Doug Krile realizes a few central Arkansas television viewers may be questioning his sanity right now. After all, he just left a high-profile news anchor job at one of the market’s top stations for a start-up news program on a low-power, ultra-high frequency (UHF) station that isn’t even on the local cable.
Krile says he thought long and hard about the move last weekend. On Aug. 11, KKYK-TV, Channel 22, announced it had lured Krile away from KARK-TV, Channel 4, to develop an hour-long 9 p.m. newscast that will start Sept. 15.
KKYK is owned by Arkansas Media, which is part of Kaleidoscope Affiliates, the company formed by the Max Hooper-led investment entity The Equity Group.
Krile says he’s not blowing smoke when he says the challenge is what attracted him.
“It’s a chance to be on the ground floor of something, and the potential is more than one low-power, UHF station,” he says. “This company owns 30 of them, some of which are full power. They have long-range goals that sound really, really interesting. And it’s not something I came over to thinking it was going to be magic in six months.”
Coincidentally, it was through Krile’s work with KARK’s Internet home page that put him in contact with Neal Ardman, Arkansas Media’s general manager. Ardman talked Bob Summers into moving from Virginia and starting his software company, Summersoft, in Little Rock. Ardman called Krile to compliment him on KARK’s original web page efforts last year and suggested the station should consider putting its newscast on the Internet live. Summers provided the software to make that possible.
“It’s not that this place was unknown to me,” Krile says, adding that he was impressed with the ideas that had become reality at Arkansas Media in the past year. Krile says the Internet “will play a role over here.”
Krile’s leaving KARK was obviously amicable: He worked the KARK newscast the first two days last week after starting at KKYK.
“I had no problems whatsoever there,” he says. “I was enjoying all of the projects I was doing thoroughly and I’ve never had a problem with the product over there. In fact, I’m a proponent of a fast-paced newscast. I had no problem going to that over there, though it’s not what we’re going to do here.”
What KKYK’s news program will feature is more depth to its reporting, more explanation. “There’s a lot of interest in weather that you can’t do in the three-and-a-half minutes the other stations give. There’s a lot of interest in sports and you can’t get it all into the two-and-a-half or three minutes the other folks can afford to give during a half-hour newscast.”
Krile said the challenge will be presenting that hour-long show in a palatable form for all viewers.
KKYK hopes to have more viewers. Ardman has been urging Comcast Cablevision Inc. to carry KKYK’s signal, but because the station is low power, it does not fall under the federal “must carry” law. “I’m hopeful [cable will pick up KKYK] or I wouldn’t have made the jump. I’m confident, put it that way,” Krile says.
Krile began his career in college at the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, working there from 1971-86 as a radio broadcaster, TV reporter, anchor and news director. He then joined KARK when the station began its “Sunrise” program before moving to evening news.
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