Monday, Nov. 8, 1999 | 10:05 a.m.
Consider what a national television network devoted to Las Vegas could do for the Entertainment Capital of the World.
For one possibility, look at the evolution of the Nashville Network, a cable television operation that started in March 1983 and now prefers to be known just as TNN.
The country music-oriented TNN started with an audience of about 7 million viewers at its launch and has 76 million today.
The network helped put the Grand Ole Opry in the nation's living rooms and vaulted Nashville, Tenn., to national prominence.
Today, the network is more than just country music. It's one of the premiere television venues for NASCAR and other motor sports, wrestling, rodeo and professional bull riding. TNN also is home to several fishing, hunting and outdoors shows.
"The network now spreads beyond Nashville and it's bigger than just country music," said Cheryl Daly, a TNN spokeswoman. "Actually, we consider Las Vegas to be our second home because so much of our programming originates from there."
In Las Vegas, Danny Greenspun, vice president of the Las Vegas Sun, has had a dream about developing a network that would do for Las Vegas what TNN has done for Nashville.
Today, Greenspun's dream is under serious consideration. The product and financing are under study by Comspan Communications Inc., a Santa Monica, Calif.-based consulting firm specializing in television network development.
Comspan was retained by the Greenspun Corp. to develop the venture, called the Vegas Television Network. Larry Namer, the developer of the E! Entertainment Television network and the head of Comspan, will determine whether VTN can fly and how much it would cost to launch.
Early findings are encouraging.
Namer said the day his hiring was announced that he had already thought of 30 concepts for possible inclusion on the network. Some of the possibilities: reviews from the city's showrooms, complete with video clips from the productions; sports previews centered around gambling odds; cooking shows featuring the top chefs of Las Vegas; maybe even old reruns of "Vega$," starring Robert Urich.
Greenspun believes his company may be the best positioned to undertake such a challenge. He also knows that if he succeeds, it would be an extremely profitable venture.
"We are the most logical investors, if not operators, of a television network emanating from Las Vegas," Greenspun said. "Given all of our media holdings and relationships throughout the city, I think we are uniquely positioned for the large number of complex deals associated with the network."
The VTN concept is one of the most ambitious projects being undertaken by the Greenspun family, but it isn't the company's first foray into television.
Hank Greenspun, former publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, headed a group that in 1954 obtained the license for KLAS Channel 8, Southern Nevada's first television station. Greenspun bought out his partners and ran the station until 1969, when he sold it to Howard Hughes.
While Greenspun owned KLAS, he first contemplated a local television news station that could use the resources of his newspaper. He later created what became Prime Cable of Las Vegas.
Last year, Atlanta-based Cox Communications Inc. bought out Prime and most of the Greenspun family's interest in the Las Vegas operation for $1.325 billion.
But the family maintained a key presence in the industry because of the Sun's stake in Las Vegas One, a 24-hour cable television news channel on the Cox system. The other partners in the venture are KLAS Channel 8, Las Vegas' CBS affiliate; and Cox.
Under the partnership, Las Vegas Sun reporters supplement the efforts of Las Vegas One's news staff, KLAS provides the production facilities and news resources for the show and Cox contributes the cable access.
In April 1998 Las Vegas One, which appears on Channels 1 and 39 on the Cox system, launched its first prime-time programming with half-hour newscasts five days a week in the 10 p.m. time slot. As the shows became more popular, the newscasts expanded to an hour-long format and took the 9 p.m. and 10 p.m. time slots.
The newest show on Las Vegas One is a news discussion program called "POV Vegas." Broadcast at 5, 6 and 8 p.m., the half-hour show features host Mark Shaffer and Las Vegas Sun reporters interviewing local newsmakers.
The show won the local 1999 Electronic Media Awards' "Best TV Discussion-Interview Program."
While the company continues to develop Las Vegas One and explore the feasibility of VTN, it is a dominant player in another electronic medium -- its website, Vegas.com.
With close to 4 million page impressions per month and 60,000 unique visitors per day, Vegas.com ranks as one of the most popular websites devoted to Las Vegas.
General manager Bryan Allison said Vegas.com and its biggest rival, lasvegas.com, operated by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, are in heated battle to dominate the local online scene. Allison said Vegas.com is the only audited site on Las Vegas so he'll continue to refer to it as the largest until an accredited organization says otherwise.
The website debuted as Vegas Deluxe in 1996. In August 1998 the company acquired the vegas.com domain.
"Back in 1996 when we first got started, 3,000 hits was a good day," Allison said of the number of visits the site received in its early days. "Today, we get about 700,000 hits in a day. Over Sept. 1 and 2, we had more than a million hits because people wanted to get a look at the Paris hotel-casino opening."
Page "impressions" or "views" are recorded whenever a someone clicks on and observes a page. A "hit" occurs when a graphic or information element is viewed. Allison said there are 10 to 12 graphic elements on the Vegas.com main page, so a dozen hits could occur in any page view.
Breaking news about Las Vegas, championship boxing matches and car races are attracting viewers to Vegas.com.
Allison said that among the most popular attractions on Vegas.com is a section on construction. New photos are offered every month showing the status of resort sites as they are built. The site's content on Las Vegas casino companies also is well read, Allison said.
One of the newest attractions on the site is a message board, monitored by Vegas.com staff, with an active community of about 500 registered users asking and answering questions about the city and offering opinions and observations.
Allison said contributions from VegasGolfer, the Greenspun Publications Group's newest magazine, have sparked a new audience for the website as has the company's sponsorship of an Indy Racing League race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Allison said the Vegas.com 500 race in September was the company's first collaboration with the speedway. He hopes to do more promotions with the track and develop the website as the location race fans go to for information about the Indy Racing League and NASCAR events in Las Vegas.
Another promotional venture that has spurred a new audience is the company's sponsorship of a blimp.
The company hopes to do more with e-commerce in the future. Allison said ticket sales, reservations and other transactions will play a greater role on the site as viewers become more comfortable with buying and selling over the Internet.
Paul Traudt, an associate professor at UNLV's Hank Greenspun School of Communications, said Las Vegas One fulfills a community service with its commitment to local news.
"There's an unfulfilled niche in most communities for extended local television news," Traudt said. "Channel 1 is an effort to fill that niche in Las Vegas."
Traudt said Las Vegas One has a growing number of viewers thanks to the drama of the courtroom. Just as the O.J. Simpson trial riveted millions of viewers, thousands have watched the Ted Binion murder case unfold in their living rooms thanks to Las Vegas One.
"Courtrooms are the stuff of good drama," Traudt said, "and it's a compelling story. It made national news and the characters are real."
But Traudt indicated it's too early to tell whether there are enough community dramas like the Binion case to hold an audience.
"I know they are operating at a deficit and other (companies) are paying the bills to establish an audience that may never materialize," Traudt said. "But it is fulfilling a need."
With interactive television in the company's future, Greenspun said he went to experts to position Vegas.com and the Vegas Television Network for the world of e-commerce. He also got involved with the Entertainment Development Corp. to get acquainted with Hollywood business people who could help develop the dream.
"This is a whole new area for us," Greenspun said of connecting the Internet product with a television network. "There was lots of strategic planning necessary to put all the pieces together.
"We're getting ourselves positioned," he said. "We're getting ready to get big."
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