Posted on 04/02/2008 4:31:35 AM PDT by abb
News operations at CBS stations in several cities started a series of job cuts this week even as the CBS News network moved ahead with plans to lay off about 1 percent of its nearly 1,200 employees.
Over the last several days, layoffs were ordered at local stations that CBS owns, including ones in New York, Chicago, Boston and San Francisco. Dana McClintock, a spokesman for CBS, said the actions at the network and the local stations were not related.
“This is not the result of any corporate mandate,” Mr. McClintock said. The moves are the latest in a wave of cuts at news operations in both television and print organizations.
The cuts at the local stations owned by CBS were related to the financial performance of the station group in the first quarter of 2008, a CBS station executive said. The executive, who requested anonymity because the company was restricting comment on the moves, said that CBS had not issued a corporate order to cut jobs but that the stations “had to deal with their budget numbers.”
The executive added, “It looks big and ugly, but it’s not something that was ordered from on high.”
CBS revenues declined 14.6 percent in the fourth quarter. Like most media stocks, the share price has also been in decline, down almost 20 percent for the year.
At the network news division, the cuts will not include any on-air staff members, CBS executives said, and are concentrated mainly on technical and support personnel. The “Evening News” program will not be affected, CBS said.
But the cuts will be felt at “The Early Show,” which is losing five employees.
snip
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Network evening newscasts will go dark after the '08 elections and their news divisions disbanded.
This story was posted yesterday, but such good news as this perhaps should be reposted along with more details.
ping
BWhahahahahahahahahaha
http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/chi-tue_childers-burns-out-apr01,0,4474126.story
chicagotribune.com
Channel 2 cuts top anchors
Burns, Childers axed in dramatic newsroom purge
By Phil Rosenthal
Tribune reporter
April 1, 2008
Click here to find out more!
After years of telling viewers about job cuts in the steel industry, among automakers, in the airline business and elsewhere, it’s now WBBM-Ch. 2 anchor Diann Burns’ industry—the media—shrinking. It’s now her job lost.
Burns, reputed to be the city’s highest-paid anchor, at $2 million per year, was part of the most dramatic single-day newsroom purge in Chicago TV history.
Beyond its lead anchor, the CBS-owned station on Monday cast off lead sportscaster Mark Malone, longtime anchor-turned-health correspondent Mary Ann Childers, reporter Katie McCall, as well as several behind-the-scenes personnel.
All told, the stationwide cost-cutting sweep claimed about 18 people from what had been a staff of more than 200, effective immediately. No department was exempt. Channel 2 President and General Manager Joe Ahern would only say the reduction was a “single-digit” percentage of the WBBM workforce.
Some were laid off. Others, including Burns, whose five-year deal isn’t set to expire until October, were told their contracts will not be renewed.
snip
Seems to me that CBS could do the news just fine with just 3 employees: one to read the news, one to write the news, and the third to operate the camera. Am I missing anybody? Could all be accomplished in the studio.
Related.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/02/business/media/02adco.html?ref=business
April 2, 2008
Advertising
NBC to Revive a Mainstay of Early TV
By STUART ELLIOTT
AS NBC looks to the future of its prime-time programming — shifting to a 52-week schedule from a calendar that runs from September through May — the network is borrowing a page from the past in asking advertisers to become involved sponsors of shows.
At a presentation on Wednesday afternoon, senior executives of NBC, part of the NBC Universal unit of General Electric, will describe how they are seeking to make advertisers into long-term partners rather than just sell them 30-second commercials.
One example is a new deal with the Liberty Mutual Group insurance company that is centered on a pair of two-hour TV movies to be broadcast under the banner of the company — “Liberty Mutual Presents,” for example.
The movie plots are intended to complement a campaign for Liberty Mutual that was introduced in 2006 by Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos in Boston, which carries the theme, “Responsibility. What’s your policy?” The scripts, which Liberty Mutual will help develop, will discuss subjects like taking responsibility for one’s actions and deciding how to do the right thing.
NBC Universal will promote the movies on its various networks and Web sites as well as during NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Summer Olympics and on Election Day in November. Liberty Mutual will advertise them, too.
The first movie, called “Kings,” is likely to appear in early September, said Stephen G. Sullivan, senior vice president for communications at Liberty Mutual in Boston, and the second, still not titled, will probably be shown in early 2009.
snip
Soon there won’t be anyone to give us the BS at CBS.
Will Katie be turning out the light over there.
Your missing a few: (1) One to be DNC liason, (2) One to write puffball interview pieces with the RATs, and (3) One to dig up dirt or make up stories about the conservative.
There that should be enough for a realistic SEE-BS staff.
More related.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120709465352781909.html?mod=mm_hs_media
Upfront Season Preserves Urgency
Ad-Growth Forecasts
Are Tempered After Strike;
ABC Executive Weighs In
By STEPHANIE KANG
April 2, 2008; Page B6
Between the economic funk and a months-long writers’ strike that kept many of television’s hottest shows off the air, the TV industry has taken its share of jabs.
[Mike Shaw]
And it could get tougher in the months ahead. Over the past week, some forecasters have lowered their estimates for U.S. ad-spending growth this year. On Monday, Wachovia analyst John Janedis dropped estimates from 3.8% to 2.6% — roughly half of the rate of growth that many others have been predicting until now. Despite these challenges, Mike Shaw, president of sales and marketing at Walt Disney Co.’s ABC, says he is optimistic as the network gears up for the annual ad-buying ritual known as the upfront.
The upfront remains an important event for networks such as ABC that often sell about three-quarters of their yearly ad inventory during that period. Upfront negotiations typically begin after a week’s worth of presentations and parties where networks show off new programs for advertisers and news media.
The process, however, is changing. NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co., is presenting its programming strategy to advertisers and reporters Wednesday, more than a month before its competitors.
ABC’s Mr. Shaw says the industry’s effort to better measure how people watch TV ads has helped. Last year, many TV networks and media buyers negotiated ad deals based on how many people watched commercials live or within three days after a recording, a measure known in the industry as C3. That was a shift from looking at how many people watched programs live, a metric used for years in the TV ad world. “We’re more accountable than we used to be,” Mr. Shaw says.
In an interview, Mr. Shaw offers an early read on the upfront. Below, some excerpts.
snip
Excellent points.
Yesterday, I heard an audio(on Rush Limbaugh) of Obama alerting his brain-dead audience that Dan RATher was in the press gallery. It sounded like he was totally enamored by the dirty skunks presence... and wanted his minions to pay homage as well.
Not so fast. They need someone to read the DNC and ACLU press releases and type them into the teleprompter. They would also need someone to doctor the photos and documents. Not just every guy who looks pretty on camera can gin up a document that will pass.
The network nitwits have been trying to talk us into a recession since the onset of the campaign season just so that people will vote for "change".
Now that they've convinced enough folks across the country to stop spending, their advertising revenue is in the tank.....and they're slipping into the same recession they've been promoting for our enjoyment.
You might say they're being hoist by their own petwords.
Leni
You're a G-d d@mn liar, Mr. McClintock. Note how the article says yet again further down that this isn't a dictate from corporate. Of COURSE it is. How effing stupid do these people think we are?
TV media finally feeling print media’s pain
Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
When five longtime on-air journalists were laid off this week at CBS 5-TV (KPIX) in San Francisco, many viewers and analysts were left scratching their heads. Local TV news stations post a 20 percent profit, and ratings for the CBS-owned and -operated station are solid. Plus, election years like this one - with high voter interest - are a godsend to local TV stations for the mounds of campaign advertising they bring.
What happened this week at KPIX, where 15 of about 250 station employees were laid off, is both an old and a new story. Old in that it - and other CBS-owned and -operated stations from Chicago to Dallas - weren’t making enough profit, so salaries were shed. And new in that local TV stations are finally feeling the impact of the changing ways people consume media.
The pain wasn’t felt just at the local level. On Tuesday, CBS News confirmed that 1 percent of its 1,200-person workforce would be laid off. No on-air talent is expected to go, and the “Evening News” will not be affected, said CBS News spokesman Sandy Genelius.
The cuts follow 20 layoffs last week at ABC News. Over the past two years, NBC News has lost about 30 jobs as a result of a companywide effort to reduce 700 jobs. Station officials at KNTV and KGO-TV in San Francisco don’t anticipate cuts locally. A representative at KRON, which has experienced major cutbacks in recent years, declined to comment, and spokesmen for KTVU did not respond to requests for comment.
CBS spokesman Genelius said Tuesday that “there was absolutely no connection” between the local station cutbacks and the national ones.
Instead, the TV news layoffs are more a reflection of a transforming media marketplace - and the financial expectations that are changing with it.
“If you’re used to 45 percent profit, then if you only have 20 or 30, it feels like you’re in the poor house,” said Bob Papper, a professor of journalism at Hofstra University who regularly surveys the nation’s TV and radio news directors. “KPIX is a strong station. This is not about them. This is a CBS thing.”
Revenue at CBS declined 14.6 percent in the fourth quarter. Papper said many networks lost viewers during the recent writer’s strike “when people got sick of watching reality TV and reruns. So they took it out on the local stations.”
The economic slump is hurting TV networks, too, mostly in the form of its largest advertiser - automobile companies. According to media analysts at the research firm TNS, in 2007, U.S. automotive spending on TV fell 8.3 percent to $7.62 billion.
Whatever the reason, local TV viewers will no longer get to see KPIX veterans like Manny Ramos and Bill Schechner on the station. Also, sportscaster/reporter Rick Quan, who had been with KPIX since 1987, learned Tuesday that he also was part of the layoff.
There weren’t cuts at all of the 29 CBS-owned and -operated stations, but several of the larger ones like WBBM in Chicago (17 jobs lost), Boston’s WBZ (20 jobs) and KYW in Philadelphia (12 jobs) are absorbing big hits.
While local news stations remained profitable, ratings for evening and late newscasts dropped in 2007 for the second year in a row, according to the 2008 State of the News Media report. Morning news shows held firm.
Still, half of the nation’s news directors reported increasing their budgets last year, according to the study. Why? Because newsrooms are the economic engine of a local TV station, contributing roughly 42 percent of station’s revenue, according to a national survey of news directors.
“But they’re fighting a continued fragmentation of the market,” Papper said. “Just as newspapers have found out, there are a lot more places to go to get news.”
KPIX spokeswoman Akilah Monifa said the cutbacks won’t affect the station’s coverage or any of its newscasts. Last month, the station added another 30-minute newscast to its lineup, producing a 10 p.m. program on sister station KBCW, staffed by their prime-time parent news team.
But others, like Papper, doubt there will be no effect. So do some of their competitors.
“I don’t think you can take four veteran reporters off the street and think it’s not going to make a difference in covering the 10 counties we cover,” said Kevin Keeshan, news director at KGO-TV. “But it’s a sad day for all of us in this industry when there are layoffs. We all take it pretty hard.”
E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfhchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/02/BUUQVU7F9.DTL
At least they're finally leading in something! :)
You suck, CBS.
“Seems to me that CBS could do the news just fine with just 3 employees: one to read the news, one to write the news, and the third to operate the camera. Am I missing anybody? Could all be accomplished in the studio.”
You do not even need that since most of their national/international news is canned from the AP/Reuters/Al Jazeera.
The newsreader can rip & read. No need for the writer. Just saved CBS another 30k.
I guess we should not shortchange CBS. As a first-rate top-notch news organization, they should not have any hoarse news readers. So, lets add one more full-time employee... they must employ someone to pour the water into the news reader’s glass (only when it is half-empty, of course).
That said - cutting rather than changing is a short term gain and a long term disaster.
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