Today in Boston the CBS owned television station, WBZ, laid off about thirty staff members. Thirty! Including several of the best known on-air personalities.The company did the same in other cities where it is an owner, including San Francisco and Chicago, according to reports. But it is in Boston where I live, and at WBZ where I worked (off-and on) in a variety of capacities, including News Director, for oh-so-many years, where the largest number were sent packing.
Probably most everyone knows that newspapers across this country are in sad shape, owners and editors and writers praying they might find some way to recapture their lost readers and attract new ad dollars. No one is predicting how our print media will look in, say, 10 years or so. It's the internet, not paper, which is is the Holy Grail,
I can tell you that inside television, back years ago when I was so involved day-to-day, there was always a kind of built in smugness about layoffs and revenue. We used to tell everyone that we were a recession-proof industry, grabbing viewers faster than an amoeba multiplies. That we'd never have to lay off anyone. We were "golden." The only question was how much profit would increase from the year before. To have let even one someone go, and called it a layoff, would have been embarrassing. Thirty at a time would have been seen as cataclysmic.
We fired people, sure. Firing we did regularly, with a kind of calculating pleasure. But only individuals. Usually lower level staffers, or managers caught up in the unending political intrigue. Anchor talent, the most visible representations of television franchises, were also tossed aside the moment after their ratings fell off, or when they got too uppity about money, or when they pissed us off, or when someone newer or hotter became available. It was a management tool, firing was, designed to keep staffers off balance and afraid, and to drive home how unconcerned we were about losing this person or that one.
(I recall sitting in a room full of overworked, struggling television people who had been showing up seven days a week trying to develop a new local programming venture of great importance to the company. They had finally gotten up enough courage to ask for a meeting with the President of the television station group to tell him that they were discouraged, tired, overworked and maybe underpaid. After dancing around it for a while, someone finally spoke up. Without missing a beat the President said in a soft voice more terrifying than if he had yelled: "Listen. You hear that?" The room became quiet, the occupants strained to hear whatever it was it was he was referring to. After a moment the President raised his arm and pointed upward. " Come on. Listen. It's a 747. And it is circling. And it is filled with people. And all of them want your jobs." The meeting ended. Everyone knew he meant it.)
Now it has changed. People stay a very long time at television stations, there are contracts, pay is considerably higher, hours more appropriate, and there is even gratitude for performance and service. Loyalty is often rewarded. Management and ownership is more enlightened, generally. Abuse still exists I am sure, but not as blatant, not as callous as when we were "golden." People still get fired, especially on-air talent and news management, but a surprising number of employees stay for a very long time. Here in Boston that is particularly true at WBZ and the ABC affiliate, WCVB, both of which have a coterie of people, many well-known, who have been around for years.
What has changed is that now television itself is not doing too well. The networks have been losing their audience base for years and revenue is down. At the local stations there has also been a serious fall off in audience size and advertising year-to-year as well. Television is finally getting tossed around in the same boat with newspapers. And its future is just as uncertain. The trouble is, the jobs are gone, the audience is not terribly interested or engaged, the advertising is drying up.
So, today when all those people were let go at WBZ-TV no one who had been folling developments within the industry could really be surprised. Layoffs? Oh sure, we knew it was coming.
So, listen. You hear that? That plane load of people is still circling. Many plane loads. But for most of those thirty folks who used to be at WBZ in Boston, and for the others elsewhere, there will be no place to land.
