Personal information
Current company: Lockwood Broadcasting
Position: President and CEO
Location: Hampton Virginia
Place of Birth: New Martinsville West Virginia (Wheeling – Steubenville DMA). Very proud of my heritage and the fact that I am from “Almost Heaven West Virginia”
Date of Birth: 06/11/58
Personal info: I married my high school sweetheart Jodi Petrie and have been happily married for 32 years. We have two daughters, oldest daughter Ashley lives in West Hollywood and works for CBS (OMG Insider) in Studio City California. Youngest daughter Jordan is a sophomore at the University of Alabama and is studying film and communications.
College: My wife Jodi and I both graduated in 1980 from West Virginia University. I hold a BS in Journalism which I initially thought was going to lead me to be a Sports Information Director at a major university someday but life pointed me in another direction.
Favorite band or artist: all time favorites BOSTON, ELTON JOHN, THE BEATLES……Have fallen in love with FUN as well recently.
Favorite movies: Forrest Gump, Pulp Fiction, Gladiator, Rocky and Field of Dreams
Favorite books: The Cyclops Conspiracy by David Perry (a local Virginia author)
Sports Team Preferences: West Virginia University Football and Basketball, Pittsburgh Steelers and Pirates…..
Hobbies/Passions: Causes/Charities: Golf is both a hobby and a stress reliever, I was lucky enough to play a few years in college and truly love the game and the history around it. My father really helped nurture my love of the game and always made sure I played as a child and provided the resources for me to develop a good game. I have volunteered for years with youth sports leagues with coaching and with fundraising. Both my wife and mother are cancer survivors and I have supported various cancer research charities and served on a few Boards in support.
Questions:
1. How did you get started in the business?
I really got started in this business by accident. Lockwood Broadcasting was founded in 1997 by me and our owner Jim Lockwood. Together we had successfully sold another Lockwood business and moved completely into the television business with no background or history in it. We bought a few low power stations in the Norfolk DMA and actually made money with them and grew them into fully reported cash flowing stations here. We then moved into full power stations in both Norfolk and Richmond Virginia and had a successful run with those stations ultimately selling to Paxson in Norfolk and Raycom in Richmond. Upon the sale of our Richmond station WUPV in 2007 to Raycom we invested into a hub operation for our current stations and have built capacity to continue our current growth. We have six stations now in five markets and we hope to double that to what we feel will be our best potential as a group. Our owner and his partners have provided us with an opportunity to grow our group through acquisition – we are buyers and feel strongly that we have some really great opportunities to add to our group.
2. How’s business shaping up for 2013, and in particular, how are you dealing with the lack of political in an off-election year?
Business is good – better on the local side where our staff can have a more direct impact on results. The majority of our stations are either rebuilds or start ups so sales growth this year on a percent basis is high and a little deceiving just looking at the numbers – not a fair comparison to the rest of the market.
3. What are the company’s thoughts on television duopolies? Are there plans to seek second in-market stations either through acquisition or JSA/SSAs?
Where we can legally double up like in Knoxville with WBXX and WKNX we’d love to. Hopefully once Sinclair and others are done scaling up, there will be opportunities to pair up if they and others ultimately choose to divest any non-strategic markets or stations.
4. Does Lockwood have plans for further acquisition activity in general? If so, what types or properties, in what size markets?
Yes we plan to grow and have capacity with financing and most importantly infrastructure. We currently have one station under an LOI and hope to have one more soon. We have had success with CW and enjoy our relationship with them. I believe in Mark Pedowitz and our CW partnerships. At the same time it makes sense for us to diversify with more big fours. We really don’t care where the station targets might be – we are disciplined buyers and feel if it fits our model we will look at any station any affiliation. We have built just a terrific team here at Lockwood Broadcasting at both the local level and in our corporate offices. We have managers who are difference makers and it is my job to get them stations to continue our success. As the President of this company it is comforting to know we can handle the addition of our target stations and make them viable assets in our portfolio.
5. What is the company’s take on the upcoming incentive auctions? Any plans to turn over any television properties? Do you think there will be any demand in smaller markets?
Lockwood has no interest in turning over spectrum nor do we think there will be any demand in the smaller markets outside of the top 10 or 15. We value the spectrum we have and in Texas we have NBC, ABC, and CW utilizing all spectrum we have. Long term as compression technology improves there will be considerable opportunities with our spectrum. I think David Smith is a really smart guy to follow in terms of his thinking on this and it appears he values the spectrum for its value long term.
6. What can Congress and the FCC do to ensure that local broadcast television remains a vital and vibrant business going into the future?
There are a number of short-term and long term issues and we don’t have enough time to cover all of them. One small example for us is the process of delisting stations from the significantly viewed list. The FCC requires stations to purchase viewer reports from Nielsen. Nielsen won’t sell you a report if you aren’t a full service client. What is a non-client supposed to do when the government refuses to consider another avenue? Broadcasters are smart enough to make their business work. We will protect our programming franchises and our business needs in a changing market for the public consumer of free TV.
7. Is there any question you’d like to answer that we forgot to ask?
There isn’t enough praise for Perry Sook and the job he did in retrans and saving margins for stations especially in such a critical time when revenues fell during the recession. David Smith is setting the market in what was a stagnant market leaving banks and investors questioning the value of TV as a quality space for investment. I think most of the criticism of Smith and Sinclair is based in jealousy and not based in facts. We are really in a wonderful position to watch some other smart groups and simply follow their leads.
