hour before the Michigan [football] game. We do a lot of enterprise stuff.

How do you plan to grow the broadcast group?

We're actively pursuing the Web strategy. Like all broadcasters, we have to get better at it. I just read something the other day in Editor & Publisher. It shows newspapers are enjoying about 10% of Web spending, while local TV is getting 4% and radio less than 2%. We broadcasters need to get better.

Do you think that broadcasters missed getting the jump on this a few years back?

I think so. Newspapers, with more of a command market presence, have a leg up. It's easier for them to enter into a new technology like this. If all the TV stations in a market combined their forces online, it would be more substantial.

But I think we do fairly well. Based on market research, we're seeing more clicks to our television Web site than any other TV station in town.

Why aren't you and Dispatch working together on this?

We are. Our Web site and all of our digital resources are combined.

But you have two distinct Web sites. It's just the back offices that are combined, right?

Right. Having separate brands, separate Web sites, is smart, not unlike Procter & Gamble which sells Ivory soap and Camay soap and Zest soap. They could sell just Procter & Gamble soap, but they wouldn't have a share of the market that they have. In fact, our mission is to create more sites and more brands.

What are the advantages of owning both a newspaper and broadcast stations in a market?

We've been very fortunate that we hired an editorial convergence manager who shuttles between the two newsrooms and works stories both in video and in print. When the paper picks up a story that can play best in video, we'll often do a series and then culminate it with a video at the end of the week on the TV station.

We also have a sales manager who works with advertisers and tries to garner a larger share by exposing them to television and radio and print.

For instance, this week is our annual home and garden show and we'll sell an advertiser a booth and then package it with television and radio and online and newspaper. All we hear from advertisers is how we made it easy for them to buy all this media because they're often not sophisticated enough to have an ad agency. We've had great fun with the multiple properties here.

Is all this cooperation a new phenomenon or have you been doing this for years?

We've been doing it for three or four years, but there are limits. We're getting ready to build a new broadcast facility for television and we are not going to combine the newsrooms. We like having them separate. We like having some degree of competition, but, on projects of our choice, we are able to combine our efforts.

We ran a story a few weeks ago about WRTH joining the pioneers in broadcasting local news in HD. What drove that decision?

All of the equipment that we've purchased over the last few years is high-definition capable. We had acquired HD studio cameras six or eight months ago, so we were fully prepared except for graphics. So, we made a decision to get it done and be first, and there was no reason for us not to.

So it was part of the natural technical evolution of the station?

Yes, and the station will have high-definition field acquisition probably by midyear.

That's early, too. Few stations are totally HD.

Well, again, we were able to skip a generation of field cameras. We're still shooting Beta and we have a need to buy new field cameras. When we do, we'll buy high-definition cameras.

You say you're building a new broadcast facility in Columbus. I presume that this will be HD-ready when it is finished. When will that be?

We're still in the design stages. We're probably 20 months away, but we'll be high definition with a newscast in Columbus well before that.

I guess you've got to buy all this hardware anyway, right?

Right. We have a high-definition switcher. All we have to do is make some minor adjustments and it's HD capable. Our master control is HD capable. We have the studio cameras in and they're in use, but they're not in a high definition mode. So we're in the same position as we were in Indianapolis. All we need to do are some graphics changes.

So we should see HD news in Columbus when?

I can share with you that we'll be in high-definition by the close of March Madness.

Let's go back to your TV Web site. What kind of growth do you expect?

We're seeing dramatic growth certainly. It's been in double-digit growth ever since we've started. We just hit another all-time high in the month of February with hits and unique visitors. What's particularly pleasing was there was no Ohio State attraction during the month of February.

Is that revenue enough to offset the decline on the national spot side?

We're having a good quarter. We're not challenged revenue-wise on broadcast. The print business is revenue challenged.

What accounts for the good quarter in broadcasting?

We're seeing a little more import automotive business than we've seen before.

Did the domestic auto come back?

No, that has not. I don't think it will.

What's the other bad news in spot?

Retail. Most markets in America had a consolidation of retail. Most of us are left with one retail brand, Macy's. We had four brands here a few years ago.

But there is always political to look forward to. Ohio is political ground zero. If the presidential race goes down to the wire, you should do well in 2008.    

Yes we will and, you know, I think it's going to start in '07. They're spending already in New Hampshire and Iowa, I'm told.

In light of that, do you think there's a chance that your revenue will be up for the year?

In broadcast, in '07?  No, no. We had a huge political year last year. We had a governor's race and we had a Senate seat up and some House seats were up. We had a bigger year in political in this market in '06 than what we had in '04 with the presidential year and you know that was pretty big.

In these big political years, are you able to drive some of that political advertising into the cable news channel?

Yes. We sought that activity on our radio stations, too, but we had a good amount on our news network.

You're affiliated with CBS and NBC. What do you think of of taking primetime programming and putting it on the Web where I can watch it shortly after it's aired on your stations?

It would always be our preference that we be the exclusive outlet for the programs that we contracted for. Having said that, I understand it's in the networks' best business interest to find additional means of distribution.

Do you buy the argument that putting it out there on the Web helps promote the shows?

You know, I do believe that. I'm not sure that's always going to be the case. Of course, we're not sure about a lot of things other than change is inevitable.

Our attitude is, we'll wait and see if there's more down the road. If there's more content on the Web from our networks, then we have other decisions to make. We're certainly better situated to deal with local content than anybody in central Ohio. We'll capitalize on that. I think that's our niche. As Yahoo and Google and others get bigger and bigger with national news, we have to focus even more on local news, local and regional.

There's so many places to get national news today. You can't sign on and do e-mail without having national news pushed at you. So, I think the market for local news is getting increasingly important.

What about those digital channels that you have? People were playing around with multicasting and now there's a lot of talk about mobile broadcasting. What's your sense of where that's going?

It's a great opportunity for us. We've filled a cable channel with local and regional content, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We carry the state of the city addresses from Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo and Columbus. There is content to be had and I am sure we're going to be able to fill the digital channels.

There's also going to be an explosion of ethnic programming—more Spanish-language programming, more niche programming. It's real exciting. We've just got to make sure that we're not stopped by the MSOs—the monopolistic gatekeepers—and that they carry all of our multicast signals.

The FCC failed to move ahead with multicast must carry last summer. Is that a priority for you?

That's a high priority for us and our company. I know it's a priority for the NAB. I hope it becomes a higher priority. We're going to make rules in the next 12 to 18 months that are going to affect the future of this technology and we've got to get it right now.

I also think that downconversion is important, too. Cable systems have the ability to downconvert your high-definition signal into a non-high-definition or analog picture regardless of what the home wants. That's got to change.

Do you feel that this is a battle that you have to win on Capitol Hill or do you think you can go back to the FCC and get it done there?

I think both. I don't think we're done at the FCC yet, but certainly Capitol Hill is where it's going to start.

I take it you're ready for the DTV conversion, that your towers and transmitters are ready to go

We were an early adopter. We've been on for a few years. The sooner [the conversion], the better for us because running two transmitters is not a lot of fun.

Anything else bothering you in Washington?

How much time do you have? No, those are the important points. We're a company that is very happy to discuss additional public service requirements with these digital channels in exchange for multicast carriage. That doesn't concern me at all.

You're OK with the government telling you how to use some of your digital capacity?

Yes. We would commit to additional public service in exchange for multicast carriage. Broadcasters that do not want to do any public service can opt not to have the additional channels carried.

Do you think that idea has legs among your peers?

I do.

OK, let's recap. The future is in Web sites, local news and digital channels. That sounds like a plan. Now, is Ohio State going to win the NCAA this year?

You know, I think it could happen.