OLD FACE, NEW PLACE

One of the significant advantages of big media companies getting even bigger is that you can game parts of the system by tucking away talent you want in Market A into nearby (and co-owned) Market B until you can bring them back to where you wanted them in the first place.

Exhibit A: Nexstar’s KELO in Sioux Falls, SD just announced that Bridget Bennett will be the new weeknight co-anchor alongside Don Jorgensen, who’s been in the market since the Hoover Administration, we think.

A year ago, our old station, Gray’s KSFY in Sioux Falls, bid a teary on-air farewell to weekend anchor Bennett, after four years as weekend anchor at the station.

Bennett, who’d been with KSFY since 2012, was off to become weeknight co-anchor at Nexstar’s KCAU, just down I-29 about 80 miles in Sioux City, IA.

See where this is going?

A year later, non-complete clause now lapsed, a very patient Nexstar brings Bennett back to Sioux Falls with a year’s seasoning as main anchor under her belt.

If she’d picked the right bedroom community, she wouldn’t have had to move.