KRON's Last Gasp

To lay the groundwork for the change, the station brought in Rosenblum, the New York-based consultant and self-professed evangelist of the VJ concept. Rosenblum had conducted similar training for the British Broadcasting Corporation and for several cable stations, including NY1, the all-news cable channel in New York, but never at a major-market local news operation. For two and a half months, from September into November, he and his team conducted six-day "boot camps," training about a half-dozen people at a time. The sessions lasted 12 hours a day. "They even brought in our food; there was never a letup," recalls one participant.

Morale in the newsroom sank.

Many who were able left for jobs elsewhere. "People were walking around in a daze," says one newsroom employee. "I'm talking about talented professionals who gave their heart and soul to this place and were suddenly eliminated because they didn't fit the scheme."

A female employee tells of walking in on a colleague crying in the restroom. By the time the training rounds wrapped up, people were dropping like flies, says another staffer. "They generally fit into two camps: those who were let go and those who could see it coming and voluntarily jumped off the cliff." One newsroom veteran learned that she hadn't made the VJ cut via a voice message left on her home phone two days before Christmas. "It was brutal," she says.

As a perennial also-ran in the local news ratings wars, KRON arguably has little to lose in retooling its news operation. (KTVU, Channel 2, the Fox affiliate headquartered in Oakland, is currently the undisputed leader of the Bay Area pack.) The once-high-flying station has struggled almost from the day that Young Broadcasting — which owns nine other stations in smaller markets scattered across the South, Midwest, and Northeast — outbid NBC to buy it from Chronicle Publishing Co. in 2000.

The $825 million price tag stands as the most money ever paid for a TV station in the United States. Some critics viewed it as an insane amount, even considering that the Bay Area was at the epicenter of the dot-com boom and local stations were brimming with advertising money. But shortly after the sale, the dot-com bubble burst and advertising dried up.

That was only the start of KRON's troubles.

Spurned in its earlier bid to acquire the station, which for years was an NBC affiliate, the peacock network renewed its quest for KRON with the winning bidders at Young. When the sides couldn't come to terms, NBC played hardball. The station's network affiliation agreement was set to expire at the end of 2001. The network turned the tables, demanding "reverse compensation" for its programming — insisting that if Young wanted to keep the station in the NBC family, it would have to fork over millions of dollars for the privilege.

Then came the zinger.

After Young balked at the "reverse compensation" plan, NBC cut the deal with KNTV in San Jose, whose over-the-air signal was so weak it couldn't even be seen by nearly 400,000 people in the North Bay. As part of the deal, the network was given the option to buy the station, which it did early in 2002. By then, the network had already made good on its threat to yank the affiliation from KRON.

Life as an independent hasn't been kind. Without network programming to attract viewers, KRON has had to rely heavily on a mix of reality shows, infomercials, and syndicated re-reruns. To try and remedy the problem, Young announced last month that KRON will join the as-yet-to-air MyNetworkTV, a startup controlled by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., which also owns Fox. The new network plans to unveil 12 hours of weekly prime-time programming in September, with a heavy reliance on guilty-pleasure miniseries akin to the Spanish-language telenovela concept.

Meanwhile, KRON continues to pay dearly for syndicated lead-in shows such as Dr. Phil and Sex and the City, in an effort to lure viewers to tune in to its flagging newscasts. The newscasts generally compete against those of KNTV — its usurper as the NBC flag-carrier — for the dubious distinction of avoiding last place among the Bay Area's competing news stations.

With KRON a giant monkey on its back, Young Broadcasting lost $91 million last year, more than double the $44 million in red ink from the year before. At one point, its stock price plunged as low as $1.70. Debt service alone on the KRON purchase drains $60 million a year from Young's coffers. Its credit rating has been reduced to "junk bond" status.

Within broadcasting circles, it's no secret that Young has for at least two years stood ready to entertain offers for the station. "As KRON goes, so goes Young, and right now we're obviously not doing very well," says a station insider, who asked not to be identified.

Against that backdrop, the bloodletting in the news department has been relentless. The station killed off its award-winning investigative unit in 2002 and ditched its special projects team the next year. More recently, it has jettisoned both its medical unit and a popular Contact 4 consumer team, whittled the staff of its weekend news programming, and placed its Sunday morning public affairs show, 4 the Record, featuring Chronicle political gossip Phil Matier and former Mayor Willie Brown, on hiatus.