Royals baseball Local TV station gets contract for K.C. action By Pat Dinslage the Independent KTVG, the new television station on chan nel 17 in Grand Island, has completed a con tract to carry exclusive live coverage of the Kansas City Royals baseball games in the area next season. Lee McAliley, the new general manager of the independent station, said arrange ments were completed for the coverage on Nov. 9. ! The contract is part of programming changes being considered by the station in the future, he said. ; Channel 17’s programming still includes cartoons, P X Ians are underway to expand the station’s broadcast hours ... to 24 hours a day. news, movies, old situation comedies and other series, such as “High lander,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “The Un touchables,” McAliley said. He contin ues to pursue the original plan of affiliating with the Fox network, but little progress has been made, he said. The Station probably will continue to be an inde pendent station. In addition to continuing to work on the Fox affiliation, McAliley said he is in the process of negotiating for new, first-run shows and additional syndications of older programs Channel 17 currently is not part of the lo cal cable television system lineup. However, the station is completing negotiations and testing with TCI Cable for installation on ca ble television, McAliley said. The station has not yet been assigned a Cable system channel number, but McAliley is expecting to finalize arrangements “any day now,” he said. Once installed on cable, the station will be seen by residents of Grand Island, Alda. Shelton and Wood River. In addition, installation of the station on die Hastings cable television system is pro ceeding. The station probably will be on line ih Hastings in about two weeks, McAliley said. “It does take a long time for it all to come together,” he said. • Plans also are underway to expand the station’s current broadcast hours of 7 a m. to midnight to 21 hours a day within about sue months, McAliley said. The station also is looking at building a taller, more powerful tower in the future, he said. The new tower, to be located at a new site not yet disclosed, will give the station 40,000 watts of power, rather than the cur rent 5,000 watts. Channel 17 began broadcasting in the Grand Island area in April. The license origi- Neither plot nor coincidence New owners of local TV stations partners in Alabama station By Pat Dinslage The Independent At first glance, the changes in televi sion station ownership seem to give the impression Alabama is taking over area TV. In June, Hill Broadcasting of Gadsden, Ala., owned by Robert Hill, purchased the new KTVG Channel 17 in Grand Island. This month, the Kearney-based Ne braska Television Network was pur chased by Fant Broadcasting, also of Gadsden, owned by Anthony Fant. The new KTVG station manager, Lee McAliley, came from WNAL-TV in Gads den to get the new station up and running. Prior to coming to Grand Island, McAliley had worked as operations man ager for WNAL station manager Robert Hill. The new NTV general manager, George Singleton, joined Fant Broadcast ing this year. But when he came to the Grand Island area in June fi-om a job in Monroe, La., he served as temporary gen eral manager of Hill’s KTVG resigning last month. However, there is no grand plot or con spiracy by Alabama television owners, Singleton and McAliley said. “You can’t own two (TV station) prop erties in the same market area," Singleton said. Channel 17 and NTV are not co owned stations. “Fant has no investment in KTVG,” McAliley said. But neither are the connections a mat ter of coincidence. The answer lies in the fact that Fant and Hill are partners in WNAL, the Gads den, Ala., TV station, McAliley said. How ever, both men also have other business es, including television stations, they own and operate separately from each other. Hill owns two other TV stations, in Iowa and in Alabama. Fant has been working on the pur chase of NTV network for about two years, Singleton said, long before the KTVG opportunity arose. Fant decided to continue with the purchase of NTV rather than tiy to buy KTVG. When Fant learned that KTVG was for sale, however, he told Hill about the op portunity, McAliley said. Hill, who was iooking for expansion opportunities, de cided to buy the station. Hill previously had hired McAliley from a station in Los Angeles. Upon the pur chase of the Grand Island station, he asked McAliley, who had experience in television station start-up, to come up to Grand Island and get the station on the air, McAliley said. Meanwhile, Singleton had come to the Grand Island area in June expecting that the NTV sale would be completed some time in July. However, surveys and other details delayed the sale until this month, Singleton said. Shortly after his arrival flooding hit the KTVG tower, knocking it off the air. Fant and Hill asked Singleton to serve as temporary general manager and help get the station back on the air, McAliley said. “I really was a kind of management consultant." Singleton said. When the NTV sale was completed, he became gen eral manager of the network — the posi tion he had come to Nebraska to do. “I had to make use of him,” McAliley said. Singleton's expertise was needed by KTVG, and Singleton wasn’t busy at that time. The two stations are not officially or legally connected, he said. But because he and Singleton are fa miliar with each other’s knowledge and expertise, they sometimes may informally work together and exchange advice on problems, McAliley said. McAliley doesn’t see the two stations having common ownership in the future, he said. However, at some point they may consider sharing some of the manage ment duties. nally was owned by Jerry Montgomery of Family Broadcasting, who had been trying for years to put the station on the air. In June, Montgomery sold the license to Robert Hill of Hill Broadcasting of Gadsden, Ala. The station ran into trouble shortly after the sale, however, when it was knocked off the air by last summer’s flooding around the broadcast tower, located on Engleman Road south of Cedar Hollow School. The flooding meant equipment had to be moved away from the tower then reassem bled, hooking up satellite dishes, tape ma chines and the generator. The station began broadcasting again in September.