The InFOCUS Podcast: Barry Fisher

WFMZ-69 since 1976 has served the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania with local news coverage and syndicated fare including Judge Judy. It's a rarity in the modern age, but the unaffiliated player remains important to an important segment of the Philadelphia DMA. That's why getting DirecTV streaming coverage, in addition to its long-running availability on the traditional DBS provider satellite lineup, is a big deal for station owner Maranatha Broadcasting.

To learn more about WFMZ-69 and how it continues to thrive and not get overlooked by national companies, station President/GM Barry Fisher, Past Chairman of the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters, joins RBR+TVBR Editor-in-Chief Adam R Jacobson on this InFOCUS Podcast, presented by dot.FM.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is the RBR TVBR in Focus podcast. Here's your host,
Radio and Television Business Report Editor in Chief Adam R. Jacobson.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the InFocus podcast, which is
presented by dot fm streaming social podcast or broadcast. Get
a dot fm domain name by heading over to get
dot fm today and today we're heading to the Lehigh
Valley of Pennsylvania, that is easton Allentown, Bethlehem, and all
the communities around that area of Pennsylvania due north of Philadelphia,

(00:37):
where WFMZ channel sixty nine has a new way in
which viewers can tune into this long running independent television station.
Effective September twenty three, Direct TV streaming customers will now
have access to WFMZ, which is based on in Allentown.

(01:00):
A little bit more about the TV station and about
getting added to DirectTV, which is certainly an achievement. We
welcome President of WfMC Television Barry Fisher to the podcast. Barry,
it is great to be speaking with you.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
No, it's very nice speaking with you this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
It's certainly interesting to us that an independent TV station
with long held ties to the Lehigh Valley that does
cover the greater Philadelphia area and the DMA be added
not only to Direct TV's satellite system, but now to
the Direct TV streaming platform without any sort of tussole

(01:38):
and back and forth. Obviously, DirecTV has been in the
news of late for its very tense and very difficult
retransmission consent agreements with various big companies. You're a tiny
player in the grand scheme of television, but you're certainly
important to Philadelphia and Allentown and the Lee High Valley.

(02:01):
What can you say about the significance of this particular
deal as it pertains to your television station and viewership
across both the Lehigh Valley and the entire Delaware Valley.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Well, it's very important. As you know, we're an independent station.
We've been since nineteen seventy six is when the station
went on the air. I've actually been here forty seven
of those years and have watched the evolution through having
carriage on some cable systems, and then in nineteen eighty
seven when must Carry went out, losing cable systems, and

(02:35):
then seeing essentially even affiliates not really paying attention to
where cable was going until ninety one when they started
changing channel positions. For affiliates without notifying that them. All
of a sudden, the industry came together and said, well,
we got to do something about that, and that came
the nineteen ninety two must carry retrans regulations came in.

(03:00):
All we've always looked for is just a level playing
field because without a network affiliation NFL football, it's very
easy to be overlooked by national companies. We've had a
good run with our local cave operators because they they're
in the community, they see the value of the station
and understand it. It's a bit more challenging, as you've

(03:22):
seen things migrate to the virtual MVPDs to really gain
their attention because if they have a whole country to
worry about, some cases of the entire world to worry about,
and we are just this one station in the market. However,
what was really unique and drove this deal with Direct TV,
and they were very good. We've had conversations with them,

(03:46):
but the key point came out with a look, you've
seen all the data, which you know we serve the
northern tier of the Philadelphia market, where we focus on
the Greater Lehigh Valley, which is a significantly sized market
by itself, anywhere else. It would be a larger market
if it were not sandwich between Philadelphia, New York. But
it is an area that's unique and that's where we,

(04:06):
you know, have our news operation based on which a
very large news operation with very good people. You can
watch us on the streaming on our own WS and
Z plus app and see what our newscasts look like.
They're very respectable and the most watched newscast in this region.
But what turned the deal with DirecTV As we said

(04:26):
to Dolly kim leentn't you please, would you just look
at your own set top data boxes from Direct TV
satellite users because we've been on Direct TV satellite from
day one in two thousand and two and we have
a great following, and that's what turned the deal. They
looked at that data and said, wow, you know, they
this is a very strong station and all of a sudden,

(04:50):
you know, the scales came off the eyes and it
was like, this is this is something that would be
important for our customers in the Philadelphia market. So we're
very pleased that, you know, they had internal data that
could verify the data we were showing them. You know,
the challenge is going to be to get you know,
other MVPDs to do that without having such data. But

(05:15):
we're hopeful that you know, our story continues to go
forth and that we can make that happen. But not
only do we have not only do we have the
newscast up here which its focuses on the northern tier
because you know, you have six or seven stations in
Philadelphia who are focused on Philadelphia. There's enough of a
market here for us, not enough market for more than us,

(05:35):
but it works for us. But outside of our newscasts,
we do other things like we do have the Philadelphia's
Umbers Parade, which we simulcast on our station in Philadelphia,
which is a MeTV station, Channel two, and the Mummer's Parade,
as you know, it airs from night in the morning
till five in the afternoon on the Year's Day. It's

(05:57):
been in existence since nineteen I believe nineteen oh one,
and it's a staple of the Philadelpia market and you know,
as the most viewed show in Philadelphia last year from
ten in the morning till five in the afternoon in
all age groups. So you know, we have a market
wide interests. We have focused interest that's a kind of

(06:19):
a short summation of what we do here.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
You had mentioned Dahalia Kim, who is the vice president
of Content and Programming at Direct TV. When it comes
to the percentage of streaming subscribers to Direct TV, we've
always kind of discounted that, but you do make a
point that the vMVPD is certainly growing, especially entity like

(06:42):
YouTube tv in this case, was it your own research
or your own insights that led to the conversations about
getting the Direct TV streaming customers in addition to those
that were on satellite.

Speaker 1 (06:57):
Well, yeah, so we've been pursuing this for a while,
see this coming five years ago. We even started our
own out of the frustration of not gaining a lot
of traction. Initially, we started around WFMZ plus app, which
is streams all of our commercials and all of our
content for viewers who decided they wanted streaming but they

(07:19):
didn't have access to us on some of the other
platforms and VMPD platforms, And that's grown quite a bit.
We have our we stream over a million one hours
a month of streaming just on our own plus app,
and we can see that growing as people because people
are migrating from cable, which we wish they wouldn't. We
love our local cable operators. You know, Service Electric Cable

(07:42):
TV was the inventor of cable back in the fifties,
John Wilson Senior. And this area was heavily cabled because
you know, viewing with an antenna in this area was hampered,
and you know, so it's a almost a hot bed
for cable and we appreciate everything for the cable means

(08:04):
to this area. Unfortunately, well unfortunately for them, they are
now the path for the Internet to get these streamers
to your home. But this this migration continues where you know,
we can see the transfer and as we see some
of the cable prescribers dropping off, they're going to some
of these other vmpds and we had to have some

(08:25):
platform for them to go to, so don't fm Z
plus has served that. But it's still important to be
on the v mpds because it's the same argument that
was back in the early nineties. You know, it's like
an AB switch. If you're you need to be in
with the rest of the offerings in whatever platform you're in.
You don't want to have people have to go to
the AB switch and switch to an antenna and then

(08:48):
go back and switch to cable, which was one of
the primary drivers of the must Carr retrans feeds rules
back in ninety two. This cable is suggesting what we'll
just give you ab switching in each home to get
around having to carry local stations. So that's where we
are now.

Speaker 2 (09:07):
In terms of your coverage area. A lot of people
may only be familiar with Allentown from that Billy Joel
song from decades ago.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
By the way, that Billy Joel song was completely off base.
There never was a steel mill in Allentown, Pennsylvania, by
the way, and it just rhymed anyway.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Well, anyway, my knowledge of the area is limited to
Dorney Park circa nineteen eighty eight, when you had Q
one hundred and Laser one oh four fighting against each other. Again,
you have a very very different community. Now. Lehigh University
is a nationally recognized school of higher education. I'm sure

(09:50):
have vital industry when it comes to farming and agriculture.
You have Homish Country and Lancaster right down the road.
What can you say about the Lee High Valley that
has allowed sixty nine News in WFMZ TV to be
successful Because I can't think of any other embedded market,

(10:10):
if you will, where something like this has persisted and successfully.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Yeah, Well, it really comes down to geography. We're sandwiched
between Philadelphia, New York in one of the most populous
parts of the country. The Lehigh Valley has seen a
lot of change since I've gotten here in nineteen seventy six.
It used, you know, we you know, some of the good,
some of bad. I mean, we might see a murder
you know, once every two years in the Lee High

(10:39):
Valley and Olts you know, unfortunately much more frequently, but
it has. There's been a tremendous amount of migration from
from New York to New Jersey into the region because
of I seventy eight, which went in in nineteen eighty seven,
and that's when a lot of growth began to happen,
because the taxes in New Jersey are so ordinary that

(11:01):
you can move into this part of the country, into
our area and buy a really large home with a
big piece of land for about what you're paying for
taxes in the neighboring New Jersey or New York. So
that's led that's led to a significant number of people
who are using this as a bedroom community or or
an office to the New York City. Uh so the

(11:23):
population has grown considerably and it's uh, you know, we
probably were looking at as more of a farm community
may seventies lates, but it's definitely not done. Now. We
have very thriving industries that are continuing to grow and
to relocate here. Seeing you have you know, pharmaceuticals is
a big deal, electronics, and it really doesn't end with

(11:49):
the number of people who are the number of businesses
to continue to grow here. It's one of the fastest
growing areas in Pennsylvania that continues to have growth. Tremendous
crunch on housing here. It's very hard to find housing
and very hard to find even things to rent because
there's so many people coming into the area. And it's

(12:11):
the quality of life. I mean, we have a tremendous
quality of life here. We can we have so many venues.
In the seventies, we used to when we were hiring
people for news, we'd say, well, you can go to
New York to see plays, you can go to Philadelphia,
you can go skiing in the Poconos. That was our sales.
Now let's say when you come here, we have multiple

(12:33):
venues to see multiple concerts on a regular basis. So
we have a Triple A hockey, Triple A baseball. Each
of those venues has regular concerts. We must have three
or four concerts a week going on of national you know,
people coming to the area. There's a casino down here
that has quite a bit of concerts coming on a

(12:53):
regular basis. So the valley has changed to being a
very important region for us. And frankly, the population within
thirty five miles of ups is the size of Pittsburgh
when it comes down to it. So it's a market
within a market, and that's how we can survive. Again,
it's it's been good because we created forty five years

(13:14):
worth of and people look at us as the news
source for this area and it's the go to place
for news, and it's important for us to maintain that
a news that's respectable and completely completely competitive with Philadelphia
because you can't. We can't. We have to have anchors

(13:35):
that look like they're Philadelphia and bankers, and we have
to have reporters that look like they're in Philadelphia. We
have a news team that can gather and collect news
for this region, which is different because you know, The
people here don't really care about what murders are going
on in Philadelphia right now, or garbage strikes or whatever else.
It's another world to us up here. It's it's all

(13:56):
about the Lehigh Valley. It's about the roads that are
basically going east to west. It's about the climate in
this area, ten the politics of this area, which are
unique and different. So you know, we're part of the
Philadelphia market. We do a lot to serve the Philadelphia
market with program name, especially with our doing the Bomber's
Parade is probably the most notable thing besides Judge Duty

(14:19):
and Justice Juty and things like that. But it's important
for us though, for our news is our real identity.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
It's something that we see on the radio side. In Wilmington,
we listen to ninety four or five PST and you
do cover Bucks County in Pennsylvania. You cover Mercer County
in New Jersey. Again, it's remarkable that you're doing it
on TV, not on radio. And we note that you've
also tapped into the Hispanic population growth by producing a

(14:49):
Spanish language newscast each weeknight at eleven PM, which is
certainly not an easy endeavor for you to have taken on,
so can you share a little bit.

Speaker 1 (14:59):
About you know, we realized, you could see as the
population was changing here and the Hispanic population growing, that
it was something we were going to have to think
about doing. And we're pretty active in the Chamber of Commerce,
and we heard at one of the meetings in the
early two thousands that there was issues with kids coming

(15:22):
into being integrated into the schools with parents who didn't
think English, and they were changing schools, sometimes elementary schools
three times in a school year, and they were getting
lost because curriculums weren't synchronized and all of that. But anyway,
the idea came to us then that well, we're in
the communications business and this is a problem for the

(15:43):
local communities, the school districts, especially communicating with parents. So
we thought, well, you know we can we should start
a Spanish newscast to help this process of these people
who were moving into the area to get more connected
with the area and also get more connected with us.
So we started it in two thousand and three for

(16:05):
half hour eleven o'clock at night and continue that to
this day and it's its own Spanish news department, Spanish
speaking and it's not just an English but it's not
just a Spanish version of our English newscast. They are
connected with the Spanish community, going with what's important to
the Spanish community, and it helps the Spanish community stay connected,

(16:25):
maybe to a lesser degree now because many of the
many of them are now integrated to speaking English and
so forth, but still want to hear the news in
their native language. But also connects them with us and
it's a pipeline to get them into our English newscasts,
you know, because they're now be as they've been here,
you know, twenty years or more. They're acclimated to English

(16:46):
and the all times the day, and they're tuning into
our English newscasts as part of being the WFMZ edition
on ESPONNOL.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
Before we wrap up the podcast, I do have to
ask a question about advertising, because obviously you're not doing
this as a community service, you do. You have a
business when it comes to being in a embedded DMA.
Are you getting Philadelphia market buys? Is this all local advertising?

(17:18):
Is sales pretty much like a radio operation rather than
a TV operation in a top five market.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Oh no, it's mixed, you know, so we we get
some market buys get a lot of local so it's
by all means we're competitive with our ratings and Nielsen
to be able to gain advertising. And it's because of
the size and the nature of the viewership, you know,
it's this area is to this area where the PBI
of this area. Just like PVII owns Philadelphia. This is

(17:49):
the area that we own and it's recognized as that.
So people people want to reach this area with news,
this is really where they have to go together.

Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure
speaking with you, and I wish you lots of luck
in moving forward on not only Direct TV's traditional stream
via satellite, but also Direct TV's digital stream via the Internet.
So Barry, thank you so much for taking time out

(18:18):
today to speak with Radio and Television Business Report.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Well, it's nice speaking to you, speaking to you. Thank
you so very much.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
Take care And that was Barry Fisher, president of WFMZ
channel sixty nine in Allentown, Pennsylvania, with this week, thank
you for tuning into this radio and television business report
and focused podcast. It was presented by dot fm, streaming
social podcast to broadcast. To get a dot fm domain
name be heading over to get dot FM today on
the road in Los Angeles. This is Adam Jacobson for

(18:46):
the staff at Streamline Publishing's Radio Inc. And the Radio
in Television Business Report. Have a great day. We'll see
you next time. E