CBS Plans to Terminate KXLY-TV Affiliation

Spokane Daily Chronicle

CBS has formally filed notice terminating its network affiliation with KXLY-TV in Spokane, it was confirmed today by Columbia Broadcasting System executives in New York.

The decision ending the 23-year television affiliation, effective Aug. 19, just before the new television season, is irrevocable, said Thomas J. White, the network’s West Coast district manager for affiliate relations.

Barry Richardson, a spokesman for the network in New York, said the termination notice was given KXLY on Feb. 19 “because we made a business judgment that we could get wider exposure for our programs with another station.”

Wayne F. McNulty, general manager for the station and vice president of Spokane Television, Inc., was vacationing in Palm Springs, Calif., and unavailable for comment.

But Roy Westman, executive vice president of the Evening Telegram Corp., a Superior, Wis., newspaper and television chain which is the parent company of Spokane Television, Inc., said he hadn’t been notified about the network’s decision to end the affiliation.

“We’ve had no information to that effect,” Westman said. “But I can say we haven’t been too happy with CBS recently. We think their program quality has been slipping.”

Speaking on behalf of the network, Richardson said: “We’ve already started looking for another affiliate (in Spokane).”

White, contacted by telephone in his New York office, said the end of the CBS affiliation with KXLY could create a “game of musical chairs”—networks switching between Spokane’s three commercial stations.

“In three-station markets, it has happened in the past,” White said.

Richardson said the network’s decision is “irrevocable” but in no way related to the impending arrival in Spokane of cable television.

The CBS spokesman said that, if another affiliate isn’t found, the network’s programs could be offered for showing on ABC or NBC affiliate stations and KXLY could continue operations as an independent.

Other sources said CBS had become angered at the number of network programs KXLY had pre-empted with its own programming.

Wednesday, March 3, 1976