We’re on the road for a few days, but we wanted to share a couple of observations.

The first: Why was it necessary to give the folks who lead newsrooms these new sounding titles like “Director of Content” or the more expansive “Director of Content and Coverage?” We are seeing this more often now, rather the traditional and more easily understood title of “News Director.” Also curious is the “Executive News Director” variation of the title. Is this because without being specifically called an “Executive,” you might be mistaken for the “Director” for the show in the control room?

Let us confirm this, if you lead a newsroom, you are indeed an Executive. The buck for the news department stops with you. And yes, you are certainly the Director of Content. And Coverage. As well as Communications. And Complaints. And all the other Crap that starts with letters other than “C.”

And for the record, we believe that there definitely need to be more workdays when Cookies (the edible kind) should be required on the job. 

Point two. Why do almost no local tv stations air credits at the end of newscasts any more? The folks in your newsroom bust their rears to get the newscasts on the air daily. We don’t seem to have any problem putting name supers up over the on-camera talent. (Well that’s not always true either. We may have written more than an email or two about getting the names of the anchors supered on the screen more often.)

Heck, we dont even seem to mind giving bylines to the folks who write the stories for the website.

So, would it kill us to spend 30-45 seconds maybe once a week to put the names of the newsroom staff on screen at the end of a newscast? 

Why? Because airing credits does one simple--but important function: they acknowledge those behind the cameras whose work makes the newscast possible. They are recognition—which the last time we checked, everyone could use a little bit more of.

The headline on Scott Jones’ FTVLive.com (which many love to diss but read all the same) is pretty straightforward: “Is Scripps Planning To Shut Down News Departments?” And it would be easy to dismiss his premise as based on an unusually frank comment by an Indianapolis station’s general manager while announcing layoffs. When asked a question about the future of the station’s operation in six months, FTVLive reports that GM Charlie Grisham said, “I don’t know.”

No matter who you are, there is absolutely nothing easy about telling people you work with that they are losing their jobs and then having to tell those who still have jobs that they will be OK and have to keep working. That’s even more true now as we all live in this moment where little is promised to anyone working in any field—even in government jobs, which used to be potentially secure for the remainder of one’s working days.

But back to our story today: Scott’s been pounding Scripps pretty hard on his website for some time now. And he’s not without some justification. The company, E.W. Scripps, Inc., has gone from being a $25 dollar a share stock in 2021 to currently trading under $1.50 a share. Its one-year return rate is down about 67%, while the S&P 500 index is still up nearly 10% over the same period, even with the current market volatility roiling Wall Street. UPDATE: After we initially published this story, Scripps announced its 4th Quarter Financial Results for 2024 and announced a restructuring of some of its loans and credit facility, which it says will provide the company with "the runway and liquidity to continue the progress of its strategic and operating initiatives."

From any business metric you might want to apply, Scripps has not had a great track record over the past five years. With things not looking optimistic for most any broadcasting company for the rest of this year, this latest round of layoffs across the 60 local stations that Scripps owns isn’t good. Especially for those in an ever-shrinking market for jobs in local TV news.

We would argue here that a headline asking whether or not any local television station will be operating in six months may miss the more significant point. Each station will still have some value, no matter how diminished by the current economic factors battering the business. What might be the better—and more practical—question is whether or not some local stations will make the choice and just get out of being in the local news business this year.

Let’s make it clear as we don’t want our meaning to be misconstrued. We don’t ever want to see fewer local news outlets in ANY place in the country. And given our careers spent in local television, we certainly don’t want there to be fewer people working in the business.

But that said, we are reminded of a prediction that was made offhandedly back in 1996, at the launch of a 24-hour local news channel on cable in one major market: “You can imagine a time when a third or fourth-rated station might just decide to get out of doing news and counter-program in those time periods.”  Could that time be coming almost thirty years later?

The economics are simple enough. The expenses of producing local news are typically the largest in a local station’s finances. And the largest part of that expense is employee salaries and benefits. Yes, that is still true, even if wages seem low by comparison. This is why stations have embraced any technology that makes it easier to produce newscasts with fewer people. Take, for instance, a control room that puts a local newscast on the air. A decade or more ago, five or more people would typically work in that space. Through automation, the number is probably down to two people now: a Director/Automation Operator and a Producer. When you start talking about eliminating three positions across each shift, you are talking about significant savings to the bottom line. Now, some stations are beginning to implement systems that can make it possible for one person to write, produce, and then direct a newscast on television. Thus, the “headcount” in a control room is taken from five or more people down to a single person.

Station staffs have gone through a “cut down” process that makes the NFL’s annual process of going from 90 prospective players in training camp to having just 53 make the team's roster seem almost quaint by comparison.

Even with almost annual "reductions in force,” the reality is that you still need people to put the news on TV. Even with smaller staffs, the economics—especially for stations with the smallest share in the ratings—may have reached the point where the return on the investment, or “ROI” as business school types like to say, will not make sense to continue on.

Put more simply, the point where "throwing good money after bad” is not in the future anymore. It’s here this year.  This isn’t unheard of. There is the story of Toledo, Ohio’s WNWO-TV. In the country’s 81st largest market, the Sinclair-owned NBC affiliate dropped all locally-produced news in May of 2023. The move came after years of struggling as the market’s lowest-rated news station and trying to cut costs as much as possible. But the station still has news programming on the air because it carries blocks of Sinclair’s Washington, DC-based news operation “The National Desk” in Mornings, Early Evenings, and Late Nights. In other news time periods, the station carries additional news from the NBC network, or Judge Judy reruns.

More importantly to note is that the station is still on the air and delivering NBC programming to the people of Northwest Ohio. As far as we can tell, there wasn’t any boycott or viewer backlash against the station. It just doesn’t produce a local newscast anymore. Local news viewers are served by the newsrooms from the other television stations in Toledo, except that the Fox station doesn’t produce any local news but carries news from TEGNA-owned WTOL. So that leaves Gray Media’s WTVG as the other local station producing local news seen in the 424,056 television households of the Toledo market.

What was once four local television newsrooms in Toledo is now down to two.

Larger markets have, for the most part, avoided this “shrinkage," as George Costanza might refer to it. But those days might soon come to an end. Returning to the previously mentioned Indianapolis market, eight commercial television outlets are licensed in market number 25. And there are still four local television newsrooms in operation. Nexstar Media controls both the Fox (WXIN) and CBS (WTTV) stations, which share a building and a news staff—but produce distinctly different newscasts for each station. TEGNA owns the NBC station (WTHR), Scripps owns the ABC affiliate (WRTV), and locally-owned and independent Circle City owns CW-affiliated WISH-TV, which had been the market’s CBS affiliate until it moved over to WTTV in 2014, as well as MyNetwork affiliate WNDY.

WRTV has perennially been the market’s weakest station in terms of local news ratings. Along with the latest round of layoffs announced at the station, the station will begin airing more “Scrippscast” newscasts daily. This format features no anchor, playing a series of local news stories in what might be described as "a half-hour playlist of local news.” Scripps has deployed this “new idea” in many smaller markets.

But when that proves still too expensive, how long might it be before the Sinclair model in Toledo is followed? Scripps still has the remnants of its “Scripps News” channel in Atlanta that could serve as WRTV’s version of Sinclair’s “The National Desk” and fill the local news time periods. Nexstar's “News Nation” operation would likely get a boost in viewership if it appeared for a few hours each day over some of its local television stations currently with underperforming local news operations.

As we mentioned in a previous dispatch, there is no requirement for a local television station to produce any news programming. The FCC requires some evidence of addressing “local issues” as part of the license-granting process. However, that does not have to be done by producing a daily local news product. And given the current regulatory climate in the nation’s capital, station owners would likely not expect the Commission to come after licensees who don’t keep money-losing news operations on their air.

While we are certainly not hoping for it, we just can’t help but wonder if 2025 is the year when more stations that have struggled for years in the local news game decide to say that it’s “game over.” They will argue that financial viability is more necessary than operating in the "public interest, convenience, and necessity” as the Communications Act of 1934 required of all broadcasters.

We’d like to be completely wrong on this. But “necessity" in 2025 may prove that desperate times truly call for desperate measures.

Weekends, especially weekend mornings, are a time period that many television stations just don’t put much of a priority on, at least in terms of their newscasts. And it can be a truly missed opportunity. Weekend mornings have solid audiences available, and those viewers are in a different mindset than on weekdays--when everyone is rushing to get out the door and to school and work. Weekend Mornings represent a genuine opportunity to connect to that audience that may not usually watch your station.

Of course, when discussing the current financial climate, weekends are seemingly the first places stations want to cut back on or just cut out altogether. In our opinion, that is a short-sighted mistake. Some viewers may not watch any local news during the week, but they might just turn on the news on a Saturday or Sunday morning. Getting sampling, especially for a number two or three-ranked television station, should be the goal of trying to implement a growth strategy. (And isn’t everyone trying to implement a growth strategy these days?)

To quote the hockey great Wayne Gretzky, “A good hockey player plays where the puck is. A great hockey player plays where the puck is going to be.” That’s true for local TV news as well. Don’t have an audience when everyone is on the air? Try being on when the others aren’t. Admittedly, given the amount of local news on the air now, that is harder than ever.

But even when stations have weekend morning newscasts on the schedule, they often give them very little care and feeding. Not only is the time period an opportunity to reach a different audience, but it is also an opportunity to showcase a news operation. Growing the bench for the next anchor isn’t a new idea, but presenting people who can be more relaxed and not quite so focused on rattling off what’s “New, Now, Next” every ten minutes is a significant opportunity. We know of some stations with a co-anchor team on their weekend AM newscasts, and we believe that is a strong decision. Filling a couple of hours as a solo anchor is tough. Having another voice at the desk can make the show far more watchable. One thought is to schedule one regular anchor and then rotate others in the second chair to get their chance to anchor. We’ve never known a newsroom that didn’t have people who wanted a chance to sit at the anchor desk.

Weekend mornings can also be an opportunity to showcase some of the best work the newsroom has done in the past week. One example is a replay of a special report or investigative piece, along with some Q&A with the reporter. If you haven’t noticed that cooking segments are a staple in the network’s weekend newscasts, you haven’t paid attention. Segments with things to do this weekend is another opportunity to give the audience truly usable information—and with a digital content play that can have a revenue opportunity.

And speaking of revenue, there can be multiple sponsorship opportunities in weekend newscasts that just may not be practical or desirable in weekday newscasts. Of course, we are not suggesting that every segment should be sponsored, but some creative thinking can certainly be applied to the challenge of creating the kind of opportunities that will make the sales department happier.

Even having those with cameras in the newsroom shoot some extended video of almost anything on weekend mornings can be great. Those “Moments In Nature” that CBS Sunday has made a staple over the years can work locally, too. Let us remind you that everyone in your station with a smartphone also has a video camera! (And often, they make better pictures than the cameras the MMJs and Photographers use daily!) Teaching everyone how to shoot and submit videos is an excellent investment in expanding your content base.

One more idea—as long as you have the team in place, perhaps consider producing an additional live newscast for your streaming channel. It may not be accurate in your home, but we know of many folks who spend some part of their weekend morning staying longer in bed and looking at their phone or tablet before getting out there.

Weekend evening newscasts are a bit more traditional but still present the same opportunities for growth. Many stations schedule their primary evening anchors to work Sunday through Thursday shifts, given the large number of major programming events that become lead-ins to Sunday late newscasts. Sunday nights are also when many who haven’t kept up with news over the weekend may reconnect to what is going on while they were enjoying some time away from work.

Weekends can and should be a place to experiment and develop your people, your content, and even your brand. Putting some emphasis on them can be the first step in a long-term growth plan. And we’ll say it point blank here: getting out of the weekend news business is not good business--it’s just missing an opportunity.

And these days, can local television stations really afford to miss any opportunities?

My late father always teased me a bit about loving big words as a child. I began reading at a very early age and always tried to use words that I thought made me sound smarter. (Those who know me can attest that this hasn’t changed over the years.) Occasionally, Dad gently reminded me that it was perfectly acceptable to "not always use a twenty-five cent word when a five-cent one would do.” He would explain that some folks might believe I was using all those “big words" to confuse them about what I really meant.

So last week, when the Trump administration’s commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, said that he aims to “re-empower” local television stations in this country—I thought of my dad and imagined his reaction to the use of what I am sure he would’ve labeled “a real fifty-cent word." He would probably opine in his measured Southern drawl, “Well, If something was empowered to begin with, you shouldn’t have to re-empower it--unless you unplugged it in the first place.”

Never underestimate the power of a Dad to call out “some foolishness.”

Carr’s would-be encouragement to local television stations was intentionally vague, and so far, there haven't been any signs of the promised “re-empowerment.” He heads the federal agency that controls whether any local broadcaster can stay in business because the FCC issues a license to each radio and television station that allows them to operate their transmitters. The FCC can decide if it wants to “review” a station license anytime it receives a complaint about that station. 

Take the curious case of one such license review for CBS’s New York City flagship local station, WCBS-TV. An outfit called “The Center for American Rights,” whose website suggests it is active in filing legal actions for a particular political point of view. The center filed a complaint with the FCC over last October’s airing by CBS of clips from its interview with then Presidential candidate Kamala Harris on “Face the Nation” and “60 Minutes.” Because the two clips were edited differently, the Center argues that the network engaged in “news distortion” and filed a complaint with the FCC, which led to the commission’s previous chair, Jessica Rosenworcel, reviewing and dismissing the complaint against WCBS-TV back on January 16th. She would explain her decision by stating that “the agency should not be the President’s speech police."

Of course, a new administration took office in Washington on January 20th, and Brendan Carr became the FCC's chairman. One of his first acts was to reinstate the complaint against WCBS-TV and proceed with opening “a docket for public comment.” That means there is now an official review process in which the Commission solicits opinions about the matter and ultimately rules on whether or not WCBS-TV could be potentially fined or even lose its license. Meanwhile, CBS News bowed to pressure to release the unedited interview footage and a transcript of the Harris interview, as parent corporation Paramount Global is trying to get government approval for its announced merger with Skydance Media. That “raw” material of the Harris interview is now part of the official WCBS-TV review, even though no one from the local station would have been involved in gathering or editing it. The station simply had the misfortune of broadcasting the shows from the network owned by its parent company, along with 250 other CBS affiliates across the country.

This blatant move to use the FCC to intimidate a local television station’s license as a punishment for clearly protected speech under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution isn’t without precedent. President Richard Nixon used the FCC during his time in office to go after licenses of network-owned and operated local stations on multiple occasions. At the time, there were actually more legal grounds to do so because the FCC’s so-called “Fairness Doctrine” was still in effect. That doctrine required “equal time” on licensed broadcast stations for different points of political view. 

Despite much belief that it still exists, the “Fairness Doctrine” is no longer in place because, in 1987, then-President Ronald Reagan’s FCC voted unanimously to abolish the rules that required it. At the time, the Commission stated, "We seek to extend to the electronic press the same First Amendment guarantees that the print media have enjoyed since our country's inception.” 

Talk about actually creating some “re-empowerment.” Both for local television and those rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution in the first place.

As Dad and any Southerner might tell you—That’s about all there is to say about that.

Our brand consultant says that just calling this by our website address isn’t memorable enough, so we were challenged to think of a cool name. We went with “The Topline” because it is something that everyone who has ever worked on a newsroom computer system is used to seeing--those little messages that pop up on the screen during a workday. Will a new brand get us more new readers? Doubtful, but we did pay for the consultant’s advice, and so, like in every newsroom, we have to listen to them. Until we don’t.

A favorite read on our bookshelf is Ayn Rand’s “The Fountainhead.” Her sweeping 1943 novel tells the story of the central character, an intransigent architect, Howard Roark, and his fight for what the author calls “individualism over collectivism.” Over the years, much debate has been had on how much the Roark character is based on real-life architectural icon Frank Lloyd Wright—with whom Rand had a long-standing correspondence. 

Early in the book, the Roark character delivers this crucial line: “I’ve chosen the work I want to do. If I find no joy in it, then I’m only condemning myself to sixty years of torture. And I can find the joy only if I do my work in the best possible way to me.” 

We were reminded of the book when we heard of the announcement that Adrienne Roark is leaving her current position as President of Newsgathering and Editorial for CBS News and Stations to become the new Chief Content Officer for Tegna at the end of this month. It struck us not just because of the name shared with the book’s character, but in the initial review, this move seemed a little perplexing. It comes just seven months after she was given the top job at CBS News. Roark arrived at CBS after years in local television newsrooms, leading her to become a general manager for two different stations in Portland, Oregon. She was named President of the CBS Stations group in 2021 by former ABC-owned station head and now current CBS News and Stations CEO Wendy McMahon.

To be sure, CBS News has some significant challenges at this precise moment, and it has likely made it more complicated to close the eight-billion-dollar deal to merge CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, and Skydance Media. As Puck News's Dylan Byers insightfully reported on February 19th, CEO McMahon’s management structure, including "60 Minutes" Executive Producer Bill Owens, had led to confusion amongst the rank and file in the CBS Newsroom. Byers reported that it was determined that Roark wasn’t the right fit “after both sides determined that she wasn’t up to the challenges of the current moment."

Eight days after Roark’s departure was made public, McMahon would name Tom Cibrowski, an experienced network news colleague from her ABC days, as the new President and Executive Editor of CBS News. Notably, the word “Stations” does not appear in Cibrowski’s new title, but “Executive Editor” does. That change would suggest Cibrowski will be much more hands-on in leading the network newsroom on NYC’s West 57th Street.

But back to our focus here, and that is what's ahead of Adrienne Roark when she joins the Tegna C-suite in Tysons, Virginia. Can she be the hand that steadies the wheel aboard a ship that boasts of having “64 Local News brands in 51 markets” on the company’s website? The fact that the company refers to its television stations as “brands” gives us a clue.

Tegna was created over a decade ago in 2014 when the Gannett company—primarily a newspaper concern once led by newspaper maverick Al Neuharth, the creator of “USA Today”—decided to divide itself into two companies. The first would be centered on print-based media and would keep its original name. Then, there was a new television-focused company to be named Tegna. The split was a full circle moment for Gannett, who had first entered the local television business back in 1978 by acquiring Combined Communications Corporation, which, aside from owning The Oakland Tribune and The Cincinnati Enquirer newspapers, also owned a group of seven television stations which would be the first Gannett would own before building their broadcast portfolio by acquiring Texas-based Belo Corporation and its 20 television properties in 2013. 

It might be helpful to remember that until 1984, one company could only own a maximum of seven television stations, along with seven AM and seven FM radio stations, per the Federal Communications Commission’s rules. In ’84, a new limit of owning 12 of each type of broadcast outlet was put in place before being changed again in 1996. Now, the FCC rules determine the maximum number of stations one company can own by calculating the percentage of local and national audience reached by the total of the stations owned. And it is those ownership rules that are once again important to Tegna, as we’ll get to shortly.

But over its life as a separate entity, Tegna has faced its share of challenges. There was a bruising and drawn-out drama with the Biden administration over an announced deal by hedge fund owner Standard General to take Tegna private. The deal ultimately collapsed in 2022 when the FCC put the regulatory review of the agreement into a form of purgatory from which there seemed to be no ultimate resolution. When the deal collapsed, Tegna collected a $136 Million termination fee for its trouble. CEO Dave Lougee would step down to be replaced by new CEO Mike Stieb. Tegna’s longtime VP of News, Ellen Crooke, departed at the beginning of this year. And EVP & COO Lynn Beall is leaving in a few months. One might speculate that those two departures created the opening that Adrienne Roark will fill in the newly created role of Chief Content Officer.

But Tegna, like many local television group owners, has been implementing what it calls "a series of core operational cost-cutting measures.” Those moves, known in plainer English as “budget cuts," began during the Covid pandemic. They accelerated to get the company in shape for the imminent arrival of Standard General’s management team, which then never came to pass. A dramatic move came recently when the company shuttered its creative services departments at their stations, choosing to centralize those functions at a couple of “regional creative hubs.” The move put a significant number of employees out of work.

That would all be challenging enough for a new Chief Content Officer to face on day one, but perhaps even more of a challenge will be determining how to reverse the damage done by the company’s time working with news provocateur Joel Cheatwood, who was hired during his tenure as a Partner at Red Seat Ventures in 2016. As a consultant to Tegna, Cheatwood prototyped a new vision for local news that was touted as being “revolutionary” by installing a new “digital-centric” sensibility into some Tegna station’s newsrooms. Tegna saw this vision, drank the Kool-Aid, and, in turn, hired Cheatwood as the company’s VP of Content Development in 2018 to install the new vision across all of its stations. Unfortunately, the audiences decided they wanted a more substantive flavor of news, and many of the Tegna stations lost audience share. Cheatwood would be done at Tegna in just two years.

But the vestiges of that ill-advised era are still evident on most Tegna stations, even as they have pivoted, for the most part, back to a more traditional-based newscast. So one of Adrienne Roark's first orders of business will be to see through the self-induced fog of the industry awards that Tegna has seemingly been so focused on gathering over recent years and determining what her vision will be for a group of stations that might be best described as “soldiering on each day” trying to recapture their more successful time as a respected, industry-leading broadcast group.

And the clock on that restoration project could be a relatively short one, as the future of Tegna could be impacted by the potential for a Trump administration-led FCC to loosen further--or even eliminate--any limits on broadcast station ownership. As the thinking goes, survival in the local television business may well be determined by further consolidation of the ownership of local stations by a few large companies that already hold a good number of station licenses in many television markets in the country. In that light, as our friends at TheDesk.Net succinctly put it recently, "Tegna is the broadcaster with the most to gain in a new regulatory environment.” To be clear, they are not the only group owner that could be in play, but they may well be the first in line.

One would hope that Adrienne Roark, like the fictional architect Howard Roark, can find some joy in the work ahead of her. 

Anyone who has worked in a newsroom with this former news director is probably familiar with what I typically say during any discussion about what leads a newscast whenever the weather is a significant story. Even my family likes to recite it to me, because I have said it so many times over the years.

“Weather always wins.”

That has been true since the 1960s, when I can remember watching my hometown weatherman, Charlie Hall on WCSC-TV in Charleston, SC. Charlie delivered the weather using what was the very latest technology– a magic marker, which he used to write backwards on clear plexiglass maps that he stood behind, facing the camera. It was very slick for the time, especially in the eyes of an eight-year-old. When Charlie came on the air, folks stopped what they were doing to watch. Given Charleston’s location on the coast, whenever a hurricane was threatening, Charlie could dramatically pick up a two-way radio microphone and deliver an “official” bulletin to local first responders. So beloved in the community was Charlie Hall, they would name the street for him where the station’s new studios opened, just months after his passing in 1997.

Other weather segments on local tv at the time might feature a weatherman in the uniform of an oil company (Sohio, Standard, Atlantic, and Esso–just to name a few.) Yes, there were a few women who would present the forecast, but unfortunately most were unfairly dismissed as “weather girls” no matter how professional they might be in the role. There were also the whimsical character weather types, along the lines of one example, know as “Captain Scotty,” who would pull the written forecast out of a puppet-like clam.

Of course, that all changed in the 1970s when television stations became serious about weather science and hired actual meteorologists to deliver the weather. For example, in 1975, KSTP-TV in Minneapolis/St. Paul would bump popular Barry ZeVan, “the weather man,” to make way for Dr. Walt Lyons, a degreed meteorologist. The station would, as many did at the time, build out a team of meteorologists and equip them with their own weather radar and computer graphics to present the weather in as high-tech and credible a fashion as possible. A personal note here–I would arrive as KSTP’s News Director in 2019, just before Dave Dahl, the last member of that original team of meteorologists, would retire as the station’s Chief Meteorologist–after 43 years on the air.

In some markets around the country, what would become best known as “The Weather Wars” became a technology-fueleded “arms race” with bigger and bigger station-owned Doppler Radars with whizbang features like “dual-polarity” and “klystron” in their names. Then came tornado-chasing helicopters in the air and storm tracker vehicles on the ground. Virtual Reality weather graphics are becoming the latest rage, powered by the same computer engines used by video game creators. They turned the staple “green screen” chroma key-based effect into the modern-day equivalent of those plexiglass maps from years gone by.

In fact, weather is so important to local television newscasts that it is now the first or second thing presented in every newscast. Your town probably has a few of the weather brand names in current use across the local television channels, like “First Alert,” “Next Weather,” “Storm Team,” “Weather Authority,” or the head scratching “Weather Impact” brand now adopted by most Tegna-owned outlets.

Proving that a good branding opportunity should never be wasted over just calling it “the weather.”

In recent years, local television weather departments have been pushed into the latest trend of promoting or hyping (depending on your opinion) specific weather events in the forecast with “Alert Days.” The idea of highlighting specific days that weather will be more than just inconvenient but could actually impact people’s day-to-day lives. The practice has already spun a bit out of control with some stations now featuring “Possible Alert Days” along with even half-days being given alert status.

To be fair, real severe weather events are where local television stations can be at their absolute best. From tornadoes in the Plains to Hurricanes on the Gulf and East coasts. Or during Blizzards in the Northern states to the Droughts out West. Major events in our climate, whether or not you may believe it is changing, impact everyone and it is when stations can save lives and truly help in the aftermath.

For some stations, there is trouble on the horizon that you don’t need a million watt super doppler to see. A small but slowly growing number of stations are “outsourcing” their weather coverage to sister stations, hundreds of miles away. Or in the case of the Allen Media stations, there were plans to shift some local weather coverage to be done remotely from co-owned The Weather Channel, in Atlanta. Those plans were paused when public backlash developed in some markets, but don’t be surprised when it is implemented in the future. The argument is that it makes business sense, and that is probably true in a spreadsheet.

But if Weather Always Wins, and let’s just say that I certainly believe it does, why on earth would you ever give that local advantage up, even just to save some money?

As Charlie Hall would say about a pop-up shower: “Even on a clear day, you might not see it…until you’re all wet.”

The reviews of Conan O’Brien’s work hosting the 97th Oscars last night were more generous than expected. Otherwise, the reviews we’ve seen here at TVND headquarters seem to have found the telecast somewhere between “uneven” and “uninspired.” And what was that whole James Bond tribute?

So why would we, ostensibly interested in television news in this space, be interested in the annual awards celebration of Hollywood and the movies? Precisely because the performance of Conan’s debut hosting what is probably the most globally watched television show of a given year (outside of a sports competition) has a parallel in television news. Let’s face it, there was a ton riding on the guy who, at one point, lost the gig hosting NBC’s “Tonight Show” but then went on to have a successful run on cable and is now a staple on streaming and social platforms.

For our purposes, his Oscar hosting and the reaction to it provide another great example to make our point that the people who appear in front of a camera still matter—a great deal, in fact. The misplaced attempts to demote the role of the anchor in television news need to be examined for what they are: more examples of the “let’s throw something against the wall and see if it sticks” thinking that is rampant in the business these days.

Don’t get us wrong, just like in Hollywood, having major stars with top billing doesn’t automatically save a lousy movie (we’re looking at you, “Joker 2”) OR a newscast, but it doesn’t hurt to start with them. And we don’t think there isn’t room for some rethinking of anchors' role in both the newscast and the newsroom. Plus, there will always be the opportunity for an unknown to become a success–both in the movies and on a nightly newscast.

OK, we’ve tortured this analogy long enough. But the point to make here is that people want to watch people on a movie screen or a television. They want to relate to the people that they see and hear. Does this mean we must stick with the long-established pairing of attractive co-anchors on a local newscast or a solo Ron Burgundy-like figure on a national one? Not by any means. YouTube, TikTok, and every other video-centric social media platform should teach us that one can make for interesting and often informative viewing, even if they are using a smartphone and a ring light in their living room.

The key thing that usually doesn’t get much consideration on this topic is that the people in front of the camera actually have to have some aptitude and ability to connect to the viewer. To put it a bit more simply, “the talent has to have some talent.”

While that may seem like the most obvious thing you read today, the fact is that there is no specifically reliable way to determine that talent. Instinct from experienced decision-makers is most typically the way talent decisions get made. A standard “scientific tool” that has been used forever is some kind of qualitative audience research, ranging from target subjects spinning handheld dials while watching audition videos–to doing that same process with online participants. Despite being more rational than trusting individual gut instincts, neither method has proven fool-proof.

More than once, an up-and-coming television anchor has been the subject of research, only to have the test results come back with less-than-enthusiastic results. Somehow, though, the anchor has impressive ratings in their current position. In one such situation, we’ve heard a brilliant voice in the room full of executive types trying to make the big decision put it best: “Well, nobody likes him…except the audience.”

But even with the most vetted selection process possible, the hiring and development of on-camera talent is a process that takes time. No one meets someone new for the first time and decides they want a lifelong relationship with that person, except maybe in a movie. Relationships typically take time, even with people you watch on a screen. The best actors can convince you in short order that they are a character in a story. The best news anchors can convince you quickly that they know the news stories they are presenting and care about you understanding them. It’s why they have been crucial to successful television newscasts since the medium’s early days.

Very few people are born with this ability fully formed. Skills must be developed with any athlete or actor; much repetition and study are usually involved. Just like with athletes, a good coach can genuinely help. Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot of time for those leading newsrooms each day to coach their talent to fully develop their greatness. Plus, it can be challenging to be as sharply critical as good coaching often requires. And we won’t even get into the fact that the best talent frequently has egos as fragile as a pre-pubescent child’s.

Some excellent folks can effectively deliver this kind of talent coaching to those who appear on camera. If you need some recommendations, please do get in touch with us here. We’d be happy to help. In fact, one of our future offerings from TVND will be to provide individual evaluations of on-air work, be it anchoring or reporting, and assist in structuring talent development programs for organizations and individuals. (Apologies for the small commercial message here.)

Returning to the point here, talent in front of a camera truly matters. Think of the most successful movies you have ever seen. Then, think of the best television newscasts you have ever watched. We’d bet the chances are pretty good that you can name the people on the screen the most in each one. Years ago, at a certain growing cable network we were part of, a senior executive once declared “we don’t want any stars here, all on-air talent are interchangeable.” That was a guiding principle there for some time until the realization that a few stars in front of the camera could supercharge the numbers in the ratings, leading to some very profitable numbers on the books.

Fortunately, no one has ever said, “We don’t want to make any money here.”

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Last Friday, February 28th, was my final day as the news director for KSTP-TV, Hubbard Broadcasting’s flagship television station in Minneapolis-St. Paul. My departure was my choice. I’m retiring after spending the last 33 years leading over a dozen local television news operations, big and small. I arrived here in 2019, just before one of the most tumultuous news periods in recent history, both locally and nationally.

During my final meeting with the newsroom, I was asked this question: What message did I want to leave with my colleagues about how I see the future of the business? Admittedly, I took a few moments before answering because my mind was flooded with various thoughts and the responsibility of the moment to try to be positive and maybe even give those assembled the tiniest bit of inspiration.

Here’s what I said: “Never forget that what you do every day still matters.”

In the 1975 classic, “Monty Python and The Holy Grail,” a classic scene is where a man walks alongside a cart of corpses being pulled through the village with some difficulty. The man leading the cart beats a large triangle with a wooden spoon as he shouts, “Bring out your dead,” over and over. A local man approaches and tries to put what appears to be the body of an older man that he is carrying over his shoulder onto the cart. The old man wakes and protests, shouting, “I’m not dead yet.” The situation devolves into a back-and-forth as the still-not-dead old man keeps maintaining that he feels fine, and the body cart master continues to refuse to take him. Ultimately, when asked if there is anything he can do—the cart master suddenly whacks the old man on the head with a club, and his body is put on the cart to be hauled away, with thanks from the locals.

This hilarious scene reminds me of the moment television news seems to be in today, some 50 years after the movie’s release. The business is not dead yet, but you might be forgiven for thinking otherwise. Every day, there are reports of more people leaving the business. Every other day, there is another take on how to fix local TV news from some would-be sage who knows just how to rescue, reinvent, or even revolutionize the business.

Then there are the politicians of all stripes who have found blaming “the media” to be a solid distraction, especially when said media is not pandering to any particular point of view on the political spectrum.

And let’s be honest, aside from the critics, the revenues that may have poured into local stations in previous decades aren’t coming in at those levels any longer. As cliche as it sounds, the business has changed from the arrival of cable’s “hundreds of channels and nothing to watch” era to the latest revolution, when digital media’s siren song lures everyone to become “a content creator.” All this happens as ad budgets get even more fractionalized in the never ending quest to chase impressions–wherever they can be found. It is fair to think that local television is heading for the same proverbial “bump in the road” that pushed so many local newspapers into the ditch along the road toward survival.

You have to wonder if maybe we’re just waiting for that body cart from the movie to come around again next Thursday.

As someone who started working in television the same year “Monty Python and The Holy Grail” hit movie theatres and who has seen the changes that have led up to this moment, let me offer a few words of encouragement for those who work in television news: What you are working on every day still matters.

We know the studies showing that trust in local news far outpaces national news outlets. It is far easier to have some modicum of trust in the people who are seen in your community in person. The simple fact is that being on the ground and covering the stories, big and small, still matters. From what happens on your block to what they are arguing about down at city hall. All of it matters.

No small amount has been spent over the years trying to figure out why people watch what they do on television. News is no exception to that effort, especially since the 1970s when the idea that producing more local news could be a significant profit center for local television stations rather than just a minimal requirement the FCC imposed to keep station licenses. One constant in that research was that people matter, from the people on television who presented the news–to the ones who were in the stories offered each day.

The best account on the rise of local television news was Craig Allen’s aptly titled 2001 book, “News Is People.” Though out of print, it is still a great read if you can find a copy. It details how this rise of audience research and consultants tried to replicate the formulas of the early innovators and their success stories in local news, such as the late Al Primo’s creation of Eyewitness News at the ABC Owned stations, starting at New York’s WABC-TV in 1968.

In Primo’s original typewritten memo to the newsroom announcing his plans, he spelled out the key in the first line of the second paragraph: “The most important aspect of Eyewitness News is People.” In seven short pages, he laid out the blueprint for how Eyewitness News would be different. That plan would make WABC-TV a success story that has continued for the past 57 years.

Yes, the audience watching is smaller and older than ever. Clearly, there have never been more ways to get the news at one’s fingertips. Do local television newsrooms have to adapt to the changing marketplace? Of course, they do. Anyone who thinks otherwise is simply denying the inevitable. But failing to make those changes is what leads to extinction. Adapting and experimenting will lead to surviving and potentially even thriving, in the years to come.

Simply put, I am stepping away from newsroom leadership but still very bullish on the future of local television newsrooms and those who work in them. Because they definitely still matter. The goal will remain to make them matter even more going forward. I have some observations on how best to do this, and I will share those here in the days, weeks, and, hopefully, years to come.

I hope you will “stay tuned.”

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