If there was any question about what kind of impact the national recession is having on the local market, it was answered on April 28. Within a span of several hours, the local NBC and Fox affiliates pulled the plug on their local newscasts, firing most of their news staff in the process, and Clear Channel Communications laid off several local employees, including some high-profile radio personalities.
In retrospect, none of the moves was unexpected. Media outlets have been hit hard by the precipitous decline in ad revenues, particularly from national advertisers and automotive dealers, and it was just a matter of time before the effects were felt here. Still, it happened all at once.
For sister stations WVLA-TV and WGMB-TV, the rumor to end the local newscasts had circulated for two days before the decision was officially announced in a terse, written statement released shortly after the staff was notified of the cuts. The statement said only that the newscasts would “have a new look” and would “originate from the same facility which has been producing the weekend newscasts since last fall.”
You might not have understood what that meant if you didn’t already know that the stations’ weekend newscasts, though supposedly tailored for the local market, are actually produced and anchored from a sister station in Tyler, Texas. Now, all of the stations’ daily newscasts, except for WVLA’s 6 a.m. show, are produced at KTVK-TV, some 280 miles from Baton Rouge.
It’s an interesting business model, to say the least, and it’s being tested in markets around the country. A single station in a corporate family serves as the hub of production, providing the set and the anchor “talent” for all the stations in that group. The other stations keep their own skeleton crew of reporters and photographers to gather local news items, which are then digitally transmitted to the hub station. From there, they are edited into a “like live” newscast, which is partially prerecorded and contains a mix of local and national news, sports and weather.
In theory, it should work. In reality, it doesn’t. And that’s not because the execution is particularly bad—though the anchors in Texas clearly have no connection to the local market, their handful of viewers or, worst of all, the local weather guy, whose name they have to double-check from the script every time they to toss to him.
Those are minor problems compared to the bigger issue, which is that the delivery mode represents a concerted effort to mislead viewers into thinking they’re watching live, local news. And why does that matter? Because if a news source has no credibility, it has nothing. If a station is making it appear as though its shows are being produced here when they’re not—and that is the assumption you make when watching a local newscast—what can you trust about it?
This is lowest-common-denominator news with a bad track record. Just a few months ago, KTVK accidentally aired an entire Sunday evening newscast on WGMB from the previous Sunday. Station management blamed it on a computer glitch, and said the situation was blown out of proportion. But it shows just one of the many pitfalls of doing news this way.
Also sad is that the young, hard-working staff at WVLA and WGMB really tried to succeed and was starting to make small improvements in the anemic ratings that plagued both stations. There was no word on where anchors Stone Grissom, Valentina Wilson or Jeff Beimfohr are headed next. Efforts to reach them were unsuccessful. There also was no word on the future plans of ousted news director Jeffrey Hamburger, who has been replaced by reporter David D’Aquin.
Clear Channel wasn’t treating some of its longtime talent much better. The radio giant axed afternoon drive-time host Bill Profita of WJBO-AM, along with Rick Cantu and Scott Carlisle of KRVE-FM, Kevin Campbell of WFMF-FM, and Josh Innes, who reports sports for WJBO.
Layoffs were not unexpected. In January, Clear Channel let go more than 1,800 employees, but the Baton Rouge market was largely spared. What was surprising is that corporate chose to let go well-known, longtime broadcasters who couldn’t have been costing them that much money to begin with.
For Profita, his 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. show was just a part-time gig. Most of his day is spent running AdComm, his ad agency that handles the Metro Airport account, among others. Profita says he will continue his ad business and won’t let Clear Channel’s recent actions affect where he places his client’s ad buys.
He will, however, miss being on the air. “I always felt like I gave it my best effort,” he says, “and I’m sorry it had to end this way.”
