XETV Scraps Sports
Grupo Televisa’s XETV San Diego has eliminated its sports department, reports the San Diego Tribune.
Sports director C.S. Keys, reporter and weekend anchor Andrea Nakano and producer Mike Lamar were fired yesterday afternoon by Richard Doutre Jones, the CW affiliate’s vice president and general manager.
“This had nothing do with the people in the sports department; it had everything to do with return on investment,” Jones said. “I think people depend on us for weather and news; I don’t think sports is what they think of.”
Doutre Jones said the station’s anchors would cover a major sports story.
XETV lost its Fox affiliation over the summer and switched to a CW affiliate. Doutre Jones was stung by the move at the time, writing “Unfortunately, in these troubled times, it seems as though there is no honor or loyalty anymore,” on the XETV Website.
Pancho commented:
Televisa, the owners of the station need to boot out the current management who have mismanaged the station for years! San Diego is a rich market full of amazing sports stories, teams and assets ... losing the Fox affiliation to local KSWB and recently booting the sports department shows that station leadership needs to be next on the chopping block ---- Emilio Azcárraga - its time for change at XETV!
Rich Rodriguez commented:
Because it's really a Tijuana station licensed by Mexican broadcast law, I don't think XETV would be allowed to carry the Padres, Chargers, SDSU or other San Diego teams without FCC permission anyway, as it got for the NFL in its Fox years. The station has also taken a major hit from losing the Fox affiliation, both in ratings and revenue, so Televisa and XETV were making a difficult but necessary business decision.
John Gault commented:
Re: Idiots Comment—
The Idiot is that writer: Covering sports is an intensive cash time and personel investment. XETV probably figured that it could do without the \”idiots\” who are satisfied with the rah rah rah of the home team and hopefully better invest those dollars/pesos they have in coverage of local news.
idiots commented:
Easy decision from now on as to which 10 p.m. newscast to watch: KUSI has sports; Channel 6 doesn\’t. End of story.
Tested commented:
I think it is very short-sighted for a station in a major market to drop sports. People care about the Chargers, Padres and major college sports in San Diego. They\’re not going to find the kind of in-depth coverage of those teams that they want on something like ESPN. They\’re going to turn to the 6 local news stations in the area. Now they will tune to only 5 of those stations. XETV will regret this decision.
Tested commented:
I think it is very short-sighted for a station in a major market to drop sports. People care about the Chargers, Padres and major college sports in San Diego. They\’re not going to find the kind of in-depth coverage of those teams that they want on something like ESPN. They\’re going to turn to the 6 local news stations in the area. Now they will tune to only 5 of those stations. XETV will regret this decision.