After all these months of trying to figure out what would happen with neophyte network the WB in Utah, who would have thought that the answer would come in Provo?
However, as Dennis Romboy reported in Thursday's Deseret News, the WB is headed for a brand-new UHF station based in Utah County - KZAR-Ch. 16.The WB has been affiliated with KOOG in Ogden since it began operations in 1994. But Ch. 30 was recently purchased by Paxson Communications, which owns a large string of small TV stations and has some rather nebulous plans to become a network itself.
The rumors have flown around town for months that the WB was perhaps trying to buy Ch. 30 from Paxson. Or that a company co-owned by WB chief Jamie Kellner was going to activate the vacant Ch. 20 license in Salt Lake City and start up a new station.
(And most of us who were even aware that a new TV station was coming to Provo were under the mistaken impression that it would be a low-power outlet.)
But, as it turns out, Roberts Broadcasting will be building a full-power UHF station from scratch. And in Provo.
What does this mean for viewers? Well, most of them ought to be happy - there will be one more viewing choice out there.
The fact is that the Salt Lake television market (which includes Provo as well as the rest of Utah and parts of Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming) has relatively few commercial broadcast stations. Not counting the low-power stations with their limited reach, there are only six - Channels 2, 4, 5, 13, 14 and 30. (And Ch. 30, with all those infomercials, hardly counts.)
While a lot of the WB's programming is junk, there's good stuff like "7th Heaven" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" in prime time as well as animated gems like "Superman" and "Pinky and the Brain."
The folks at Roberts say their UHF signal will carry from Logan to Cedar City. So a lot more people will at least have a little more programming to choose from.
As for local cable subscribers, they can expect to see Ch. 16 added to their program lineups. The Federal Communications Commission recently upheld its must-carry rule, meaning that cable systems must carry local stations. (The timing of this is uncertain, however, as is the timing of KZAR even getting on the air.)
Must-carry will undoubtedly make some local cable subscribers unhappy - another channel will have to be dropped in many cases to make room for Ch. 16.
But, on balance, this is a good thing for Utah viewers.
MORNING NEWS WAR HEATS UP: Beginning Tuesday, Utah viewers will have not three but four local newscasts to choose from between 6-7 a.m.
Fox-owned KSTU-Ch. 13 will expand into that hour, building a two-hour local news block from 6-8 a.m.
No big changes are planned - just twice as much of anchor Shauna Parsons, weathercaster Henry Stone and traffic guy Dave Candland.
Viewers of the Fox News A.M. and those who tune in to the noon and 9 p.m. newscasts will notice a few changes later this month, however. Ch. 13 will be bringing some new graphics on line on Sept. 29, and the set will be spruced up a bit. (Although no big changes are planned there.)
And, while it won't be immediately apparent on the screen, the Fox news team will be getting some new weapons for their local news battle. If all goes as planned, the station will have its first satellite news-gathering truck by the end of September. And they're spending a million bucks on new digital equipment for their studio.
"DEEP SPACE" SATURDAY: Ch. 13 is finally going to do something that ought to make a lot of "Star Trek" fans happy - it's moving the first run of "Deep Space Nine" from Saturdays to Sundays.
Trekkers have been frustrated for years by the Sunday at 5 p.m. time slot "DS9" occupied at KSTU. What with Fox's NFL coverage, more often than not the show was either joined in progress or pre-empted altogether.
But, beginning next month, "DS9" will move to Saturdays - first to 6 p.m., then four weeks later to 5 p.m.
Capt. Sisko and Co. will occupy the Saturday at 6 p.m. time slot on Sept. 13, 20, 27 and for its season premiere on Oct. 4. Beginning Oct. 11, "DS9" will move to Saturdays at 5 p.m., with syndicated reruns of "The X-Files" at 6 p.m.
(The second-run of each "DS9" episode will air eight days later - Sundays at 10 p.m. - through Oct. 4. Then it moves to Sundays at 11 p.m., again making way for an "X-Files" rerun.)
This should be a much better arrangement for Trekkers. Saturdays will have a few sports problems of its own - like baseball and hockey playoffs on Fox - but it should be less pre-emptive than Sundays.