LOCAL TV news – once one of the most glamorous, well-paid jobs in the world – is suddenly more dangerous than Baghdad.
The bodies are everywhere.
Rob Morrison, Jim Rosenfield, Scott Weinberger and Andrew Kirtzman are among the marquee names who’ve been let go in just the last two months.
Others, including Ch. 4’s Lynda Baquero and Michael Gargiulo, were moved out of high-profile (and high-paying) anchor jobs and accepted reassignments as reporters.
Fear has descended on newsrooms all over New York as stars wonder where the ax will fall next.
And this time, other stations are not opening their arms to take in the recently departed. Ch. 4 vet Perri Peltz, who left the station last month after her contract ended, plans to go to medical school, she says.
With the economy in free fall, flat ratings and viewers and advertisers moving to the Internet, station suits are wondering why they need to pay big-name anchors the going rates – anywhere from $700,000 to $1.5 million a year.
Newcomers cost a fraction of that price – which accounts for a lot of the new faces New Yorkers are starting to see at 6 and 11 p.m.
So far, the changes have only affected the “second-tier” anchors. The market’s top anchor teams like Ch. 4’s Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons and Ch. 7’s Bill Ritter and Liz Cho are unscathed.
For now, says one well-placed source, “people are afraid to make changes on the big guns.”
“The reality is, these are different times for local TV stations,” says Al Primo, who created the “Eyewitness News” format back in the 1970s which is still used by Ch. 7.
“Management was getting trapped into that, ‘This is New York, the big time, you gotta pay New York wages’ mentality.
“Stations were riding the crest of big money for so many years they allowed themselves to get some very high-profile and high-salaried people,” he says.
“Now you have hedge-fund people getting involved in stations and these guys are like, ‘Wait a minute. Why are we paying that guy $500,000 to do the noon news?’ ”
Anchors like Rosenfield and Morrison are simply being priced out the market.
Rosenfield’s annual salary is estimated at roughly $1.5 million, with Morrison pulling down around $750,000, according to industry insiders.
On-air reporters like Weinberger and Kirtzman, both axed by Ch. 2, were making salaries over $300,000, according to sources – not exactly chump change.
Behind the scenes, TV news people are being told to take salary cuts at contract renewal time – or move on.
“It’s all about money,” says one local news executive. “For a while, due to a lot of different competitive reasons, talent salaries got over-inflated.
“Station managers are now asking themselves, ‘Do I need to spend all this money? Is it worth it if I can get someone to do Rob Morrison’s job for a quarter of the price?’
“I think business conditions in general will lead to some belt-tightening,” the executive says.
“But it’s not going to last forever.”