TV personalities anchoring radio news

[The Voice of Reason]

It is a shame that many radio stations in Rochester now rely on television news anchors to report the news on radio.

From a management standpoint I'm sure it is less expensive to pay a TV anchor instead of hiring a qualified radio newscaster. But what does this policy hold for the future for people who desire to become radio reporters and anchors? The answer: Little to none.

It's not like television news anchors need the extra money, do they? Plus some of these newscasts were pre-recorded the previous night, so if there is any major development, it's doubtful we will hear it, depending on what station one listens to.

As pointed out by other posters more familiar with the history of Rochester radio than I am, there was a time that a number of local radio stations had their own news staffs. Today there are just two stations, in the market size of Rochester, that employ radio people for news; WHAM & WXXI.

IMHO it is very doubtful, despite some editorials written this past year, that radio will experience a "rebirth" of localism, especially in the news area, this coming New Year or in the near future.

So my advise to anyone considering a career as a radio news reporter or journalist in college is either to concentrate on television or print, or change your major, because one would have better luck finding work as a horse and buggy builder than a radio newscaster.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Print? Really?

 

[The Voice of Reason]

Print? Really?

I see your point, especially with the decline in the number of newspaper jobs. However there is still the internet. Besides there are probably more people still employed in the print media than in radio news; although I don't have any solid figures to back that up.

 

[Mark Giardina]

As pointed out by other posters more familiar with the history of Rochester radio than I am, there was a time that a number of local radio stations had their own news staffs. Today there are just two stations, in the market size of Rochester, that employ radio people for news; WHAM & WXXI.

Perhaps I could answer your question.

Back in the 1970s (when I started working in Rochester radio) there were at least 8 radio stations that provided local news with a full staff of beat reporters and on-air anchors. That changed in the mid-1980s when the requirement that radio stations air a certain number of hours of news and public affairs programming was no longer required to maintain a station's broadcast license. In other words when deregulation came into existence. (Thank you Ronald Reagan).

From the mid-80s to the present, a number of radio stations, not just here in Rochester, eliminated or drastically reduced their local news departments thus sending a number of radio newscasters/reporters to the unemployment line or find other careers.

You are correct that WHAM and WXXI are the only two local radio stations that still employ a radio news staff. However I can attest from having worked at WXXI that the number of personnel was reduced over the years from when I first started at the station in 1990. At WHAM their news staff was cut back when Bill Lowe left. So the trend you point out is not just a local occurrence.

On a personal note, when my position as News Director at WRMM radio was abolished in January of 1990 and I was laid off, my replacement was a TV news reporter. The irony is that I gave this person a break into the Rochester market when I hired her at WNYR-WEZO (Later known as WRMM).

At the time I was very upset over this decision. But looking back I can understand, from a management's position, that those in charge felt WRMM didn't need a full-time news director and it would be less expensive to bring a TV person on board as a "news reader."

One of the reasons I left radio 7 years ago to work for the government is because I felt then, as I do today, that radio news is not as important to station owners and management as it once was.
With the advent of the internet, and relying on local TV staff, many radio stations have opted to just eliminate local news altogether. So be it! But I think it's a damn shame because (personally speaking) local news added to the overall product a radio station was trying to offer their audience.

 

[Bob1370]

Mark Giardina comments that "...radio news is not as important to station owners and management as it once was."

Unfortunately, at least to the adult listener, this has made radio itself less important than it once was. The results can be seen in Arbitron recording a declining use of radio among adult listeners in every passing year since 1989.

This makes radio managers' collective decision to de-emphasize news programming, even as TV increases news content and younger listeners opt for other ways to get their audio, border on the bizarre. You would think the last thing you'd want to do is throw away the adult audience that, with the proper amount of service, you'd otherwise be able to hold. Radio today needs every listener it can get--cost cutting at the expense of service to that listener is a false economy indeed. Radio's poor financial showing as an industry even before the 2008 downturn can be directly attributed to cuts in quality like this. Evidently Citadel's collapse and Clear Channel's financial near-death experience still hasn't been enough of a lesson to most of the rest of the business...neither has the continued success of the one company that was least caught up in the corporate anorexia and did the least cutting within its remaining station group, the CBS radio division, over the last few years.

Looks like no one has learned anything from the biggest crisis radio has faced in 60 years, since it last had to deal with a major challenge. The challenger then was television, and radio reinvented itself by localizing, targeting and super-servicing its potential listeners. It may be time for a similar re-invention, and news can and should play a major part of that, just as it did in the 1950s.

 

[TheBigA]

I think it's another example of the circle of life. Back in the 1940s, the top radio newsmen were recruited for the new medium: Television. But there always was an interplay between the media, with one of the best examples being Charles Osgood. Edward R. Murrow insisted on continuing his radio work even after he became a famous TV anchor. Walter Cronkite was a wire reporter before he moved to TV. He said the news was the news, regardless of the medium. He also continued on radio after TV. In fact many of the network TV news reporters do radio reporting, and it's been that way since the 1950s. You can hear ABC, Fox, and CBS TV reporters and even some anchors on their respective radio networks every day.

What does this mean for people who desire to be radio reporters? As my father used to say, don't put all your eggs in one basket. I don't know of any colleges that only teach radio reporting. They teach journalism. Those lessons apply to print, radio, and TV. The difference with TV comes in the performance area. And TV producers are taught to incorporate video. But I see that a lot in internet reporting too. Even newspaper web sites incorporate video, and the reporters are encouraged to add video reports to their print stories.

I think it's very exciting for talented people to use a wide range of media in doing their job, and not restricted to radio. As I continually say, we live in a multi-platform world, and it behooves people who work in the field to know and adapt to all platforms. It will offer them more opportunities, and a lot more excitement.

 

[TheBigA]

The results can be seen in Arbitron recording a declining use of radio among adult listeners in every passing year since 1989.

I think you're refering to declining TSL (time spent listening), which has declined since 1989. And it's obvious why that is: More sources for information, more media, more devices, more attention to news and information from TV, and more ways to get exactly the same information that had been exclusive to radio, but now in a more personalized way.

Back in World War 1, a popular song went "How Ya Gonna Keep Em Down On The Farm After They've Seen Paree?" That is exactly the challenge radio faces. Same old same old radio reporting, reading tired scripts with no links to video or further reading, is not going to work. Radio reporters need to broaden their approach and view what they do as "content creation," not radio reporting. The same stories can be adapted to mobile and internet with imagination. That's what it will take. If radio limits itself to audio, it will relegate itself to the museum. If it broadens what it does to all media, then radio is at least in the game.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Same old same old radio reporting, reading tired scripts with no links to video or further reading, is not going to work. Radio reporters need to broaden their approach and view what they do as "content creation," not radio reporting. The same stories can be adapted to mobile and internet with imagination. That's what it will take. If radio limits itself to audio, it will relegate itself to the museum. If it broadens what it does to all media, then radio is at least in the game.

I want to give a tip-of-the-hat to BigA for being a great source of "thought starters". Take the one above and run with it. Stir in a few "local herbs" and make it YOUR recipe.

Sometimes I take one of his statements and run with it in a direction he never intended, but that does not kill the usefulness of his idea. Let me illustrate. There has been discussion of whether LPFM is viable and useful. One day he suggested: (loosely translated) "What some of you want is a hobby. Go start a model railroad club! Or open a neighborhood coffee shop where good conversation is cultivated."

Here is where that almost throwaway comment has taken me: LPFM was never designed to be a stand-alone enterprise. It was designed so that existing community organizations with charters to do things could include one of the teapot operations in their overall portfolio. So maybe people interested in starting an LPFM that don't already have an existing labor council or ethnic organization or religious institution that needs the broadcast signal in it collection, maybe establishing the illusion that your newly organized not-for-profit coffee house should also have a tiny radio station as a subsidiary. To turn a really corny phrase, "let that thought percolate for a few minutes."

Now, let me swing back into the current conversation. Many of us has lived in this life cycle where radio stations were capable of being free-standing, self-sustaining organisms. Other organisms NEEDED US, we weren't in the habit of needing them. This idea that maybe being a gatherer-producer-performer of news has to be seen in the future as one leg of a stool that includes Internet and/or video and/or annual publication of "This Years in the History of Our Community" books and other enterprises may be essential to those who want to spend their lives as part of the world of "audio news".

 

[SRP]

Guess you don't know this board very well, GRC. You've done the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.

Can't wait to see the responses to your rant...

 

[fybush]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see anything particularly incendiary in anything GRC said, and I do think I know this board fairly well.

It's no secret that the WXXI radio newsroom is no longer a "radio newsroom." Sure, we do audio, and we take it very seriously, but we also shoot video and write blog posts and engage in social-media interaction and host community forums with our audiences, too. It seems to me that it's working - we've added staff over the last couple of years, and we're still hiring.

 

[Paul_Warren]

What a great discussion. When I came to WNYR/WEZO in 1976, the stations had a shared, four-person, radio-only news department, covered local politics, and had a very well-defined presentation philosophy for both the Country AM daytimer and the Beautiful Music FM. It was a terrific professional growth opportunity to write and deliver newscasts for both formats and cover city council at night, and be critiqued by veterans both in-house, and in a consulting setting.

In the era that inspired me to want to be in radio, the big Top-40 stations competed hard in news, realizing that it broadened demographics, provided premium avails for advertisers, and prevented dial-hopping to the full-service MORs every time there was bad weather or a big fire or accident.

I think crossover among various media platforms makes sense in many ways, and it's an efficient way to establish personalities as celebrities, but there is also a very specific talent set required to do radio well. The ability to write and tell stories in a compelling manner without links and video makes a huge difference in spoken-word setting, such as in-car listening, and there's no way to develop or even discover that talent by tweeting or writing a blog.

Mark, we can't blame Reagan. It's not the government's job to artificially prop up employment in any particular industry. There wouldn't have been pressure for dereg in the first place if broadcasters weren't already poised to strip-mine. The move had already started, with a majority of music stations grinding out the bare minimums to renew their licenses. For a while, the race to the bottom left a niche for all-news, and some big AMs notably went for it. But eventually, radio itself came to be taken lightly as a source for news. I don't know that there's any getting that back, despite the fact that radio can do some things much better than any of the alternatives. (Such as covering breaking news at low cost, reaching cars quickly, etc.)

The one area in which I can blame regulators is in cluttering the dial with little 3 kW FMs and daytime AMs that can't cover their markets adequately, and creating an advertising pie that's split so many ways now that no one can afford what we used to do.

I live here in what is now a Top-30 market and hear the news presented, even on successful stations, by people who once would have been sent to the minor leagues for a year or two of small-market seasoning. (We all know where that went, too.) Now, it's all on-the-job training in medium markets, if you can call blundering along by yourself with no qualified direction, "training."

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Guess you don't know this board very well, GRC. You've done the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded theater.

Can't wait to see the responses to your rant...

One of the rather poised, reasonable, well-behaved residents of your area who participates in this thread once asked me in some OFF-LINE conversation: "What draws you to post in this forum?" I don't remember my exact reply but it was: "Because the conversation here is stimulating; the people here are willing to have worthwhile discussions."

His next question: "Well have you ever lived here?" No, but an employer of mine once deployed me there for extended corporate training; I have vacationed there; and years ago I worked with a general manager and a sales person who went to Buffalo to manage a station for a couple of years and I heard all their war stories.

If I have stumbled over the trip-wire of an IED buried along side the street, I'm sorry but I had no intention of creating a riot.... I just want to contribute to what I think has been, and will move forward as an intelligent, adult conversation.

I'll go take a seat in the bleachers behind the dugout for now and watch the conversation blossom.

 

[SirRoxalot]

The biggest problem I see with "multimedia journalists" is that there are very specific - and different - skill sets required for different media. There are great writers who can't read to save their lives. There are great readers who have no eye for video. There are great videographers who don't have the disciplined eye required for stills, and can't write to save their lives.

There are precious few people who are adequate at all of the skills required for multiple media platforms. There are a mere handful of people who are GOOD at multiple platforms. Add the different approaches and levels of detail required for various media, and you have a real challenge for your budding journalist.

One of the biggest issues with journalism today is that the support staff for the media "stars" is getting thinner and thinner. There's precious little depth to most stories. At one time, each media had a place. Radio was the home of breaking news. TV added depth and set the scene with video. Print did the digging, and became the official record by consolidating emerging facts into a cogent narrative. Now, everybody gets the ramblings of the blogosphere, tainted by opinion. Rumor and fact mix like a bad cocktail.

 

[TheBigA]

There are precious few people who are adequate at all of the skills required for multiple media platforms.

I think that's kind of the idea.

The reality is that the public wants what the public wants. If it's not perfect, but it's what the public wants, then it's great. There are a lot of singers who, to my ear, can't sing. But they sell lots of records and people go to their concerts. So in Buffalo, you have 50 or so radio stations, but only a handful of TV anchors. They are better known by a wider number of people than anyone on radio, they have instant credibility, know the subject and the community, they can read, write, speak, and even look good online, and they bring all of that, plus cross-promotional opportunities, to your radio station. Why wouldn't you jump to hire that kind of person? Heck, I'd pay more for it! It sets the bar a little higher, and maybe that's what radio needs to pull it out of the past.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Wow, nice job of taking a quote completely out of context. And thanks for demonstrating your intimate personal knowledge of the Buffalo radio market. You've added measurably to the discussion.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The biggest problem I see with "multimedia journalists" is that there are very specific - and different - skill sets required for different media. There are great writers who can't read to save their lives. There are great readers who have no eye for video. There are great videographers who don't have the disciplined eye required for stills, and can't write to save their lives.

I think what you just wrote was very descriptive of the era when radio was new, and then TV was new. They and newspapers were indeed each media which were driven by the mechanics of their delivery method.

The younger generation of today has grown up exposed to all three of those "traditional" media and exposed to the new "instant cyber" based information glut.

I would propose to you that people who are not flexible and exposed and trained enough to comprehend the skill sets of all of these platforms will not survive a career attempt in media over the next few years.

Today it is not an issue of whether a videographer has the eye to capture an appropriate still shot. The issue today is whether the consumer of information knows good video vs. bad video, and knows a good still from a bad still. And if the consumer doesn't know and doesn't care, sadly, it matters not how skilled the photographer.

And maybe a generation ago, maybe the people of Buffalo were more sophisticated and recognized the skill set, but today I am not sure whether it matters that your audience is Buffalo, NY or Mesquite, TX. We all have a certain amount of brain-fatigue from the media glut of McDonalds and Walmart and Viagra ads and "You've Got a Friend in the diamond business" and the barbarians asking: "What's in YOUR wallet?".

 

[heydaybegone]

Yes..I jump into shark infested waters....but that's this board, after all

Today it is not an issue of whether a videographer has the eye to capture an appropriate still shot. The issue today is whether the consumer of information knows good video vs. bad video, and knows a good still from a bad still. And if the consumer doesn't know and doesn't care, sadly, it matters not how skilled the photographer.

I agree with wit da Cowboy, and then some. The bar has been lowered, regardless of what WE think. WE, here on the board, know what used to be...the best of the best. (nope, not gonna run the list of TV & radio personalities - you're welcome). But the truth is in the pudding. Even EXCELLENT talent today can't stand out...because they are up against a lowered criteria!!
The "public" as referred to...doesn't have a clue to quality anymore. This issue goes well beyond our beloved radio industry, so there is no shame in it. It's just HOW do you get the bar raised back up? Goes right along with "how do you fight technology sources?".

HDBG

Sidebar: Rox - your post regarding "multimedia journalists" is true to form. It is spot on...

 

[Element9]

I agree with Big A. There are a lot more choices. It's not 1972. What the public wants, the public gets. You want five pounds of dogsh*t in a paper bag? Yessir, we got that for you and we'll wip it up in 30 seconds. Here, lemme gift wrap it for you. Cash or charge? The consumer defines the radio market place in large part because radio gives him/her limited choices.

The days of the Jack Ogilvie at the editor's desk, Pulse Beat News, Jim McLaughlin and Newsday at Noon and News First At 25 and 55 are over. Were they good? Bet you assets. But today, news content has to be bite size or the average listener with 6th grade reading comprehension skills and the attention span of a gnat cannot digest it. Which is why people of reasonable intelligence seek out NPR, APM and PRI. You'll find some good work (mature sounding anchors who can read, stories that are well-written, soundbites that are relevant to the story) at newsradio 88 WCBS or 1060 KYW, both of which are news stations rather than news-talk stations and WBEN comes around in the clutch, but it's not what it was even five years ago, let alone ten, fifteen years ago. Don't even think about the days when Kevin Gordon and Mark Litener anchored the newscasts.

In music radio the thousand song library is long gone, despite how "different" the Lake says it is or how 97 Rock plays b-sides and deep cuts. There's a reason so many kids are walking around like zombies with earbuds on their way to become deaf as a stone. As a result, a good chunk of future potential listeners has been wiped away. Call it the digital purge. Not to be vitriolic (heaven forbid), but good luck getting that generation back to the box in ten to 15 years.

Over many threads, Charles108 has made some good points about content in the age of PPM, but what content there may be on radio can be easily surpassed by the stuff that entertains people on You Tube ("Tippy the dog dances the twist, 17,560 views"), Facebook ("I'm at a boring party in Depew, but my girlfriend's mom is hot") and any number of Internet sites such as this one ("today's radio sucks, why can't we go back to the days of Joey and Danny doing the changevover at 7 o'clock"), dedicated to the gorkiest of radio geeks dispelling theories of what works and what doesn't. (That looks like me in the mirror. Hey, how dya like these plaid chinos? Got 'em at Twin Fair. Yeah, that's long gone too.)

There is "content" on radio these days, but it's been re-defined (the nature of evolution) and if you like it, good for you. And if you like what's being posted on station websites, fine. But it may be the reason for the decrease in TSL and why so many people seem not to be impressed with what's "on the radio." You can't go back, so either turn off the radio or get used to hearing people who sound like the counter guy at Tim's doing the newscasts and snarky bumpers from Bumper Boy Billie and voice tracks in Buffalo, Cleveland and Milwaukee from Toni Sacramento in Charlotte.

There ya have it. That's my content. You spent 60 seconds reading it. That's 60 seconds of your life that you'll never have back again. That's my buck tree eighty and even though I didn't address Farid Suleman, Tom Hogan or Lew Dickey, SRP very likely will accuse me of "throwing bombs" and The Big A will parse the second paragraph. It's the reason you come here, check the site at least once a week and occasionally post.

Coming down in 3... 2... 1...

-9-

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

To paraphrase from the movie "When Sally met Harry"....

Waiter, I'll have whatever that Element9 dude ordered.

 

[SirRoxalot]

What is brewing here is indeed an information glut. The biggest change in media in the last 15 years is that EVERYBODY has access to ALL information. In the past, few people had access to the actual sources of a story. Now, the sources are out there for all to see, and likely interact with.

Information without context is simply noise. The role of media was as a filter for all the noise and as an aggregator of information. The most important function of the media, especially with so much more information available, is to sort the important from the mundane, and to scrutinize what's presented as "fact" in order to determine its veracity.

As far as radio is concerned, the answer isn't more of the "same-old, same-old". That way lies a continued slow death of the medium. If radio doesn't find a way to be relevant to the next generation, it will indeed become a buggy-whip industry. The good news? Studies indicate that listening is still pervasive, even though TSL is continues to drop. The audience still samples radio, so it's not the medium at fault - it's the content.