Jim Rogers, fiesty owner of KSNV Las Vegas, told station staff he is battling cancer and emphasized his intent to hold onto the NBC affiliate, according to Las Vegas Review Journal reports.
Rogers declined to comment on the type of cancer he has. Addressing KSNV employees in the station newsroom last month, he said, “whatever happens, the station will not be put up for sale.”
Reports the paper:
“He got a little choked up talking about the future of Channel 3,” said Lisa Howfield, vice president and general manager. "Primarily, he wanted to assure everybody at the station (No. 1), he wanted to tell people what was going on with his health, then assure everyone that the station is not going anywhere, that he’s putting his resources into expanding everything that we’re doing at the station. He was just wanting the employees to feel comfortable knowing the station isn’t going anywhere."
Rogers battled bladder cancer seven years ago, reports the newspaper.
“I assume I’ll come out of this all right. I did the last time,” he said.
Rogers' station group, Intermountain West Communications Co., has been getting smaller. It sold KYMA Yuma (Ariz.) and Idaho's KPVI Pocatello and KXTF Twin Falls, and in November agreed to sell the non-license assets of KRNV Reno to Sinclair.
But KSNV presumably has a special place in the heart of Rogers, a Vegas native. Rogers is a wealthy man and a philanthropist, and I've always enjoyed my limited number of conversations with him. After I wrote about KSNV making a huge bet on local programming, he chastised me for bestowing the Vegas "leader" title on KLAS, believing it was KSNV's.
Best wishes to him.
