KTAL To Vanish From Cable One Channel Lineup

Come the stroke of midnight on December 31,2004 KTAL, Channel 6 will be history on Texarkana cable. T-town's cable provider Cable One will be dropping KTAL if an agreement is not reached between the two partys. Nexstar, KTAL's parent company, is demanding Cable One pay 25 cents per subscriber, per month in order to carry the channels signal.

Nexstar uses the defense that CableOne is owned by the Washington Post, one of the most powerful media companies in the United States. Ironically, the Washington Post also owns television stations, and their broadcast division shares our viewpoint about being compensated for carriage by cable companies.

Meanwhile Nexstar has been heavily encouraging viewers in the Texarkana are to drop Cable One and subscribe to either DirecTV or Dish Network. KTAL has the potential to reach some 25,000 subscribers via cable one.

A message on Cable One's website says the company is making alternative plans as the deadline nears. "While we remain optimistic that Nexstar will respond positively to our request to extend the existing agreement, we must move forward with other plans. We are making arrangements to provide AB switches for our customers that choose to continue to receive KTAL for free by using their antenna. Based on a quote from Nexstar's COO, Duane Lammers in the Joplin Globe on December 18, 2004, we believe this is the best thing to do." "I don't see a short term solution and long term, we're going to get paid DuanLammers,EVP/COO Nexstar Broadcasting Group

KARK A "Step Up" For New Anchor

Source: Arkansas Business KARK-TV, Channel 4, didn’t waste any time filling the vacancy on its weeknight anchor desk.The station announced last week that Jancey Sheats, most recently a news anchor at the Beaumont, Texas, ABC affiliate KBMT-TV, had joined the station to co-anchor the 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. weekday newscasts.

Little Rock is several steps up for Sheats. The Beaumont market is rated No. 138 with 168,740 television homes by Nielsen Media Research; Little Rock is rated No. 57 with 531,770 homes.

Sheats is originally from Baytown, Texas, just outside Houston. She began her television news career in Austin, working for CBS affiliate KEYE and NBC affiliate KXAN. She became an anchor/reporter at CBS’ KXII in Sherman, Texas, before moving to Beaumont as KBMT’s 5 p.m. news anchor.

Sheats replaces Denise Whitaker, a KARK veteran who most recently co-anchored with Bob Clausen. Whitaker signed off Dec. 1 and packed her bags for Fisher Communications Inc.’s KOMO-TV, Channel 4, in Seattle, where she’ll be the ABC affiliate’s morning news anchor.