NEW YEAR’S NEWS

Parade Wars: KTTV Channel 11 sent KTLA Channel 5 three blank commercial cartridges, claiming that since it won’t be running commercials during its Rose Parade coverage on New Year’s Day, KTLA perhaps could use them. The stations have been sniping at each other in their on-air parade promos. KTTV says that it will be mentioning sponsors but won’t run spots as such; KTLA cameras won’t leave the parade but will use “see-through” overlay images of sponsors on the screen. The cartridges were sent by Greg Nathanson, president of the Fox Station Group, to Steve Bell, general manager of KTLA. A KTLA spokesman said he was amused by the free cartridges but that Bell was unavailable for comment.