Midstate TV stations change programming as ad revenues and viewership fall
The Patriot News
by KIRA L. SCHLECHTER
Facing big advertising losses and viewers who increasingly go online for their news, midstate television stations are hiring new people and trying out new formats -- even as they try to save money.
Local news brings in 40 percent to 50 percent of a station's earnings. But ad revenue has plummeted, especially from car companies and dealerships.
"The local news staffs, which are already small, are now being cut at an unprecedented rate," said Karen Friedman, who spent 20 years as a local TV anchor and reporter, including 12 at WPVI in Philadelphia. She runs a media consulting firm in Blue Bell, Montgomery County.
Nationwide, stations are laying off employees, cutting salaries and trimming broadcasts. Some stations, such as Scranton's CBS affiliate, no longer offer local news.
Television is not alone -- advertisers are reluctant to advertise anywhere because they don't have the money, said Charles Bierbauer, the dean of the University of South Carolina's College of Mass Communications and Information Studies. The big question, he said, is whether they will return to television as the economy improves.
WGAL-TV, Channel 8, shortened its noon newscast from one hour to 30 minutes, but other stations are tweaking or expanding their broadcasts in an effort to keep viewers.
WHP-TV, Channel 21, dropped its morning newscasts on weekends but created a 10 p.m. newscast that airs on the CW 15.
WHTM, Channel 27, added a one-hour weekend morning newscast, while WPMT-TV, Channel 43, expanded its morning news from two to four hours.
Besides changing the hours of its shows, what can local TV news do to cope?
"[They] need to be unique in their content," said Bierbauer, a former CNN reporter. "That's what, by and large, they have not done. You sit in any market and flick from one to the other and they're all covering the same fires, the same wrecks."
And TV stations haven't figured out way to fully utilize the Internet.
"Nobody really knows what the best direction is for television news to go in terms of posting content," said Kirsten Johnson, an assistant professor of communications at Elizabethtown College and a former news producer at WGAL.
She thinks the best way is by charging people to view online content on local TV news and newspaper Web sites.
"Newspapers and television are providing a service," she said. "On the Internet, they think everything should be free. But you can't sustain a business that way. You can't give away your product and expect to make money."
