56 years after the broadcast, California TV suddenly shut down news operations
A local TV station in Salinas suddenly shut down its news business on Tuesday after 56 years of airing.
Kion-TV, which serves the Monterrey, Salinas and Santa Cruz areas on the California coast, announced on its website that it will no longer produce its own local news broadcasts. Instead, it will play its broadcast in partnership with the Bay Area CBS station KPIX, which will take effect from 5 p.m. that day.
Kion-TV’s news anchor, producer and other employees said they were confused and blinded to decide to fire more than a dozen employees involved in the news operations immediately.
Executives from the Missouri News Agency and Gazette, which owns the station, attended a regular morning meeting to inform workers that it was their last day on their job. Staff transferred later that day learned from calls and text messages through phone calls and text messages from colleagues or news reports.
“No one knows they’re going to kill our news show,” said Victor Guzman, his assistant news director and employee for more than seven years, working at night, producing and anchoring morning shows every day. “We were all shocked.”
Telemundo 23, which shares the newsroom with Kion-TV, is also closing its operations, employees said. In addition to Monterrey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties, the evening Spanish performance broadcasts a blockbuster of California.
Sandy Santos, who produced Telemundo 23 with part-time help from a bilingual journalist, said the decision removed key news outlets in Spanish to serve the large Latino community in the heart of California’s agricultural agriculture.
“It created a blank,” Santos said, who grew up in Salinas after immigrating to the area with his family in Mexico. “People are very worried about what will happen.”
Digital Content Director Sergio Berrueta will celebrate the first anniversary this week at the station.
“I was completely left in the darkness. No one reached out,” Beruetta said. “I went to the station and everyone was packing their stuff. People were crying and saying goodbye.”
Staff said the station has handled short-term recruitment, budget cuts and hiring freezes. Its news operations shut down came a time when local TV was under economic pressure, with many radio stations giving up local news broadcasts or selling assets to large companies. It left the area with its larger rival KSBW for the lonely local broadcast news station.
Kion-TV described the change as a positive feature in a statement Tuesday, saying the partnership with the Bay Area Station would bring “expanded news coverage” and “build a long history”, while KPIX initially provided CBS programming to Salinas Station when it first signed in 1969.
“Our collaboration with KPIX ensures audiences in the Monterrey, Salinas and Santa Cruz areas continue to receive the high-quality local journalism they deserve” and will “bring a seamless experience to the audience during times of change,” said Rall Bradley, Executive Vice President of News-Press & Gazette Company.
News-Press & Gazette did not answer questions about the decision or whether there were plans to provide news for the Spanish-speaking community on the Central Coast.
News-Press & Gazette purchased Kion-TV in December 2013. It also owns Keyt in Santa Barbara and Kesq in Palm Springs.
