Larry H. Miller's Ch. 14 has taken a pair of steps that should go a long way toward establishing the UHF station in the local television market.
Utah Jazz fans will be glad to know that more of the team's games than ever will be televised next season - and that it will be easier to pick up Ch. 14 throughout the state soon.As expected, Miller and the staff at Ch. 14 officially unveiled their new call letters (KJZZ - or K-Jazz), their new logo (a white number 14 in a purple circle, followed by KJZZ in black and purple letters) and some new promotional spots for the station, which feature Miller, Frank Layden, Karl Malone and John Stockton.
KJZZ-Ch. 14 - the new call letters take effect Monday at 12:01 a.m. - will also be adding up to 10 new translators in various parts of the state, and the station's signal should be available throughout Utah by the end of the year.
And, in a move that should make the station easier to find for cable subscribers, KJZZ will be returned to Ch. 14 on all local cable systems by Oct. 6.
(Under the new cable act, local broadcast stations can either negotiate payment from cable systems for carrying their signal or opt for channel placement. KJZZ has done the latter.)
Miller, of course, bought the station about four months ago to find a home for his NBA franchise. Fox-owned KSTU-Ch. 13, in order to honor its network commitments, could no longer carry Jazz games in prime time.
Miller acknowledged that as "one of the main motivating factors" in his purchase of Ch. 14 but stressed that it was "generally an amicable parting" with Ch. 13.
KJZZ will air a total of 30 regular season games during the 1993-94 season - five more than KSTU broadcast during the 1992-93 season - as well as any playoff games and possibly some preseason games.
(Cable's Prime Sports Network will carry the same number of games it did last season - 25.)
Ch. 14 will also broadcast 10 Salt Lake Golden Eagles hockey games, the same number as last season, and continue airing Colorado Rockies baseball games - a total of 43 this season. And, for the past several years, Ch. 14 has telecast various high school championship events.
The station is also negotiating with Utah State and Weber State over rights to football and basketball, and Miller said he's interested in the possibility of broadcasting "minor" college sports - baseball, volleyball, softball gymnastics - from Utah State University, Weber State University, Brigham Young University and the University of Utah.
KJZZ is also looking at "ancillary programming built around the Jazz," including a possible coach's show that would feature both Coach Jerry Sloan and director of basketball operations Scott Layden.
"We don't want to get into it to where it's trivial. We're not sure that a John Crotty/Stephen Howard show makes sense," Miller said.
Miller is also interested in looking at the broadcasting games involving the Triple A baseball team coming to Salt Lake City next season, although he was quick to add that he's had no talks with the team's owners on the subject.
"Selfishly, I'd like to see the Larry Miller Toyota-Paige Brake softball games on, but I don't know how many people there are that appreciate that sport," Miller said.
Although much of the talk was of sports, Miller isn't planning to make KJZZ the UHF equivalent of ESPN.
"We don't want to be an all-sports station," he said.
The station will continue to carry first-run and off-network series, movies and talk shows. And the owner's goal is to get the highest quality he can.
"We want to be very careful to try to set a high standard for the whole station in terms of what its total programming content is," Miller said. "We want to focus on family orientation. . . . We don't want to be the censor for the market, but we will be very sensitive to the market."
That won't necessarily be easy. For one thing, the station still has a good many contracts for shows that may not fit that ideal. Its movie packages - deals also signed long ago - also may not fit.
And the quality of first-run syndication fare is generally not up to network standards.
Ch. 14, which had never turned a profit when Miller purchased it, can only be greatly helped by the addition of the Jazz to its schedule. The owner said that for next season, KJZZ will not be lowering the rates it charges for advertising on the highly viewed games.
"We're still basically charging the same prices," he said. "Although we are doing some packaging."
And that means the advertising rates will be basically the same for the package of 30 games on KJZZ compared to the 25 games KSTU carried.
In other KJZZ news:
- Miller - citing the cost - said the station has no immediate plans to get involved in the news business but left open the possibility of some sort of cooperative relationship like the one Ch. 14 attempted with KSL-Ch. 5.
- Ch. 14 is adding syndicated episodes of the sitcom "Empty Nest" to its schedule in the fall, and "The Cosby Show" moves over from Ch. 5.
The station has also added three first-run syndication offerings - the teen show "Wavelength" and a pair of action/adventure hours, "Acapulco Heat" and "Cobra."
- Ch. 14 will continue its relationship with the so-call "fifth network" - P-TENN, which currently provides "Kung Fu" and "TimeTrax."
QUOTABLE: Larry Miller on his station's highest-rated show - syndicated reruns of "Roseanne":
"I've never seen a `Roseanne' deal and I never will. If I get a (ratings diary) I'll just have to leave that blank."