Comcast exec Craig Coane to head TV20

Former Comcast executive and one-time KPIX sales manager Craig Coane was named today president and general manager of KBWB TV20 replacing Bob Anderson. Coane has been Comcast's director of sales in the Bay Area for the past four years. Before that he was at KPIX as sales manager and account rep. He also was an account executive at CBS Radio in San Francisco. Coane joins the station as its parent company, Granite Broadcasting Corp., enters the final phases of Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings.

Ch. 42 becomes a Spanish independent

Pappas Telecasting's KTNC Channel 42 is dropping its affiliation with the Azteca network today and will become an independent, though still a Spanish-language station. Azteca will now be broadcast on one of KBWB-TV Channel 20's digital multicast channels (20.4). As part of the transition to digital television, a single station can now provide multiple channels of separate programming simultaneously, free and over the air. Each separate program stream is called a multicast. The local Azteca feed will also be available on Comcast and DirecTV locally.

Meanwhile, new programs on Channel 42 will include the hit talk show "Marta Susana," the entertainment gossip show "Paparazzi," and novelas new to the United States such as "Dueña y Señora," said Fernando Acosta, vice president of Pappas Telecasting. Sports programming will feature up-to-the minute coverage of Mexican League Soccer.

Pappas, based in Visalia, is rolling out the new schedule on KTNC as well as former Azteca affiliates it owns in Reno, Omaha and Houston. By December, the company hopes to add 16 more markets. Pappas said in March it was dropping Azteca due to low ratings. Azteca, which is an arm of a major Mexican TV network, has also been a feud with NBC Universal over its attempts to expand its Telemundo network in Mexico. The Pappas family also owns San Francisco's newest radio station, 50,000-watt KTRB-AM 860.

Sale of Channel 20 to O'Brien falls through

The proposed deal to sell KBWB Channel 20 in San Francisco and a UHF station in Detroit to a group headed by former KTVU Channel 2 general manager Kevin O'Brien (pictured) has fallen through. The seller, Granite Broadcasting, announced today that it is backing out of the $150 million deal and putting the stations back on the market. According to Broadcasting & Cable magazine, Granite had been trying to sell the two stations to pay off debt, but got a new line of credit earlier this month. Now that things aren't so desperate, Granite decided to back out of the deal. The Detroit station's value is increasing because it has landed a new network, but the SF station is losing its WB affiliation and is in a tougher situtation. O'Brien's group, which includes four private equity firms, can still make a bid on the SF station.

Ex-Ch. 2 GM Kevin O'Brien to head Ch. 20

The FCC on Friday (June 23) approved the sale of KBWB Channel 20 and a sister station in Detroit to an investor group led by former KTVU Channel 2 General Manager Kevin O'Brien (pictured) for $150 million. O'Brien is a legendary figure in San Francisco broadcasting, as this 2001 article by Chron TV writer John Carman attests.

O'Brien and now-retired Channel 2 news director Fred Zehnder built KTVU's "10'O Clock News" into a ratings powerhouse that was held out nationally as an example of how quality local TV news should be done. O'Brien paired anchors Dennis Richmond and Elaine Corral in 1986, and launched "Mornings on 2." O'Brien was instrumental in persuading KTVU parent Cox Broadcasting to buy a piece of the Giants in 1992 in an effort to stop the team from moving to Florida.

In late 2001, he took a job as president of Meredith Broadcasting, which owned 12 TV stations in markets such as Atlanta and Phoenix. Within a couple of years, he was credited with turning around a money-losing company. But on Sept. 23, 2004, one of the managers he supervised, who headed Meredith's Atlanta station, wrote a letter to O'Brien's boss accusing him of making negative comments to employees based on their race, sex and ethnicity. On Oct. 28, 2004, Meredith fired O'Brien. O'Brien denied all of the allegations and fought back in court. In May 2005, Meredith settled with O'Brien. Terms were not disclosed.

If O'Brien was a bigot, as some had claimed, then it was surprising that three months later an African-American owned company, Granite Broadcasting, would hire O'Brien as a consultant.

He led an effort at Granite to spin off its San Francisco and Detroit stations -- a move that would provide $190 million cash for Granite and allow some of Granite's shareholders to own a piece of the two stations, along with a consortium of investment groups. The proposed $180 million deal was originally disclosed in January, but it fell apart when the WB and UPN announced they were shutting down and would merge into The CW. Both the SF and Detroit stations were WB affiliates. The CW affiliations in Detroit and San Francisco were awarded to CBS-owned UPN stations.

The transaction approved by the FCC on Friday had a $150 million price tag -- $84.25 million for the Detroit station and $65.75 million for Channel 20 in SF. The buyer is DS Audible, a new company headed by O'Brien.

A footnote -- Jim Gabbert and Mike Lincoln sold Channel 20 to Granite in 1997 for $173.75 million. Gabbert now flys around on a Boeing 737 and does occassional talk-show shifts at KGO 810.

Want to buy a San Francisco TV station?

Now that it has lost its network affiliation, the owner of San Francisco's Channel 20 announced today it is putting the station up for sale. Granite Broadcasting Corp., which operates 20 stations in eight markets, had planned to sell KBWB Channel 20 to a private capital group and several of Granite's major shareholders. But on Jan. 24, CBS and Time Warner announced that they planned to close their respective UPN and WB networks and jointly launch the CW Network in September. Locally, CBS-owned KBHK 44 will become the CW affiliate, leaving Channel 20 without a network. Today (Feb. 15), Granite dropped plans to sell the station to the shareholder group and instead put KBWB on the market. The price is expected to be around $100 million. Granite bought the station from Jim Gabbert in 2000 for $170 million. Under Gabbert's ownership, Channel 20 was best known for its station IDs featuring pets of viewers.