[opendtv] Layoffs sweep TV networks and their affiliates
- From: Cliff Benham <flyback1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:06:09 -0400
Is this an additional round of layoffs after those announced last week?
Layoffs sweep TV networks and their affiliates
Apr 7, 2008 8:39 AM
In what is quickly becoming an alarming trend, CBS and its owned
stations in Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco have joined other
television broadcasters in laying off news personnel. The cuts include
one of Chicago’s highest-paid anchors, two well-known anchors in Los
Angeles and five on-air veterans in San Francisco.
In Chicago, cost cutting at WBBM-TV has claimed at least 18 jobs
including that of anchor Diann Burns, who earned $2 million a year.
About a dozen news staffers will leave KCBS-TV and KCAL-TV in Los
Angeles, in addition to an unknown number of technical staff. In San
Francisco, KPIX-TV is letting go 14 newsroom employees.
Joe Ahern, WBBM president and general manager, told the “Chicago
Tribune” no department was exempt. “We have to rethink how we do
business,” Ahern told the newspaper.
At CBS News, on the network level, the “New York Times” reported there
are plans to lay off about 1 percent of its nearly 1200 employees. The
cuts will not include any on-air staff members, CBS executives said,
and are concentrated mainly on technical and support personnel.
CBS revenues declined 14.6 percent in the fourth quarter. The share
price has also been declining, down almost 20 percent for the year.
“The Early Show” is losing five employees. Those layoffs come on top
of an exodus in the last several months of more than 20 people during
an upheaval that brought in a new executive producer, Shelley Ross,
who was fired six months later.
Also, last week, ABC News announced that it was eliminating about 20
jobs (though an ABC spokesperson said other positions will be added,
keeping the overall job loss to less than 10 positions). The division
president, David Westin, has said he intends to cut about 30 jobs by
next year.
NBC News ordered a series of job cutbacks two years ago as part of a
companywide initiative called NBC 2.0, which set a goal of cutting 700
positions by the end of this year. About 30 of those cuts have come
from inside NBC’s news operation, which is much larger than
CBS’because it includes a separate cable news channel, MSNBC.
The NBC initiative did involve cuts in the news operations of the
stations it owns in cities including Los Angeles, New York and
Washington, D.C..
“I’m afraid this is just the beginning, folks,” said the industry Web
site Lost Remote. “While local TV is a very profitable business and
certainly not threatened like the newspaper industry, declining
audiences and a softening economy will bring tough times in the months
and years ahead. More than ever, it’s critical for stations to do
their best to protect and grow their online initiatives — a tall order
when fighting tooth and nail for every rating and share point with
fewer resources.”
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