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GM, anchors leave KOLR 10

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General Manager Mark Gordon and veteran news anchors Joy Robertson and Sonya Kullmann are among at least six professionals to leave KOLR 10 in the past three months. Add to the losses a handful of sales executives, and it seems Dallas-based Nexstar Broadcasting Group Inc. (Nasdaq: NXST), which manages both KOLR 10 and KOZL-TV, has a full-blown transition on its hands.

Since Robertson turned in her resignation in April – after 15 years with KOLR – others to leave the station are news reporters and producers Jeremy Stevens, Kate Stacy and Kevin Schwaller. Gordon resigned unexpectedly in late May.

Brian Jones, executive vice president and co-chief operations officer for Nexstar, is serving as interim general manager for KOLR 10 and KOZL-TV, which share broadcasting centers on East Division Street. KOZL was formed by Nexstar last summer after it lost its Fox affiliation through local station KSFX in June 2011.

Jones said the resignations are unrelated to Nexstar’s loss of its Fox affiliation. Though he declined to comment on Gordon’s departure, citing Nexstar’s personnel policy, Jones said he believed the news anchors each left for personal reasons.

“We are in a period of transition where I am in the process of conducting the search for the general manager of the stations, and playing the role of interim GM,” said Jones, who works out of Nexstar’s corporate headquarters but now is spending several days a week in Springfield. “My focus is on being able to procure and hire an energetic, enthusiastic, experienced general manager for KOZL and KOLR.”

Jones said Nexstar is about a month into a typical three-month search to replace a station GM.

Gordon could not be reached for comment by press time.

Jones said three KOLR account executives have joined Vietti Marketing Group – started last year by former KOLR saleswoman Tammy Vietti – and KOLR’s general sales manager, David Thomason, left to take a position outside of the industry.

Nexstar, the owner of 55 TV stations, lost three Fox affiliations last year – also in Fort Wayne and Evansville, Ind. Still, first-quarter revenues were up 7.8 percent to $62.8 million, compared to $58.3 million in the first three months of 2011.

As of July 12, seven openings were listed on OzarksFirst.com, the Web site for KOLR 10 and KOZL-TV. The general manager is responsible to lead broadcast and Web sales as well as staff recruitment and development, according to the posting.

Former mid-day and nighttime anchor Robertson left without having a full-time job in place. Robertson said she is doing freelance work for FoodChannel.com and filling in as a co-host on KWTO’s “Morning Line” radio program.

“It was a bit of a tough decision, but I thought I either need to see what’s out there in the world or not,” Robertson said.  

Kullmann, who worked for KOLR for 11 years, took Mercy Hospital Springfield’s senior media relations specialist job April 30. Kullmann said the move was made as a way for her to spend more time with her young daughters.

“Working in media, the hours are never good. It doesn’t matter if you are a morning anchor or an evening anchor or a reporter, the hours are not great for a family,” Kullmann said. “It was just time for me to have a more regular life and be home in the evening.”

Robertson said she learned Stevens had given his notice to take a communications management position at DC Ranch in Arizona the same day she exercised an option to turn in her 60-day notice. Robertson’s last day on the air was June 22. Stevens, who had been with KOLR, KSFX and KOZL for nearly six years, left June 15. Stacy – who now uses her married name, Katie Erwin – is working as communications manager for the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, and Schwaller is a freelance journalist.

“A lot of these people just had jobs come their ways,” said Robertson, noting she enjoyed her time at KOLR but wanted to find opportunities to report in a more detailed media format.

“To interview someone like Janice McCall – whose daughter Stacy disappeared into nowhere – it’s hard to carve that down into a minute-and-a-half or two minutes of story when you sat with her for 30 minutes,” Robertson said.

Both Kullmann and Robertson said they did not know what sort of impact losing the Fox affiliation had on their parent company.

“It was disheartening to learn that we wouldn’t be the Fox affiliate, but I was on the KOLR side mostly, so I really couldn’t tell you anything about the business dynamics of it,” Robertson said.

Erwin said she was anxious to get out of TV news and had family in the Kansas City area.

“TV news is a tough business,” Erwin said.

Andrew Bozarth, Tim Ingwerson and Nick Penka were the three account executives who moved to Vietti Marketing. Bozarth said pressure to sell mounted in the months that followed the loss of the Fox affiliation, culminating in the station’s switch to Rentrak rating system, which he said illustrated the market dominance of NBC-affiliate KY3 Inc.

“When you’re just selling a station – a media platform – it is hard to give full-service to your clients,” Bozarth said. “Certainly, losing Fox hurt our client’s ability to reach a great audience. … KY3 was so dominant. They were tough to sell against.”[[In-content Ad]]

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