WSJ: Local Stations’ Cutbacks May Be Tip of Iceberg: “Major Cuts” Ahead to Stay Alive

Disturbing Interactive WSJ Interactive Graphic

The financial model that made local television a money-printing machine and made local GMs the toast of affiliate gatherings with network execs eager to impress appears to be dead or dying, with a “fuzzy future” on the horizon, according to a bleak report in this morning’s Wall Street Journal:  ”Now, with their viewership in decline and ad revenue on a downward spiral, many local TV stations face the prospect of being cut out of the picture. Executives at some major networks are beginning to talk about an option that once would have been unthinkable: eventually taking shows straight to cable, where networks can take in a steady stream of subscriber fees even in an advertising slump.”
 
According to WSJ, local station ad revenue is projected to fall 20%-30% in 2009, and last week Walt Disney Co. “reported a 60% slide in operating income in its broadcast segment, including ABC and 10 ABC-owned stations, for the quarter ended December 31st, in part because of a 15% drop in revenue at its TV stations.”  FOX owner News Corp reported staggering losses last week, and indicated its 17 stations would undergo “major cost-cutting in the coming 12 months” after a 30% decline in ad revenue.

WSJ Chart

The once booze and party fueled relationship between local station and network seems to be chilly at best, and local news isn’t exactly flooding stations with dollars to make up the difference.  The WSJ predicts fewer stations will be doing news at all in the next few years, driven out of the marketplace because there’s just too much product out there:  ”Stations have pulled the plug entirely on some news shows in Lexington, Ky., and Yakima, Wash. In November, some stations owned by News Corp. and NBC Universal said they would begin pooling their newsgathering resources.

 

Station owners say even with these cuts, there are more local newscasts than the market can bear. “Over time, there will be fewer players,” says Dunia Shive, chief executive of Belo Corp., which owns 20 local stations covering 14% of the U.S. market.”

The article is not easy reading, but mandatory nonetheless.  The entire piece can be found here.

WNBC/NY Newsers Party in Midtown: "Severance Fest '09"

Yeah.  It wasn’t your typical going away party.  As detailed in the New York Observer’s The Media Mob column, WNBC/NY newsers gathered at an Irish bar in midtown recently to send off a group of some of Channel 4′s best and brightest;  not headed to bigger and better things, just headed “in a different direction,” as the ludicrous management cliche goes.

“In the days leading up to the party, some staffers jokingly referred to it as a ‘Wake 4 NY and a ‘gathering of the recently departed.’ Others took to calling it ‘Severence-Fest 2009.’”  As the once-mighty WNBC has transformed in recent months from a team of titans to an ever-more-anxious group of survivors in the “Content Center,” the bold-faced names that once populated the place have been picked off, one by one.  

“By the time Friday night rolled around, everyone needed a stiff drink, went the thinking. And in the end, despite the recent gloominess at WNBC-4, Friday night’s party turned into a jovial affair, according to several attendees. The cash bar, located in the basement of Legends 33, was packed by 7:30 p.m., and the party didn’t break up until 3:30 a.m. By Monday morning, photos of the revelry were already making their way onto Facebook,” the Observer reports.

Jay DeDapper

Recently laid off political reporter Jay DeDapper served as an impromptu emcee, and kept it positive, but told the paper the station New York had come to know over the last few decades as solid, serious, and staffed with veteran New Yorkers, has ceased to exist.  ”It was more of a reunion and a goodbye. We put the dot at the end of the sentence. News Channel 4 is over.”  (DeDapper, though, is not.  He’s taken his show on the web.)

“Everything that we did, all the Emmys we won, all the great stories and series we did, that’s done,” he added. “There may be great stuff in the future with the new group of people. We’re just not going to be a part of it. We had what we had. Now it’s time to move on.”

WNBC/NY Newsers Party in Midtown: “Severance Fest ’09″

Yeah.  It wasn’t your typical going away party.  As detailed in the New York Observer’s The Media Mob column, WNBC/NY newsers gathered at an Irish bar in midtown recently to send off a group of some of Channel 4′s best and brightest;  not headed to bigger and better things, just headed “in a different direction,” as the ludicrous management cliche goes.

“In the days leading up to the party, some staffers jokingly referred to it as a ‘Wake 4 NY and a ‘gathering of the recently departed.’ Others took to calling it ‘Severence-Fest 2009.’”  As the once-mighty WNBC has transformed in recent months from a team of titans to an ever-more-anxious group of survivors in the “Content Center,” the bold-faced names that once populated the place have been picked off, one by one.  

“By the time Friday night rolled around, everyone needed a stiff drink, went the thinking. And in the end, despite the recent gloominess at WNBC-4, Friday night’s party turned into a jovial affair, according to several attendees. The cash bar, located in the basement of Legends 33, was packed by 7:30 p.m., and the party didn’t break up until 3:30 a.m. By Monday morning, photos of the revelry were already making their way onto Facebook,” the Observer reports.

Jay DeDapper

Recently laid off political reporter Jay DeDapper served as an impromptu emcee, and kept it positive, but told the paper the station New York had come to know over the last few decades as solid, serious, and staffed with veteran New Yorkers, has ceased to exist.  ”It was more of a reunion and a goodbye. We put the dot at the end of the sentence. News Channel 4 is over.”  (DeDapper, though, is not.  He’s taken his show on the web.)

“Everything that we did, all the Emmys we won, all the great stories and series we did, that’s done,” he added. “There may be great stuff in the future with the new group of people. We’re just not going to be a part of it. We had what we had. Now it’s time to move on.”