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"If I were the boss at CBS...."

Mark Roberts

Mark Roberts

That's the title of a provocative essay by Stacey Woelfel, professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Woelfel was news director of KOMU-TV, the university's NBC affiliate, for 24 years. He describes his ideas as a "thought experiment". Some of them are...well, idealistic...others are intriguing. To summarize them as bullet points:

  • Spin 60 Minutes off into an independent entity
  • Program an hour of news in broadcast prime time on CBS every weekday
  • Immensely expand the DC newsroom
  • Refocus Face the Nation into a journalist-led debate program
  • Go all in on CBS News 24/7 (and change the name) {this is referring to CBS's streaming service}
  • Flood and own social media
  • End CBS Mornings (except CBS News Sunday Morning)
  • Hire Denver’s Kyle Clark and his team to remake the CBS Evening News
  • Bring in a local TV news director to be a real editor-in-chief
As for that last point:

If this was more than a thought experiment and I really wanted all of this to happen, I’d need to find the right person for the job to lead the new CBS News. Rather than an editor-in-chief who appears to be brought in to shift CBS in favor of the billionaire class, I’d look to hire someone who’s already been making TV news work. And I wouldn’t have to look any further than among the best local news directors working today. Unlike my anchor pick, I won’t name any specific names here. But look at the most successful local newsrooms out there, CBS or otherwise, and you’ll find people creating newscasts and serving their communities at a level the networks haven’t achieved in years.
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Some of this is what I call "capital-J journalism" stuff, not entirely mindful of economic realities; others are fairly sensible. Notably, while having an hour of prime-time news has been a long-time pipe dream of "capital-J" journalists, the time may have come for it: it's cheaper to produce than another entertainment show and there are all sorts of cross-promotional opportunities that would be enabled.

I encourage people to read the whole thing before reacting to it.

Disclaimer of sorts: Woelfel was two classes after me at the J-School. Since the core of the program was two years in duration, our paths didn't cross and I didn't know him. But I definitely understand where he's coming from, both the parts I agree with and the parts that I don't.

Here's the essay: If I Were the Boss at CBS…
 
Nice essay. It sounds like someone who spent their career in local news, rather than the networks. I'd ask him how easy was it to pre-empt prime time programming with news when he was at KOMU. The news people live in a different world from the prime time people. One group makes money, and the other group spends it. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is which.

The format of Face The Nation was designed to compete against Meet The Press. The NBC program was created as a journalist led show. He wants Face to be more like Meet. He worked at an NBC affiliate.

60 Minutes pays for the rest of CBS News. Spinning it off into its own thing takes away that revenue stream. Not a good idea. Same thing with the morning show.

The DC newsroom was built to accommodate the Evening News when it was based there. The problem with enlarging it is it takes attention away from the rest of the country. NPR has that problem now. It's a very DC-oriented news organization. They're trying to expand the view to the 50 states.

Social media is a place where facts have to compete against fiction. Usually the fiction is a much more entertaining story. It becomes a very antagonistic place if you represent the establishment, which is what CBS News is. Your well researched news becomes fodder for attacks by people who have a very different goal.

The biggest problem I see with the suggestions is he's spending a lot of money without creating a dependable revenue stream. That's a much bigger problem than CBS News. It's a problem for news in general. We need to find a way to pay for real journalism, because the old ad-supported model is dying. The person who does that will become the savior of journalism. The way for journalism to succeed is to make so much money that it's bulletproof. That's how the old newspapers were able to survive...until the bottom fell out.
 
People hated what Meet The Press became as it went to soft on the interviews. Face the Nation had gained ground. Maybe that’s not the case anymore as I don’t watch the Sunday morning shows
 
The guy who cancelled the beloved Pepper and Friends 10 years after it was no longer profitable and replaced it with cheaper syndicated programs
 
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nomadcowatbk said:
The guy who cancelled the beloved Pepper and Friends 10 years after it was no longer profitable and replaced it with cheaper syndicated programs
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Woelfel did not make that decision. Marty Siddall, the GM of KOMU at the time, made the decision, announcing in May 2009 that the show would end in September. Columbia being Columbia, controversy ensued. The Reynolds Journalism Institute of the School of Journalism then picked up the show, reformatting it as a 5 or 10-minute daily broadcast on KBIA radio and online, where it continued until Pepper finally retired two years ago. Siddall said the TV show was losing money. Keep in mind that KOMU is what's called "an auxiliary business enterprise" and is operated on a commercial basis. It's probably not as profitable as a purely privately-owned operation would be, but it's still expected to at least cover its costs.

I can't believe we're talking about "Pepper and Friends" in this thread. Oy.
 
Agree with vs. disagree:

  • Spin 60 Minutes off into an independent entity (OK with this, but there needs to be financial backing for spinning it off independently. In an era where more independent journalists come from YouTube, this could be easier said than done.)
  • Program an hour of news in broadcast prime time on CBS every weekday (NO WAY. Fuggetaboutit. LOL!!! Primetime is for entertainment programming first and foremost. We saw the 2009 failure that was The Jay Leno Show on NBC. This would be like The Jay Leno Show except news-related. If anything, CBS could put a Nightline-type program to replace Colbert after he is finished.)
  • Immensely expand the DC newsroom (I like this idea, but it needs to be a middle ground, unbiased, and both sides of the aisle represented.)
  • Refocus Face the Nation into a journalist-led debate program (Agree. Crossfire and McLaughlin Group were awesome. It would be nice to see a similar show again on Sunday. Two Republican guests, two Democrats, an unbiased moderator. Or two journalists, one from the right and one from the left, ala Crossfire.)
  • Go all in on CBS News 24/7 (and change the name) {this is referring to CBS's streaming service} (That's where the money is, it's streaming. So this is a no-brainer.)
  • End CBS Mornings (except CBS News Sunday Morning) (I assume to give all of their affiliates a 4:30-9AM morning newscast. I can't see how they would compete with Good Day NY, Good Day LA, and other venerable local morning shows on Fox affiliates. Plus the audience is shrinking. The average 35-year-old isn't watching TV news. They look up the weather and traffic on their phone, and get on with their day...)
 
At some point (although the affiliates might not like it) they won’t be producing 2 separate morning newscasts - one for broadcast and the other for their streaming channel.
 
crainbebo said:
  • Program an hour of news in broadcast prime time on CBS every weekday
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Woelfel makes clear in his essay (linked in the original post) that he's not talking about a newscast, but a news program.

crainbebo said:
  • (NO WAY. Fuggetaboutit. LOL!!! Primetime is for entertainment programming first and foremost.
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60 Minutes

20/20

Dateline

48 Hours


And those are just the successful, enduring ones that are still in primetime today.

And, in the article linked above, he gets specific (I've inserted paragraph breaks just to make it easier to read):


Speaking of prime time, I’d return news to that daypart in a big way by using the 10 p.m. ET time slot,

Monday through Friday, for original news content from CBS News. Mondays I’d focus on female-favorable true crime content to offset Monday Night Football. Perhaps I keep the 48 Hours branding or come up with something a bit fresher.

Tuesday is for politics, so the offering there would be a showcase for an expanded Washington bureau (more on that in a moment).

Wednesday would be the new home for 60 Minutes, moving it off its longtime place on Sunday night to keep it from facing off against football and other sports programming.

Thursdays would be for news documentaries, bringing back the idea of longform reporting as seen in the classic Harvest of Shame, but with a modern, cinematic nonfiction approach.

Finally, Fridays would be for fun, tapping into the success of news as comedy shows by turning The Daily Show into an hour long The Weekly Show, giving it more time to develop segments a la John Oliver’s This Week Tonight. Adding this news lineup to prime time would have the added benefit of being a great lead-in to the late, local news on CBS affiliates.
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My criticisms:
  • Attaching the CBS News brand to true-crime (Mondays) and topical comedy (Fridays) is an immediate credibility-killer. Bad idea, Stacy. Not saying those shows might not work, but they cannot be from CBS News.

  • The move of 60 Minutes to Wednesdays is predicated entirely on his idea of CBS giving control of the program to an independent entity to produce, with a 99-year (!) agreement to fund and air it on the part of CBS. The move from 7 p.m. Sundays to 10 p.m. Wednesdays would kill the show outright without that improbable, impracticable, notgonnahappendotcom idea.

  • I think he's wildly underestimating the time and resources an hour-long documentary take. To schedule one weekly would require either insane staffing and expense or outside contractors, which is still money, and which means it's not entirely the product of CBS News.
 
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michael hagerty said:
My criticisms:


  • I think he's wildly underestimating the time and resources an hour-long documentary take. To schedule one weekly would require either insane staffing and expense or outside contractors, which is still money, and which means it's not entirely the product of CBS News.
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All true given that documentaries those tend to be done by public media/non profit organizations. It's the reason why PBS affiliates lobby for CPB funding is for something like this. Commercial organizations not so much given the system they are in.
 
If I were the boss, I would ditch the personal security detail. You won't connect with your teams if you feel like you need a phalanx everywhere you go.

If you want to flood the zone with "snackable news" (my boss' term), make sure the affiliates have access to them for air.

Keep the morning news, but halve the on-air talent if you're concerned about the cost. Reduce it to an hour if needed.

Don't pursue theme nights if you really want a 10:00/9:00 newscast. Just do the news. Give 6:30/5:30 back to the affiliates. Documentaries are unrealistic as they take several months to shoot, write, and produce.

Keep 60 Minutes on Sunday. It is a higher-viewership night than most weeknights. Competition from Sunday Night Football is only four months out of the year.

No matter what you do, as long as you're committed to fixed newscasts at fixed times for fixed lengths on broadcast TV, your audience is typically going to be 55 and older.

Streaming, with the bite-sized content, perhaps allows you more access to non-news watchers. I don't think you can be CBS 24/7 live without burning out your staff and being extremely repetitive. Upload when you need to upload. Go live when you need to go live.

Edit to add: You don't need to poach on-air talent from FOX News Channel. FOX viewers are loyal to FOX, the brand, not the people delivering the content.
 
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TheRob said:
Give 6:30/5:30 back to the affiliates.
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Have you spoken with affiliates about that? The ones I know like that half hour break in their local news. It gives them time to refresh their presentation for the top of the hour. It gives them access to produced national reports that they can use in their local news. But the main thing is it helps pay for that national reporting through the national spots that air in the Evening News. The alternative is to either have affiliates pay for the national coverage, or clear national inventory during their local evening news. In that way, CBS News becomes more of an affiliate news service, rather than a long form program producer.

I agree with your assessment about fixed time news. But that also applies to the local news. Neither audience is getting any younger. The funding crisis in radio has also hit local TV stations.
 
michael hagerty said:
In which case, why even do news? I mean, if you're willing to overlook the fact that journalism is quite literally informing people about the facts of current affairs.
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It's a good question. It could be why the government is trying to control the news. If the news was good, they'd want to get everyone to attend their press briefings at the pentagon and white house. Instead, they're finding ways to limit that attendance to only those who report the good stuff. If you bring up bad stuff, then you're "fake news."

The thing about Bari Weiss is she's not someone who reports happy news. She knows that conflict creates click bait. So we may get some surprises from her.
 
TheBigA said:
It's a good question. It could be why the government is trying to control the news. If the news was good, they'd want to get everyone to attend their press briefings at the pentagon and white house. Instead, they're finding ways to limit that attendance to only those who report the good stuff. If you bring up bad stuff, then you're "fake news."

The thing about Bari Weiss is she's not someone who reports happy news. She knows that conflict creates click bait. So we may get some surprises from her.
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This is where we are now where the Administration wants certain pundits and influencers in the press pool. But how Bari Weiss manages CBS News is at best is very dependent on the actions the Ellisons are running Paramount.
 


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