DEL.ICIO.USUpdated: 10:40 p.m. June 08, 2009
Atlanta TV stations stretch staffs during lean times
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Monday, June 08, 2009
The economy has taken its toll on the newsrooms of Atlanta television stations where there have been layoffs at all four network affiliates — WSB, WAGA, WXIA and WGCL — over the past year to compensate for decreased advertising revenues.
The stations won’t say how much revenue they have lost. Nor will they detail who — which reporters, producers, cameramen and directors — have been laid off to save money.
John Spink/jspink@ajc.com
CBS Atlanta photographer Lawrence McDonald does a feed for two other local TV affiliates.
According to BIA Advisory Services consulting firm, the entire market has been hit hard. Revenues for all Atlanta TV stations — including the four affiliates — plunged from $542.8 million in 2007 to $473.6 million in 2008. BIA projects it will dive to $407.3 million in 2009.
The affiliates say they’ve trimmed where they could. ABC affiliate WSB, which is owned by Cox Enterprises, the owner of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, reduced its staff by 28 — the majority of them in the station’s news department — over the past year, said station general manager Bill Hoffman.
Fox affiliate WAGA cut three from its newsroom. NBC affiliate WXIA and CBS affiliate WGCL confirmed they, too, have trimmed newsroom payrolls.
Yet none of the stations has reduced its weekly hours of newscasts. Nor, they say, have they altered the style or content of their newscasts, or rolled back their beat coverage.
“In actuality we have focused on more coverage and more live shots,” said Andy Alford, vice president and general manager of WGCL, which has reduced its newsroom staff by 3 percent in the past year while maintaining the 26 hours of news it produces every week.
It’s the same story at WSB, which still cranks out 37 1/2 hours of news a week. WAGA actually added an 11 p.m. newscast last year, and now produces 50 1/2 hours of news a week. WXIA produces a combined 29 hours a week of news for it, and its sister station WATL.
The stations have simply stretched staffs and made cuts elsewhere by reducing crews on some stories and using technology that will, for instance, allow them to do live shots without sending TV trucks.
And last month, WGCL, WAGA and WXIA launched a “test” to pool resources on some stories, such as staged news conferences. They say that frees up crews to pursue other enterprise work while still covering the news conference.
So far, station executives said this week, the test is a success. WSB didn’t join the pool because, Hoffman said, it would make the station’s news division “less independent.”
But WXIA general manager Bob Walker doesn’t see it that way. And stations have to adapt to the changing economics of the TV business.
“It’s clear the economy has permanently reset the bar, and we’re making adjustments,” Walker said.
Now, instead of sending a TV truck with microwave transmitter, he said, the reporter might transmit a story live by using Skype internet technology.
WSB’s Hoffman concedes that doing more with less is a “challenge.”
“Some great stories are happening though, as staff members use the new technologies and work harder and smarter to deliver more content,” he said.
Budd McEntee, news director at WAGA, said viewers still expect news from Fox, irrespective of the station’s declining ad revenues.
“We do news more than anybody else,” he said. “I think Atlanta thirsts for information and I think they thirst for local information, and that’s what we’re about.”
Bob Papper, a Hofstra University media professor who does an annual salary and staff survey of local stations for the Radio Television News Directors Association, said TV stations’ news divisions across the country have reduced their staff on average by 4.3 percent over the past year.
About half of local TV stations’ profits come from their local newscasts (the rest comes from a combination of fees from commercials run on network and syndicated programs). So it only makes sense they stretch staffs instead of shrinking newscasts.
“It’s the epitome of doing more with less,” said Papper.
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