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Tara Hitchcock Unloads on Tim & Willy Podcast

landtuna

landtuna

Wasn't sure where to put this post since it involves both radio and TV people but here goes....

On yesterday's Tim & Willy Podcast one of the guests was Tara Hitchcock, late of KTVK (Channel 3 otherwise known as "AZ Family"). There may not be as much "family" left in that organization as first thought as Tara said that upon her dismissal KTVK "owned" all her Twitter followers and she was not allowed to keep her account.

I am not a Twitter user but I did think that setting up a personal account was just that....personal. Apparently KTVK thinks followers belong to the station and did not want Tara's followers following her to any new source of employment.

The only thing I can think of is that this is somehow related to a "do not compete" clause but that seems a stretch. I would be interested to know if something like this is becoming standard in on-air talent contracts. I mean, it follows that if they can usurp your Twitter followers it isn't a big stretch to think they can glom onto your email contacts, Facebook friends and the like.
 
Tara who? ::)

Seriously, if it her personal account that she set up on her own time, KTVK can do nothing. But it sounds like it was set up by 3TV for her use as a program host and, like her company email account, can be revoked upon her leaving the station. Many, if not most stations do that for their on-air people and give them a handle that might be "Tara3TV" or similar.

If I leave my present employer, they can delete my company email account and access to parts of the company website, but not my personal Facebook or GMail accounts, or anything else that I personally set up apart from my duties on the job.
 
I just listened to it again. She doesn't say who set up her Twitter account but does say the station "owned" it and her email so maybe it was a station account.

If you want to listen for yourself it's here: http://timandwilly.com/podcasts.php at about the 10:45 mark.
 
If I remember correctly, Tara was one of the last members of AZFamily to get on Twitter. After much kicking and screaming and gentle arm twisting she finally jumped on the Twitter bandwagon with the "Tara3TV" (which was probably set up with assistance from somebody at KTVK). In this case, though it was set up as an individual, it did represent Tara as a member of 3TV and would be quite reasonable for the station to want to control that account when she left.

As most of us know, it is not difficult to set up a Twitter account so she should have been able to create a new personal one, though her choice was not very original (TaraTV1).

If you look at most of the people in local media, they have a "work" account and many also have "personal" accounts not only on Twitter but Facebook usually using their true names in place of their stage/on-air name.
 
Poor baby....if the account is on CH3 servers, it belongs to them. After I retired, the minute my name went off the payroll, my email account was shut down. Very much a standard practice, and something a person with a nose for news should have no problem finding out.
 
This is actually a hot topic right now. The biggest case pending is Phone Dog vs. Noah Kravitz. Phone Dog is a cellphone news site and Kravitz used to write for them. He had a Twitter account at that time, which he renamed (removing a Phone Dog reference) and took with him. 8 months later, they sued him saying the 17,000 followers he picked up while working for them had a monetary value of $2.50 per follower per month...which adds up to $340,000.

The case is still pending, and there are others. The trades started warning talent about this almost two years ago.
 
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