The following thoughts are aimed at executives of media corporations…but I would like your thoughts as well. I’m certain that the percentage of dopers that are news consumers is higher than average.
Ratings are falling for local TV news, which is making things worse for those still employed in that endeavor. For those of you who don’t know, I have worked for five television stations for a total of about ten years. Why the two year average? Low pay caused me to leave two of them and I was laid off from two others…which neatly illustrates two of the problems facing the industry today. Let’s start with the problems first…
Problem 1: “You kids and your damned internet!”
The internet is free. Users to expect content to cost them nothing. TV news has been supported by advertisers which pays the bills…but if the TV stations have to put thier content on web pages to compete with everyone else, why would anyone then make the newscast “appointment television”? You can get news, weather and sports any time you wish on the internet. Without commercials. Yes, yes, I know about the banners and pre-roll ads. But they don’t pay the bills anything close to the spots in a newscast. Falling revenue means cutbacks.
Problem 2: The economy
Corporate owners of TV stations have been some of the biggest players in the leveraged buyouts of properties in the past 10-15 years. Now that the house of cards has come crashing down, they are holding millions of dollars of debt because they thought the party would never end. Couple that with the fact that one of the first things companies do in tough times is cut back on advertising, you end up with a double whammy. High debt and falling revenue means cutbacks.
Problem 3: The cutbacks
“Do more with less” becomes the battle cry of executives who have never set foot in a newsroom in their lives…or the last time they did was when times were completely different. Sure, sir, we’ll do more with less. Let’s cut back on the Assignment Desk so fewer people are listening to the scanners, planning ahead for the next day and trying to smooth the way for crews in the field. Let’s also lay off that guy who knows where all the bodies are buried because he makes too much money. We can hire a 22 year old for a third of the cost! Now let’s look at the photography staff. Let’s make that guy set up the live shot and run the truck. He can do both jobs! Sure he can…but that means he locks down the shot at the flooding scene instead of being able to pan for the reporter. Or he does man the camera and can’t see that he has a loose cable back in the truck and the shot is blown. Or we can make the reporters shoot! True…but that means “meat and potatoes” shooting instead of visually interesting shots because the reporter doesn’t have time to do that and collect the information at the same time. And self-shot standups generally look like crap. Next, we’ll cut back on producers. Make them do the 5 and 10…30 minute shows are easy! The don’t need associate producers, either. They’re paid to write, so make them write! Oh and lets add more news content so someone has to produce an hour in the same time they produced thirty minutes before. The result of that leads to stories that are repeated or re-written very superficially (or not at all on morning shifts). It also leads to putting in “low hanging fruit” like unoccupied housefires and minor shootings because they are easy and can be written in your sleep. You won’t see any soundbites though…because the producer doesn’t have time to go pick one and there is no longer an AP to do it. If you’re lucky, you can get the photographer who shot it to do it…but the producer still has to transcribe it and adjust the script so the bite makes sense. It’s much easier to just not have one. And when you hire producers in their 20’s, you get product aimed at people in their 20’s…and that’s not who is watching. Good producing is the centerpiece of good news product…and you get what you pay for. Now let’s move on to the on-air staff. Lately, people who have been on the air for years have been shown the door and thier replacements are being paid 75 percent less. You say they were overpaid anyway? Perhaps…but the on-air staff is the identity of the station. And people who are over 40 (who are the majority of news viewers) tend to be more loyal to certain personalities than younger people.
So where are we now? We’re showing product that’s quick and easy by necessity to the viewers and trying to dress it up as “BREAKING NEWS!!!”. Well, guess what? They see through it. Which means the ratings drop and the cycle begins again. Stations are already sharing video content, shutting down newsrooms and generally running around in a panic.
So what are some solutions?
First, the expectations of ratings success must change. There are fewer eyeballs out there these days. More concentration on appealing to higher-end demographics is needed, because these people are the news consumers anyway. Twenty year olds are too busy twittering each other about their bathroom habits to watch the news. Be happy with the audience you have, try to produce content that appeals to them and be happy making 10 million dollars a year instead of 20 million.
Second, hire a good staff and pay them what they are worth. I have worked at TV stations where my entire salary for the year was paid for with one weeks worth of newscasts. The other 51 weeks of the year, I’m paying for the corporate jet. You get what you pay for. And most kids just out of college cannot program a newscast that older people care about.
Third, establish content standards. Nobody cares about unoccupied house fires or a drug dealer being shot in the ass. Hire enough staff so a reporter can actually work on a story about police layoffs for a couple of days and bring something relevant to the table instead of standing him outside the fairgrounds for the the tristate quilting bee.
If you bring people news content that they find interesting and useful, they will come. If you don’t, you’ll be shutting your doors. Your choice.