“We would never do that,” Citadel Communications CEO Phil Lombardo said about WLNE‘s airing of a Genie Bra infomercial in place of local news last week, a story first reported by TVSpy.
In a new interview with Broadcasting & Cable, Lombardo says that he is looking to move beyond the “unfortunate” Genie Bra incident and focus on building the Providence ABC-affiliate into a station that doesn’t have to rely on quick revenue fixes.
Lombardo tells B&C that he plans to improve the fortunes of his newly acquired station by improving WLNE’s news product. “We’ll try to make the news better and more viewer-friendly,” he said, “so we can become better citizens in the community.”
Lombardo also says that WLNE will begin broadcasting the news in HD by the end of the summer.
“Nobody is HD in the market,” said Lombardo. “All my stations are HD.”
Citadel Communications’ purchase of WLNE is still pending FCC approval. The company currently owns ABC-affiliates in Des Moines, Lincoln, and Sioux City, IA, as well as CBS-affiliate WHBF in the Quad Cities area along the Illinois-Iowa border.
Here’s a clip of the notorious Genie Bra commercial: