WVTM to be rebranded
The current Fox affiliate in Birmingham, WVTM-TV will be rebranded as "Fox 13" effective this August, reflecting its status as an owned-and-operated station. WVTM-TV would air a three-hour schedule block on Saturday mornings, which met to comply with FCC's "educational-and-informational" quota like Wild About Animals, Secrets of the Animal Kingdom, Inside High School Basketball, Popular Mechanics for Kids, Click, and Student Bodies.
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UPN pushes forward with news
The United Paramount Network, owned by the Paramount Stations Group, whose two of the flagships were WWOR-TV in New York and KCOP-TV in Los Angeles, was pushing forward by helping more stations to add local news, starting in the fall of 1997.
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Granite Broadcasting divesture completed
Granite Broadcasting has officially been dismantled. KNTV in San Jose, was sold off to Disney/ABC and becoming a semi-satellite of KGO-TV in San Francisco. Two other stations in Buffalo, and Fort Wayne was also sold to Disney/ABC. Sony/CBS purchased most of Granite's stations including Lansing, Syracuse, Austin, and Battle Creek, and acquired complete control of the St. Louis and Shreveport stations. NBC purchased the Peoria, Fresno and Duluth stations.
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Fox won construction permit for new San Diego license
Fox Television Stations Inc. won a construction permit for a San Diego television license operating on channel 32. It was expected to start by the January of 1998. It was notified that the Spanish-language XETV would lose its Fox affiliation, and became a fully Spanish station.
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Disney to complete Fisher acquisition
The Walt Disney Company has completed its Fisher Broadcasting acquisition. This means that KOMO-TV would became the three owned and operated television station serving the Seattle area, the first of which was KING-TV, which had became a NBC owned and operated station two years earlier, and the second, KSTW-TV became a WB owned and operated station.
Pending acquisitions include KCPQ-TV, which will became a CBS owned and operated station, KIRO-TV, which will became a Fox owned and operated station through the LDS Church buyout, and KJZZ-TV which will became a UPN owned and operated station.
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Sony to approve IFE offer
Sony Pictures Entertainment, who owns film and television properties, approved the $3 billion offer for International Family Entertainment. This means current MTM shows like Sparks, Good News and The Pretender will became Sony productions. Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, which MTM presently distributed will be transferred to Columbia TriStar.
The MTM game shows that was originated on The Family Channel, like Family Challenge, Shopping Spree and It Takes Two would move to Sony's own Game Show Network, becoming GSN originals.
Our history between MTM and CBS dates back to the 1970s when The Mary Tyler Moore Show premiered.