The Price Point

Some local station groups must lean into creativity, experimentation and the prospect of divorcing their networks if they’re to survive an ominous 2025.

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The syndicator, station owner, cable network empresario, force of nature has gotten some attention from Shari Redstone with his $30 billion offer for her Paramount Global. He’s got a lot going for him because Allen believes in the future of our business. Virtually every investment he has made, every deal he has reached for, has been about his belief in linear television.

Some of local TV’s brightest and most ambitious talents are leaving beloved jobs — and the industry — behind facing salary prospects that fall far too much below an acceptable mark.

Entrenched in the past, the commission has held firm — and even tightened — its deeply out-of-date regulations, dealing a deep blow to broadcasters.

The foundation has helped many a broadcast employee through hard times. It can use every bit of possible support to keep seeing that mission through.

Creativity, fresh thinking and energy left TV news years ago, driven out by the factory model the industry leaned into after the recession. But the current burnout crisis offers smart broadcasters a chance to recapture the spark.

A tipping point for the broadcast industry is coming, and part of it hinges on a problem that Disney chief Bob Iger created for himself.

TV stations should view last week’s raid on the Marion County Kansas Record by local police and sheriff’s deputies as a warning shot. Every newsroom should have a plan to deal with potential search warrants with the station’s attorneys squarely on board.

A recent study from RTDNA/Newhouse School at Syracuse University lays bare just how overwhelmed TV newsroom personnel have become. The bucks stops at the corporate level for this problem, and the C-suite is running out of time to address it.

In the ousted Chris Licht, CNN had a leader who was not introspective enough to understand why he was failing. He leaves behind an organization in worse shape than when he arrived.

The best general manages put in the hard work of learning sales processes and understanding the details. Those willing to make that effort are always rewarded on the bottom line.

The closing of five news departments at Sinclair stations across the country may just be an effect of one company’s regional sports network gone sideways. It may also signal that a major local TV news shakeup is finally upon us.

The disgraced NBCU chief is only the latest in a long line of C-suiters who have abused their positions, and their companies have paid the price.

There are no quick fixes in a major overhaul, but signs are that new CNN chief Chris Licht is having an impact despite serious headwinds. His critics should give him the time such a Herculean task needs to be realized.

Paramount Global is using its latest Fubo TV negotiation to offer an untenable deal to affiliates and reset the entire retransmission consent landscape. The FCC’s response should be obvious: Make everyone play by the same rules.

Newly minted TV station general managers are often thrown into their jobs with little or no training. It seems like a needless risk for station groups to take with their multimillion-dollar profit centers.

Facing 2023’s major headwinds, TV stations need to confront their oversupply problem — and the need for new goods and services — or face dire consequences.

Streaming’s bubble has burst, and national advertising won’t be the panacea to rescue media companies for their all-in bets on OTT. In 2023, it’s the consumers who will determine who will survive.

TVNewsCheck columnists and veteran TV executives Hank Price and Emily Barr began their friendship more than 40 years ago as an industry mentor and mentee. In this joint column they reflect on that relationship, how it shaped their respective careers and how young professionals today can form their own fruitful mentoring relationships.

It’s crucial for station general managers to form and nurture relationships with politicians at the federal level, but just as important are the relationships they build with state leaders. The time to do that work is now.

The prospect of returning the 10 p.m. hour to stations doesn’t portend the end of the network-affiliate relationship. If anything, it opens up the field for fairer financial agreements for stations and more control of primetime.

NBCUniversal CEO Jeff Shell has all but confirmed a decision to trim back primetime by an hour, a move that will fundamentally alter the linear broadcast industry. Broadcasters would do well to buckle up for change now.

With so many hours of morning and afternoon TV news, the market is getting close to saturation. Local winners and losers are sure to follow, and soon.

Much to streamers’ chagrin, OTT has entered a new, consumer-driven phase that will determine the platform’s real winners and losers. Advertising will play a big role in that fate, and local partnerships may make all the difference.

Back in the 1960s, WLBT in Jackson, Miss., had its license revoked after it actively promoted segregation, encouraged viewers to defy the government, break the law and mistreat their fellow human beings. Today, WLBT is an example of how to do race relations right, reflecting the needs, interests and employee makeup of a largely African American community. Its current owner, Gray Television, has just created the Gray Media Training Center to develop fully trained, highly qualified minority graduates for Gray’s stations in 113 markets.

Stagnant regulations and a constricting economy may force the number of TV stations producing news to narrow. Ironically, that could also lead to an increase — and improvement — of news.

Today’s news consumers are smart. They know opinion, preaching and lectures when they see them, including on our own networks. If we want to retain their trust, we must never forget that viewers see forming an opinion as their prerogative, not ours.

The frustrations of a multimedia journalist over the job’s low pay and difficult working conditions published last week by TVNewsCheck rings true with many accounts I’ve heard across the country. The issue is reaching a tipping point that station owners would do well to heed.

The recent upfronts saw networks turning on a dime from their obsession with acquiring subscribers for their streamers to their former adoration of advertising. Whether there’s enough ad revenue to support this industry-wide pivot is another story.

Networks are shortsightedly alienating their affiliate partners with their fixation on their streaming platforms. In so doing, they’re ignoring local brand value, which can carry them over the chasm between hit programs.

The nascent streamer’s abrupt end has roots in the larger failure of CNN’s brand promise, which was squandered by a belated leftward turn at the cable network.

Virtual Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (vMVPDs) operate in the loophole of the internet, free from having to honor network exclusivity agreements and able to negotiate directly with ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, thus cutting local affiliates off at the knees. Their regulation needs to be at the top of the FCC’s agenda or quality local news is in peril.

Being a GM is a complex job that requires balancing many competing interests to reach a few common goals. For those who seek it, the best groundwork is laid by learning every role at the station.

Hank Price: Multimedia journalism was born out of financial considerations, and now that MMJs are widespread, TV news owners and management have an obligation to better ensure their safety. It’s time for news directors to step up at the station level.

TV’s very currency is in crisis, fueled by deepening questions of Nielsen’s accuracy. As the industry shifts its focus toward attribution, the company needs to pull itself out of its insular shell if it wants to create the future advertising currency and secure its own future.

When SEC football moves from CBS to ABC in the fall of 2024, CBS affiliates across the conference will lose the single most advertiser-friendly venue in their arsenals. Millions of dollars will move en masse to ABC affiliates, turning station budgets and revenue audits upside down. The halo CBS affiliates have enjoyed will move right along with those dollars.

Stations bringing up the rear in their local markets have nothing to lose by shaking off their conventional thinking and introducing some radical changes to their news content. Here are a few ideas on how to kick that off.

Local television is an industry that runs on energy, and it has a short circuit. Top leadership needs to confront the burnout issue behind it right now.

The death of local news story much ballyhooed in journalism circles says more about the arrogance of local newspapers than the industry’s actual state. But TV stations need to heed an important lesson in the narrative and cast themselves as trusted local partners, not authoritative gatekeepers of information.