News Press Gazette (NPG) will pretty much rule the Yuma/El Centro market.

Late yesterday, the company announced that it will take control of KYMA and KSWT in the market.

By taking control of these two stations, it will mean that NPG will run the NBC, CBS, ABC and Fox station in town.

So much for competition.

Here is the internal memo sent to the staff:

Mike Meara and NPG announced today that NPG has entered into a “resource sharing agreement” with Blackhawk Broadcasting for the operation of two other network affiliates in the Yuma-El Centro market. The stations are KYMA, the NBC affiliate and KSWT, the CBS affiliate. As many of you know, NPG of Yuma-El Centro already owns and operates KECY and KESE in that market, which includes the FOX affiliate, the ABC affiliate, the CW affiliate and the Telemundo affiliate. Effective immediately, all employees of KYMA and KSWT (except sales) will now become employees of NPG. The sales staff will continue to be employees of Blackhawk Broadcasting. This is just like the KCOY (CBS) agreement that NPG has with Cowles Broadcasting in the Santa Maria / Santa Barbara market.

All of the employees will be moving to the NPG of Yuma-El Centro building in Yuma which is being re-modeled to accommodate everyone. All of the stations will continue to produce the newscasts that they are currently providing. Paul Heebink will continue to be the General Manager.

Please join me in congratulating Paul and his team and in welcoming all of the new NPG employees from KYMA and KSWT.

News-Press & Gazette Broadcasting continues to grow! For the record we now operate 45 affiliates in ten different markets.