KDKA-CBS' Altering Of Live NFL Game May Not Be First Offense

When KDKA-CBS in Pittsburgh was called about a delay in its October 14 broadcast of Chiefs-Steelers, "it exposed what appears to be a much wider practice," according to Dan Trigoboff of BROADCASTING & CABLE, who notes CBS owns KDKA and both the net and affil last week "acknowledged that the station compressed" part of the game "to squeeze in extra commercial time." But the station and net "are declining comment on allegations that KDKA and other CBS-owned stations have been regularly compressing prime time programming to fit in more spots." But sources say that group management "has given at least tacit approval to the practice for two years." TV execs said that it would be "naive to believe that stations" — both inside and outside the CBS group — "are not a taking advantage of the opportunity to add commercial spots." TV execs also said that the revelation "may also draw the ire of advertisers whose spots have been speeded up — if only minutely and undetectably — and put into more crowded ad clusters." Trigoboff writes CBS affiliates "were upset following the discovery" that an owned station could alter net programming when an affiliated [station] "would be severely chastised by the net for such actions" (BROADCASTING & CABLE, 11/5 issue). NFL VP/Communications Greg Aiello, on the KDKA situation: "CBS straightened it out with the station and assured us it would not happen again with any of their other affiliates" (AP, 11/9).