Influential Wall Street analyst Richard Greenfield of Pali Research has been in the news a lot this week. First he publicly admitted that he was “dead wrong” in his prediction that the Disney movie ‘Up‘ would be a disappointment at the box office (it has gone on to be the studios second-highest grossing film ever in North America, after ‘Finding Nemo’).
Now Greenfield has released a report titled “Why Do ABC’s Stations Want to Have the Highest Cost Structure in Local News?” in which he criticizes ABC stations for, among other things, not participating in cost-cutting content pools with other stations.
Greenfield says pooling partnerships such as the Local News Service (LNS) between Fox and NBC and, in some markets, others, is key to the prosperity of stations. Broadcasting & Cable has an excerpt from the report: “It would appear that ABC does not want to impact the quality of its local news gathering, however, LNS is invisible to viewers and is a way to reduce costs in a declining business.” More…