From Page A1 gramming. “Our contract with Fox as a sec ondary affiliate goes through August 1996,” station Manager Jim Kunz said. If Fox were to receive a full-time affiliation offer from another eastern Idaho broadcaster, it could give KIDK six months’ notice. Kunz said he had no indication that there are any offers out to Fox. KIFI’s derision to “flip” was not based on prime time programming, but on news, Brady said ABC and NBC have been pretty even in the prime time ratings race over the past 10 years. But when KIF1 showed significantly improved news ratings in May, ABC, NBC and CBS all indicated interest contracting with the station. Since ABC has the top- rated network news, KIFI elected to pick up ABC if it could. Locally, NBC’s network news has been No. 1 in the ratings, Brady said, but ABC News is the ratings leader nationally. She acknowledged that they ex pect it will take viewers some time to get used to the change. “There’s never been a flip in this market,” she said. “It oertainly will be our job to educate the viewers. We will be spending a lot of time and money on it.” Eastern Idahoans won’t be alone in this re-education process. Fox’s emergence as a viable fourth network has thrown many three-broadcaster markets into turmoil. The real shock wave came when Fox outbid CBS for rights to broadcast NFL football. Even in markets with more than three network affiliates, there have been scrambles. Last Sunday in Salt Lake City, for example, KSL, the long time CBS affiliate, went to NBC, in a straight-across flip with KUTV, the longtime NBC affiliate. Just as it blacked out KSL’s CBS programming, TCI Cableviskm, which carries KSL as part of its basic cable package, now blacks out KSL’s NBC programming because of Federal Communications Commission regula tions that favor the home-market broadcaster — KIFI for now. Fox’s NFL bombshell was follow ed by New World Communications’ May 1994 announcement that it was moving eight strong, big-market TV stations from the “Big 3” — primarily from CBS — to Fox. This set off a chain reaction of net work affiliation shifts, disrupting na- v tional and, in many cases, local TV markets. By June of this year, affiliate switches had affected nearly 40 per cent of TV viewing homes in the Unit ed States. In some markets, like Balti more, every network station has swapped its affiliation.