KCOP studio sale is latest chapter in duopoly shifting. (Up Front).Fox Broadcasting has quietly moved its KCOP-TV (Channel 13) broadcast team from Hollywood to West Los Angeles
The move by Fox is the latest in a game of studio musical chairs among local television stations, stemming from the introduction of duopolies in the Los Angeles market two years ago. Fox, which also owns KTTV-TV (Channel 11), took over KCOP as part of its $4.4 billion acquisition of Chris-Craft Industries in 2001. Both stations are now located at the Twentieth Century Fox studios on Bundy Drive. Earlier this month, Telemundo completed relocating the bulk of its operations and personnel from a Glendale facility it rented from Walt Disney Co. to Burbank, where its two Spanish-language stations, KVEA-TV (Channel 52) and KWHY-TV (Channel 22), now share a roof with KNBC-TV (Channel 4). News Corp.-owned Fox is asking $11 million for the 99,000-square foot KCOP property at 915 N. La Brea Ave. The site has 57,000 square feet of studio and office space, said Cushman & Wakefield Inc. Director Andrew Feola, representing the sellers. KCOP had been in the building for more than 40 years, and while it may lack the history of other more celebrated Hollywood studios, the studio has had its share of highlights. It was home to "Romper Room," "Hobo Kelly" and "Bozo the Clown Bozo the Clown (also known as Bozo), is the name of a clown whose widespread franchising in early television made him the best-known clown character in the United States. ," as well as other entertainment programming and KCOP newscasts. Entertainer Liberace was said to have found his trademark candelabra in the KCOP prop room. It's unlikely, however, that the KCOP site will continue to be used as a studio, much less a broadcast facility, according to local commercial real estate agents. "Entertainment companies are looking for Looking for In the context of general equities, this describing a buy interest in which a dealer is asked to offer stock, often involving a capital commitment. Antithesis of in touch with. ways to consolidate and use space more efficiently," said Neil Resnick, senior vice president of Grubb & Ellis Co.'s West Los Angeles office, who works in the company's entertainment division. With J.H. Snyder Co. scheduled to complete its $80 million Gateway retail complex just a few blocks away at La Brea and Santa Monica Boulevard next year, converting the property to retail use might make sense. "To us the most logical thing would be an extension of the retail play at Santa Monica and La Brea," said Gary Weiss, senior vice president at J.H. Snyder. "We talk to a lot of studio people and they are going the other way, they are giving up space right now." Three years ago, there were 10 local television stations operating out of their own studios in the Los Angeles area. Now, only Tribune Co.'s KTLA-TV (Channel 5), Univision Communication Inc.'s KMEX-TV (Channel 34) and public station KCET KCET Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo (Japan) KCET Kamaraj College of Engineering and Technology broadcast from their own facilities. Everyone else has doubled up, or in the case of NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. and the two Telemundo stations, tripled up. The biggest impact has been felt in Hollywood, where three broadcast facilities have been shut down since 2001. "The duopoly Duopoly A situation in which two companies own all or nearly all of the market for a given type of product or service. Notes: This is very similar to a monopoly, where only one company dominates the market. was created to develop efficiencies and to allow us to maximize our resources by combining two operations," said Pat McClenahan, senior vice president and station manager for KCBS-TV (Channel 2) and KCAL-TV (Channel 9), both of which are owned by CBS (Cell Broadcast Service) See cell broadcast. , a Viacom Inc. company. A year ago, KCBS KCBS Kansas City Barbecue Society KCBS Korea Christian Book Service (now called KCB; Seoul, Korea) KCBS Kerala Catholic Bible Society (Kerala, India) and KCAL kcal kilocalorie. kcal abbr. kilocalorie kcal kilocalorie. were the first local stations to merge, combining operations up at CBS' 65-year-old Columbia Square building at 6121 Sunset Blvd. Subsequently, Viacom-owned radio station KRTH-FM (101.1) has moved out of Columbia Square and into the former KCAL building at 5515 Melrose Ave. The meshing of KCBS and KCAL at Columbia Square was meant to be a temporary solution for CBS, which eventually would like to move both stations to another location, perhaps its Studio City facility. As it stands, however, there are no immediate plans to move the stations, said McClenahan. "We're in the very initial phases of making plans for a new facility. We're in the process of identifying what our needs will be five or 10 years down the road," he said, adding that he wasn't sure if the company would sell the old KCAL building on Melrose. Even before buying KCOP, Fox had pulled KTTV out of Hollywood, moving that station to the Bundy facility in 2001. The old KTTV building, at 5746 Sunset Boulevard, known as Metromedia Square, was sold to the Los Angeles Unified School District The Los Angeles Unified School District (the "LAUSD") is the largest (in terms of number of students) public school system in California and the second-largest in the United States. Only the New York City Department of Education has a larger student population. and recently razed raze also rase tr.v. razed also rased, raz·ing also ras·ing, raz·es also ras·es 1. To level to the ground; demolish. See Synonyms at ruin. 2. To scrape or shave off. 3. . The district is now building a 2,000-student high school on the site. |
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