Gremillion's Double Duty In South Florida

By: Lucia Moses When Tribune Co. brass last week gave South Florida Sun-Sentinel Publisher Bob Gremillion additional responsibility for sibling station WBZL-TV, it was an emotional moment for the former broadcaster. "When I got the phone call, I lost my breath," he said. "It was just great."

South Florida may be the only U.S. market where a newspaper and broadcast station with the same owner are overseen by the same person. With Gremillion's TV background and the station's lack of a strong news program, it made sense for Tribune to give him the run of both properties. Tribune purchased the Hollywood-based station five years ago, but was banned from operating it with Fort Lauderdale's Sun-Sentinel until August, when federal regulators OK'd cooperation between the two. They can now cross-promote and share news and advertising resources, but the decision also raises issues.

Gremillion has to figure out how to leverage The WB-affiliated station's younger audience to benefit the Sun-Sentinel and its related products. Then there's the matter of the Sun-Sentinel's pre-existing news-gathering partnership with WBZL competitor WFOR-TV, the CBS station for Miami-South Florida. The two struck up the partnership after Tribune bought WBZL, knowing Tribune might one day be able to operate its properties together.

Now that that day has come, Gremillion admitted severing the WFOR relationship is a possibility. The question for the Sun-Sentinel is, he said, "How thin do we want to spread ourselves?"

Will the new management structure become a model for other Tribune cross-media markets? The company said it isn't likely because those markets already have longstanding TV news programs.

As the media march toward a converged future, what is likely to continue is the cross-pollination Gremillion exemplifies. He managed Tribune's New Orleans TV station and ran its CLTV News, Chicago's 24-hour cable news channel, before being named publisher of the Sun-Sentinel in 1997. At the paper, he has brought in people from varied media backgrounds to prepare for its multimedia future.

Because of the risk involved in changing careers, Gremillion expects that most executive movements between media will happen not at the top but at the middle level. "I only know a few people in broadcast who are interested in the newspaper business," he said. "It's a leap of faith you have to take."