Producer Layoffs At CBS?

Mediabistro ^ | 12/1/06

[LdSentinal]

A Black Rock source writes to TVNewser:

"With all the talk about layoffs at NBC, you may want to poke around CBS. Two weeks ago a veteran evening news producer was let go, last week, a senior producer on weekends was fired, and this week a Dallas producer and and Atlanta producer were terminated. At least two other evening news producers have been put on notice..."

[Redbob]

News like this always breaks my heart... NOT!

[N. Theknow]

this week a Dallas producer and and Atlanta producer were terminated. At least two other evening news producers have been put on notice..."

In other news...Kinko's announced closures of their Dallas and Atlanta stores. Other stores have been put on notice.

[Rastus]

Firing the flunkies to avoid admitting that Katie has no clothes.

[Hegemony Cricket]

See tagline.

[geezerwheezer]

Like you, I'm deeply saddened to read of this. :0 ) I'm certain I'll cry later, but I just can't stop laughing right now thinking cutey-pie Katie might go soon too. Her ratings are dismal and they keep saying they will pick up. Wanna bet on that one?

[DallasMike]

Kinko's announced closures of their Dallas and Atlanta stores.

You had me hooked there for a second. I can see Kinko's - Fed-Ex corporate headquarters from my office windows and I was wondering why they heck they would be closing stores

My thinking must be slower than even usual today.

[FlingWingFlyer]

If SeeBS went off the air, would anybody really notice?

[RobRoy]

Where is the Dinosaur Media DeatWatch tag?

[RobRoy]

Not having tv, I wouldn't.

[cinives]

Yes, I'd miss CSI and Shark very much. Other than that, they can just broadcast a test pattern for all I care.

[Milhous]

You got any intel on this?

[petitfour]

Yes. Hubby and I are watching Jericho on CBS. We'll be very disappointed if they don't finish the show. As it is, they're taking a two month break. We have to wait until February for the show to continue.

[Milhous]

[Washington DC] Late-Night Newscasts See Big Drop In Viewers

A precipitous decline in late prime-time viewership took its toll on 11 p.m. weeknight newscasts, according to Nielsen figures for TV's November "sweeps" period that concluded yesterday.

All three local stations that have network programming after 10 p.m. -- WRC (Channel 4), WJLA (Channel 7), WUSA (Channel 9) -- saw late-newscast viewership plummet by more than 10 percent compared with last year.

Total weekday viewers at 11 p.m. fell from 463,000 last November to 382,000 at those stations -- a decline of nearly 20 percent. The stations were hurt in no small part by the sharp decrease in ratings among the network lead-in shows; at 10:45 p.m., local weekday viewership fell by more than 25 percent (from 673,000 to 505,000).

At WJLA, the drop was most drastic. The station's 11 p.m. viewership plunged by about 35 percent compared with last year (from 123,000 to 79,000). The ABC affiliate got no help from such anemic lead-ins as "The Nine," which was just put on hiatus.

Bill Lord, WJLA's vice president of news, said that overall, the station's prime-time lineup performed well, led by such midweek hits as "Grey's Anatomy" and "Lost" -- but those programs air at 9 p.m. "The thing that concerns me is the lead-in," he said. "It's an ongoing issue with us."

Ratings from the year's four sweeps periods are used to set rates for advertisers.

WRC led at 11 p.m., but weekday viewership of its newscast was down 11 percent (from 200,000 last year to 178,000). WUSA (Channel 9) declined by about 15,000 viewers, to 125,000.

At WTTG (Channel 5), the 11 p.m. newscast -- which debuted in July -- drew 80,000 viewers. (Last year, the station's "Geraldo at Large" had 68,000 viewers at that time.)

The station's 10 p.m. newscast, though, was down -- from 174,000 viewers to 160,000.

---

Chaos 2.0

To Witness The Collapse of the Old Model, Stay Tuned To Your Local Station

A few layoffs at a local NBC affiliate in Washington, DC. In the overall scheme of things, who cares?

You should, because what happened at WRC 4 this week is the leading edge of the End of TV As We Know It.

Under cost pressure from its owner-operator, NBC, WRC severed ties with four of its most familiar news personalities -- just as rival WUSA 9 did a couple of years back. No problem, says management, people will still watch us for our way of doing things (which, by the way, if you care about news, is already worse than pitiful).

Former market leader WUSA, of course, had offered exactly the same assurances. Now its 5 p.m. newscast is in fifth place, behind four other newscasts and "Judge Mathis," and its 6 p.m. languishes in fourth.

Local broadcasters depend on two things for the bulk of their revenue: ad inventory allotted to them within network shows and their ads on local news and the prime-access that follows. But rapidly shrinking network audiences will soon devastate prime-time ad revenues, and local cost-cutting will decimate local news budgets, starving the goose that lays the golden egg.

Think about 2007. No election to pump up the local ad markets. No Olympics. And, as for prime time, the nets are bypassing their affiliates with online distribution. Long ago we predicted blood in the streets. Next year, it will begin to flow.

[MindBender26]

I'm out of touch in Kiev. Back mid-week