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To: Tom Kearney who wrote (59038)	5/28/1999 1:22:00 PM
From: Bill Harmond	Respond to of 164684

You are right. Audience levels are down at the major nets, and advertising rates are up because the reach story is still valid. However the it is a profitless picture. The audience fractionalization has undermined revenues while production costs have continued higher. LJ is right that local television stations are still very profitable, particularly network affiliates. But they have peaked in their potential, too, because entertainment ratings are being siphoned off by cable competition (and now the Internet). What that leaves is local news (where they are still uncontested, and which has always been their biggest profit center) and local sports (which is costing them increasingly-more in royalties).