Black-owned broadcaster to operate new Jackson, Miss. UPN affiliate

By Gary Pettus
Clarion-Ledger
(January 1, 2006) UPN, the network of America's Next Top Model, Girlfriends and Veronica Mars, will have a new Jackson-area station affiliate at the end of next week.

WRBJ-Channel 34 is replacing WXMS-Channel 27 as the UPN affiliate; the switch will come at midnight Thursday.

WXMS, sister station of Fox affiliate WUFX-Channel 35 and WB's WDBD-Channel 40, will no longer have any network affiliation, said Mike Dunlop, general manager of the three related stations. Roberts Broadcasting, a minority-owned company run by the Roberts brothers, Michael and Steve, will operate the new station.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has described the two as "moguls" who run a "roughly $500 million company with TV stations, communications towers, charter jets, strip malls, office buildings, downtown lofts, a hotel, a theater and a resort community in the Bahamas."

The Roberts brothers, who are in their fifties, are attorneys and have served as city aldermen in St. Louis. Their company, which also operates TV stations in St. Louis, Colorado and South Carolina, targets minority communities.

Roberts Broadcasting has two other UPN stations, one in Columbia, S.C., and one in St. Louis. The company will use a satellite to distribute programming to its UPN stations from St. Louis.

As noted by Broadcasting & Cable magazine: "... UPN remains the dominant network when it comes to attracting an African-American audience." WRBJ has offices in Jackson, but is licensed to Magee and has a tower in rural Smith County, said Michael Roberts. The station's tower location "really puts us in a unique position to be Mississippi's first and only regional television station. Because of its proximity to Meridian and Hattiesburg, we may be able to deliver a signal to those areas too," Roberts said.

Like WXMS, WRBJ will be available on Jackson-area cable systems. On Time Warner, WRBJ will be located on Channel 8 — formerly reserved for WXMS. WXMS will move to Channel 77. The UPN programming will be continuous, said Frances Smith, Time Warner's public affairs director. "It will just be delivered by a different station."

The SusCom system in Rankin County offers WXMS on Channel 10. SusCom and Roberts Broadcasting "were still in negotiations" about channel location, said Erin Cash, spokeswoman for SusCom.

WXMS is a low-power station; noncable customers outside the Jackson area who use antennas have difficulty receiving it. "It was in our contract that if a higher-power station was able to come in this area, UPN could make it the affiliate," said WXMS' Dunlop. "That's what they chose to do."

"If I had my druthers, I'd stay with the network, but this opens a lot of opportunities for us to do local programming, such as a dance show for teens, sports programming with local universities like Jackson State and Belhaven, and maybe some entertainment shows — such as late-night jazz on Friday and Saturdays." In the end, WXMS is losing "only 10 hours of programming. That's the UPN weeknight lineup, from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.," Dunlop said.

"We'll run Judge Mathis the first hour and The New People's Court the second hour each day. The rest of our lineup will not change."

As for WRBJ, beyond UPN's network shows, the station will offer "family-friendly entertainment, where you will see African Americans in the programming," Roberts said. "The lineup will include such shows as Cosby and Good Times."


 

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