Duopolies abound in Kansas City, but the one Big Four affiliate without a sibling station is, in fact, the market leader. Fox affiliate WDAF thrives on a relentless local strategy, airing 62 hours a week of local news, and talent that connects with K.C. viewers.

“Our anchors are real people,” Tracy Brogden-Miller, VP and general manager, said. “The community connects with them because people can relate to them.” 

Also drawing viewers to Fox4 is syndication standouts such as Live with Kelly and Ryan, Rachael Ray, Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! 

Nexstar Media Group owns WDAF. Meredith has CBS affiliate KCTV and MyNetworkTV station KSMO. Hearst Television has ABC outlet KMBC and The CW affiliate KCWE. Scripps owns NBC affiliate KSHB and independent KMCI, known as 38 the Spot. KUKC is a Univision affiliate and KGKC a Telemundo one. Spectrum is the primary pay TV operator. 

Adjusting To New Normality 

Staffers are getting used to the work-from home era. WDAF has two buildings. KSHB has three floors and lots of room. “We’re able to have separate bubbles and keep people apart,” said Kathleen Choal, VP and general manager, KSHB-KMCI. 

The energy in the stations may not be what it was. “People in the business love it because it’s loud, it has a pulse to it,” said Sarah Smith, KMBC-KCWE  president/general manager. “It’s more quiet now.” 

Choal marked one year in Kansas City in October. Charlie Henrich, VP and general manager of KCTV-KSMO, arrived in March. 

Earlier in his career, he worked in Kansas City for Newport Television. “The city to me is very familiar,” he said. “The market can pride itself on its consistency.” 

The news race is tight. WDAF won households and the 25-54 demo at 6 a.m. in September. KMBC won the household race at 5 p.m. and WDAF a tight battle in 25-54. At 6 p.m., KMBC won households and WDAF the demo. At 10 p.m., KCTV got a 3.9 in households and WDAF a 3.8, KMBC a 3.5 and KSHB a 1.9. In the 10 p.m. demo, WDAF had a 2.0, KMBC a 1.2, KCTV a 1.1 and KSHB a 0.6. 

WDAF goes live at 4 a.m. KMBC has a lively investigative approach. “Do we do the day-to-day things? Yes,” said Smith. “But we try to dig a little deeper.” 

KCWE started a 60-minute noon news Sept. 21. KCTV launched a 9 a.m. news in June, in place of a lifestyle program. “That couldn’t have come at a better time for us,” said Henrich. 

KSHB offers news segments called “The Rebound.” “We want to give people hope,” said Choal. “That’s a hard thing to find.” 

Both KGKC and KUKC do news inserts, but not full local newscasts … yet. “My goal is to produce local content, including news,” said Steve Downing, general manager at KGKC, shooting for a morning newscast next year. 

Both Spanish-language stations hustled to keep viewers up to date on Census and election information. “Even though we’re not a full news station, we do a lot of outreach in the community,” said Velia Chavez, general manager at KUKC. 

The Chiefs are the reigning Super Bowl champs, and look strong again in 2020. In these divisive times, it’s something everyone in DMA No. 32 can agree on. “Everyone is proud that [quarterback] Patrick Mahomes calls this city home,” said Smith. 

Kansas City offers a favorable mix of both cosmopolitan and folksy vibes. “There are lots of big-city amenities,” said Brogden-Miller, “but not a lot of big-city problems.”

KMCI OFFERS DAILY SCHOOL LESSONS

Scripps independent station KMCI is partnering with the Kansas City Public Schoools on KCPS Homeroom, a school lessons program that airs from 8-9 a.m. weekdays. As the pandemic took hold and students were not permitted in schools, Kathleen Choal, VP and general manager of KSHB-KMCI, reached out to the public school system and asked if the stations could help. The school system said yes. 

Kansas City schools are a mix of hybrid and remote learning these days. Kansas City Public Schools pays a modest fee for air time (“It’s not designed to be a money-maker for us,” Choal said) and has school staff deliver the lessons, which target kindergarten to 12th grade students. The hour is commercial-free and the school system handles production. 

“What we’re trying to do is bridge the divide between the kids that have internet access and the kids who don’t,” Choal said. 

The partnership began in August with graduation videos and rolled into lessons when school began. It will continue throughout the school year. 

“We think it’s a good service to our community,” Choal said. — MM

Time Warner Cable must pay two Kansas City restaurateurs nearly $6 million in damages stemming from a 2013 explosion at a restaurant that left one worker dead and more than a dozen injured, according to AP.

The blast occurred in February 2013 and was caused after Heartland Midwest, an independent contractor hired by Time Warner Cable to install fiber optic cable, inadvertantly struck an underground gas line which later caught fire and created an explosion that destroyed JJ’s Restaurant, killing one of its employees, Megan Cramer. About 15 other people around the scene were injured. According to reports at the time, the explosion also damaged two adjoining buildings.

Heartland was installing fiber in an office building next to the restaurant and after notifying the local gas company that it intended to use boring equipment in the area, apparently ruptured a gas line with an underground boring tool. Gas from the line filled the restaurant and ignited, causing the explosion.

Missouri Gas Energy, the local utility, and Heartland were dismissed from the suit before the case went to trial in July. According to a report in the Kansas City Star, that usually means a settlement was reached, but that could not be confirmed.

According to AP, the restaurant’s operators – brothers David and Jimmy Frantze – had sued in Jackson County Court for more than $9 million in damages. Also named in the suit was USIC Locating Services, which contracts with utility companies and was responsible for marking where the underground lines were located outside of the restaurant. According to AP, the jury did not find USIC liable for any damages.

But after about two days of deliberations, jurors determined that Time Warner Cable was 98% liable for the explosion (JJ's was liable for 2%) and ordered it to pay $5.9 million.

"We know no court decision can undo this tragedy,” Time Warner Cable said in a statement. “We’ll take some time to review the court’s decision before deciding our next step in this case."

Taking aim at Google Fiber and incumbent MSOs such as Time Warner Cable and Comcast, AT&T announced Monday that it has launched its fiber-fed U-verse with "GigaPower" platform to pockets of the Kansas City area.

Offering a mix of stand-alone 1-Gig broadband alongside TV and voice bundles, AT&T said it is launching GigaPower in portions of Leawood, Lenexa, Olathe, and Overland Park, Kan., and “in surrounding communities located throughout the metro area.” AT&T said it plans to expand GigaPower to Independence, Mo., and Shawnee, Kan.

Here’s how AT&T will price and package GigaPower in the Kansas City area early on: 

-A standalone 1-Gig broadband service for $70 per month along with an waiver of equipment, installation and activiation fees, and a three-year price guarantee. Customers who take the “Premier” GigaPower offer also agree to participate in AT&T Internet Preferences, the telco’s targeted Web advertising program.

-A 1-Gig/TV bundle that starts at $120 per month, that includes free HBO and access to the programmer’s TV Everywhere service, HBO GO, for 36 months.

-A triple-play package (1-Gig, TV and voice) starting at $150 per month.

Save for the GigaPower triple-play package, the others offered in the K.C. area by AT&T practically mirror Google Fiber’s there   -- $70 per month for stand-alone 1-Gig broadband, and a 1-Gig/TV package that starts at $120 per month. Google Fiber also offers a free Internet service that delivers 5 Mbps down by 1 Mbps upstream.

Time Warner Cable, meanwhile, kicked off its “TWC Maxx” upgrades in Kansas City in January, paving the way for an enhanced DVR packing six tuners and 1 terabyte of storage, and a new 300 Mbps (downstream) DOCSIS 3.0 service that replaces its former 100 Mbps offering in the market.

AT&T’s pricing and packaging for GigaPower in the Kansas City area appears to be a bit sweeter than, for example, the packages it’s starting to sell in parts of North Carolina , which offer $120 per month for the 1-Gig standalone service, a double-play (1-Gig/TV) starting at $150 per month, and a triple-play that starts at $180 per month. AT&T’s 1-Gig broadband service has historically been capped at 1 terabyte per month, after which customers are charged $10 for each additional 50 gigabytes consumed. Google Fiber currently offers an uncapped broadband service.

Update: An AT&T spokesperson confirmed that the same data usage policy will apply for the GigaPower deployment in the Kansas City area.

John Sondag, president of AT&T Missouri, said the initial launch into the Kansas City market comes after the telco had spent more than a year putting in fiber and electronics it needs to offer the service, while also determining which portions of the market had the most demand for the GigaPower service.

While AT&T isn’t being specific about which neighborhoods in the markets already identified for GigaPower will have access to the fiber-based service early on, Sondag said Monday's launch is “just the start,” as the telco will expand and roll it out to other areas in the market.

“We are going to invest where customers are demanding these services,” he said, estimating that AT&T has invested $825 million in Kansas City over the past four years. “We’re willing to make the necessary investments to get these customers, and to keep them.”

With Kansas City coming online, AT&T currently estimates that it has GigaPower available to “hundreds of thousands consumers and small businesses” in markets that also include Austin, Dallas, and Fort Worth, Texas; and Raleigh-Durham and Winston-Salem, N.C. AT&T has announced plans to deploy GigaPower in parts of 11 additional markets – Atlanta; Charlotte and Greensboro, N.C.; Chicago; Cupertino, Calif.; Houston; Jacksonville, Fla.; Miami; Nashville, Tenn.; St. Louis and San Antonio.

Overall, AT&T is weighing GigaPower rollouts in up to 100 cities across 25 markets, and has also pledged to expand its fiber-based platform to an additional 2 million customer locations as part of its proposed acquisition of DirecTV.

Google Fiber is poised to encroach a bit deeper into the turf of Time Warner Cable and AT&T in the Kansas City area as the ISP/pay-TV provider prepares to introduce  commercial-class services to area businesses.

According to a mailer obtained by the Kansas City Business Journal, Google Fiber is asking small businesses in the region if they want to be among the first to get the company’s business-focused 1-Gig offering, which will cost $100 per month. That’s a $30 premium on Google Fiber’s stand-alone residential 1-Gig service, which runs $70 per month (it’s residential broadband/pay-TV bundles start at $120 per month).

Google Fiber hasn’t announced when it will launch business services in the area or which fiberhoods will initially offer access to the new offering, but a spokeswoman told the paper that “[a]fter our pilot earlier this year, we’re closer than ever to bringing Google Fiber to small businesses in Kansas City.”

That will once again pit Google Fiber against AT&T and TWC.  TWC, which has relied on business services as a key growth engine, initially tailored those offerings to smaller businesses, but have since moved upmarket by serving mid-sized businesses with Metro Ethernet-powered services.

While Google Fiber isn’t identifying which areas of Kansas City will get fiber first, some likely candidates include portions of the region that are already connected, a group that includes Central Kansas City (Mo.) and Kansas City, Kan. Several other areas, including Central and Northeast Johnson County (Kan.); Northeast Kansas City (Mo.); and South Kansas City (Mo.) are currently under construction.

Google Fiber also offers service in Provo, Utah; and has construction underway in Austin, Texas. Google Fiber is also exploring whether to expand to as many as 34 cities, and is expected to announce its picks before the end of 2014.

Update: Google Fiber announced its new business-focused efforts on Tuesday.

In this blog post, Carlos Casas, Google Fiber’s Kansas City Field Team Manager, announced an “Early Access Program” for small businesses in select areas of central Kansas City, including a “handful” of fiberhoods in Kansas City, Kan., and Kansas City, Mo.

“Though not all areas of central Kansas City can sign up just yet, we’ll keep you updated as we expand. Small businesses can visit our website for more information, register for email updates, and be the first to know when they can sign up,” he wrote.

While acknowledging that “small businesses play a big part in Provo and Austin, too,” he said Google Fiber had nothing to announce with respect to business services plans in those cities.