Future looks great for Channel 41's new feature on area's heritage

Quite a week for locally produced TV:
KSHB, Channel 41, on Monday will unveil what looks to be a superb
daily series. The three-minute programs are devoted to the people and
the heritage of the Kansas City area.
"Kansas City Crossroads" will air at 6:55 a.m. and 10:30 p.m.,
right before the "Today" and "Tonight" shows. Those are
high-quality time placements, but KSHB general manager Jim Swinehart
believes it's well worth shaving off 10 minutes of news a day.
The two segments I previewed are beautifully crafted vignettes
with well-chosen subjects. One covered the rescue of a Rock Island
Golden State Limited train headed to Kansas City during the fearsome
1957 blizzard and the other the future of a family-run Missouri farm.
"We know we're moving into the sesquicentennial year of the
founding of Kansas City," Swinehart said, "so we feel this is the
right time to launch it."
Bill Kalahurka is the host of "Kansas City Crossroads."
Kalahurka has lived in Kansas City since 1966 and works as a local
fund-raising consultant for educational and nonprofit groups.
KSHB plans to produce two new segments a week and repeat them
often.
Two Kansas City-based TV news veterans - a medical reporter and a
former producer at KCTV, Channel 5 - recently teamed up to create a
series, "Breakthrough Medicine," for CBS News.
It started four months ago when the reporter, Elizabeth
Blanchard, bumped into the producer, Mark Honer, at a supermarket.
Honer told her about the half-hour "good news" TV series he
created, "destination: hope," that aired in 22 markets in 1996-97.
Blanchard mentioned that she was trying to develop a series of
short, consumer-oriented features about innovations in health care.
Their meeting was serendipitous: Later Honer found someone very
much interested in Blanchard's idea.
That someone was a producer at CBS Newspath, a 24-hour-a-day
service CBS News provides to its affiliates. Whenever you see
national or world news-related video on Channel 5's local news,
chances are good it was supplied by Newspath. (The other networks
offer a similar service to their affiliates.)
Blanchard and Honer developed two stories for Newspath, one on
new artificial heart research, the other on tests being done to
pinpoint the causes of balance disorder. Blanchard traveled to
Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio, to report them.
Newspath sent those stories to CBS affiliates last week. Stations
had the option of using Blanchard's report or a version in which the
affiliate's reporter reads Blanchard's script over the video, giving
the impression of a locally produced piece (a common conceit in local
TV news).
So far the response among CBS affiliates has been good, a
development that cheers Blanchard.
"We are overwhelmed with health, diet and fitness news, but very
few are doing breakthrough medicine news," Blanchard said. "There
are too many interests out there competing, too many agendas, and
none of them is looking out for the best interests of the consumers.
And I like to think that's what good health reporters do."
Also on a medical note: KCPT, Channel 19, will present "Brain
Attack," a health awareness program about stroke prevention. It will
combine a nationally produced program with local experts and viewer
phone calls, at 7 p.m. Tuesday.
KCTV's Wendall Anschutz will anchor the live segments with a
panel of stroke specialists and E.R. physicians. The prerecorded
national program features ABC medical correspondent Nancy Snyderman.
StarTouch: 889-7827 and enter 8852 (TVKC). E-mail:
writeme@tvbarn.com

UPN expects trek to take it to Channel 29

For fans of the television shows "Star Trek: Voyager" and
"Moesha," it will be a relief; for viewers of "Buffy the Vampire
Slayer" and "The Jamie Foxx Show," perhaps an irritation.
The UPN network will soon bring "Voyager" and its other shows
back to Kansas City after vanishing from KSMO, Channel 62, on Jan.
16. But its new home will be KCWB, Channel 29, the current home of
the WB network, broadcast officials said Wednesday.
Fans of such WB shows as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," however,
will not have to worry about losing their programs as did UPN
viewers. The owner of KSMO is in talks with WB to become its new
affiliate in Kansas City. The transition from Channel 29 to Channel
62 is expected to be seamless.
Because no deal has been signed, the arrival date for UPN on KCWB
is unknown. But industry sources indicated Wednesday that it could
happen within a few weeks. KCWB's affiliation agreement with the WB
network expires Sept. 1.
The WB-UPN swap is similar to the one that WDAF, Channel 4, and
KSHB, Channel 41, underwent in 1994, when they exchanged NBC and Fox
affiliations. Potentially, millions of dollars in revenue - and the
survival of WB and UPN, fledgling TV networks started in 1995 - are
at stake.
The KSMO-WB pairing is the latest in a series of deals
orchestrated between Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group, which
bought KSMO in 1996,
and the WB network.
Last July, a deal was announced between WB and Sinclair, which
agreed to convert five of its UPN affiliates to WB in exchange for
more than $ 75 million paid over 10 years.
UPN tried unsuccessfully to block the move in court, which only
fueled problems between the network and the station group. Barry
Baker, Sinclair chief executive officer, said in August that he would
not rule out dropping UPN in other markets, including Kansas City.
In December, Sinclair said that four more UPN affiliates,
including Channel 62 and WTTV in Indianapolis, were dropping the
network. WB and Sinclair did hook up in Indianapolis, and
negotiations to do the same in Kansas City continued.
A WB spokesman said Wednesday that "the table seems to be set"
for moving the network to KSMO, and Sinclair's chief counsel, Robert
Quicksilver, said, "We are getting a lot closer to a deal."
That would have left KCWB without a network affiliation come
September, a situation that KCWB general manager Paul Dinovitz said
would soon be resolved.
"We have a tentative agreement with the UPN television network
to become affiliated with them," said Dinovitz, who also is general
manager of KMBC, Channel 9. Dinovitz emphasized that talks were
continuing with UPN on the details of a final agreement.
UPN executive Robert Rene would not confirm the agreement but
said that KCWB "makes sense" as a partner.
"Obviously Kansas City is an important market for us," said
Rene. "If in fact it does happen, we would be delighted."
UPN also held meetings with E.W. Scripps Co., the
Cincinnati-based company that owns KSHB, Channel 41, and operates
KMCI, Channel 38, about bringing UPN to KMCI. But Scripps executives
confirmed Wednesday those discussions did not pan out.
"We thought it would've been a good fit since UPN said it was
going to go in a new direction with the content of its network, and
we're sorry we didn't get it," said Jim Hart, senior vice president
at Scripps.
Locally, the station swap could have ramifications if the
fortunes of either the WB or UPN take a turn for the worse.
WB has been riding a tide of publicity on the critical and
ratings success of its new series, including "Buffy the Vampire
Slayer" and "Dawson's Creek. " This month it passed UPN in
season-to-date Nielsen ratings for the first time. Meanwhile, UPN has
undergone a shakeup of its executives and is scrambling to find
affiliates in Kansas City and Cincinnati.
But UPN's Rene said a new management team is in place and added,
"The long term is what's important."