More CW

I talked some more with Steve Dant, general manager of local UPN affiliate KXTU/Channel 57 (Adelphia 7), about the merger of the WB and UPN to form the CW. (Good lord that's a lot of acronyms to mash into one sentence). Dant said there could be some scheduling conflicts between the CW and his syndicated programming, but he was hopeful things could be worked out. Until the new network launches in September, he says it will be UPN as usual. You can read the whole story in the paper tomorrow.

Speaking of Steve Dant, his other hat is as GM of Fox affiliate KXRM/Channel 21. Both stations are up for sale by their corporate parent Raycom and that's left KXRM's 9 p.m. newscast a little up in the air. The news is produced by KKTV/Channel 11 and the contract was due to be up soon. All of which is a very complicated way of getting to my point: KKTV agreed to extend the contract through the end of the summer so KXRM could get through the sale before deciding what it wanted to do with local news.