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If you want to know how well LMAs work, ask the man who owns one.
BROADCASTING & CABLE did last week, in the shadow of the NAB's Florida joint board meeting. The owner was Bernard Waterman, president of Waterman Broadcasting in Fort Myers, Fla., licensee of WBBH-TV there and holder of a local marketing agreement for WZVN-TV Naples. That station had been owned by Ellis Communications, but was sold to Montclair Communications, headed by Lara Kunkler, for $21.3 million.
It couldn't have happened under existing duopoly rules, which the NAB is now devoted to changing. But it and the 50 or so existing LMAs are the precursors of a world in which broadcasters operate multiple channels.
In Fort Myers, it's first class. Waterman has been able to do for both stations what neither could have done alone. Last week the combination was completing an expanded...