B&C Eye

When NBC takes over Granite Broadcasting's KNTV(TV) San Francisco (San Jose) it's likely to bring in a new management team. Sources say GM Bob Franklin will be out, and so might VP of News Scott Diener and News Director Bob Goldberger. Franklin led the station during the tough transition; Diener and Goldberger built up the news department.

NBC's KNTV transition leader Steve Schwaid probably won't become the new KNTV chief; instead, he may be tapped to replace Steve Doerr, who left earlier this year, as the NBC group's VP for news, programming and creative development. It appears Linda Sullivan, who runs NBC's WRC-TV Washington, is the best bet for KNTV's top job.—D.T.

Virtual ads proved too illusionary for Princeton Video. It's scrambling after its auditors and then PricewaterhouseCoopers cautioned that negative cash flow and capital-spending needs "raise substantial doubt about its ability to continue as a going concern." PVI innovated virtual TV ad "billboards" at ballparks and the first-down line in NFL games on CBS. But CFO Larry Epstein says tech is a money pit; now PVI will switch gears to sell the ads themselves, then split revenues with networks. "It's made our Latin American licensee the only profitable virtual-advertising company in the world,' New investors are due by the end of May.—J.M.H.

When New York TV stations began looking for a place to rebuild the shared broadcast tower lost on Sept. 11, an obvious option seemed the federally owned Governors Island, just off the southern tip of Manhattan. But the 1997 budget-reconciliation act requiring that the island be sold for fair-market value was a hurdle, because getting the tower on the island would require congressional approval. Not anymore. Last week, the Bush administration said it wants to sell the island to New York City . If that deal goes through, which is likely, it would move Governors Island way up the broadcasters' list of preferred sites for the 2,000-foot tower. A City Hall spokesperson says the broadcasters have yet to approach the city about using the island. —K.K.

Broadcasting & Cable will publish a special NAB/RTNDA midweek issue Wednesday, with news from the joint convention in Las Vegas. The magazine will be distributed to convention hotel rooms and all our regular subscribers. For up-to-the-minute news, check in regularly at our Web site, broadcastingcable.com.

B&C is setting up shop in S-110 in the South Hall. To reach us, call 702-943-3986–88 (voice) or 702-943-3985 (fax).

The editorial team: Harry Jessell, P.J. Bednarski, Don West, John Eggerton, Ken Kerschbaumer, Dan Trigoboff, Bill McConnell, Todd Gast, Craig Mathew, Rick Higgs and Doris Kelly.

The management/sales team: Bill McGorry, Larry Oliver, Paul Audino, Rob Payne, Yvonne Pettus, and Chuck Bolkcom.