Channel 2's high-profile layoffs are another sign of the times in mass media
If you build it, they will come, says the "Field of Dreams" adage. But if you simply pay them, maybe not so much.
The high-profile layoffs at WBBM-TV Channel 2 on Monday were part of an industry-wide retrenchment, and that industry is all mass media, newspapers and radio as well as TV. But it also illustrates the perils of where and how to spend money -- and how much -- in the high-risk business of television.
When Joe Ahern returned to town six years ago to take over CBS' Channel 2, he started looking right away into the possibility of building street-level studios at Washington and Dearborn. Many millions of dollars later, the station will move into those new digs in July, raising the station's profile and, he hopes, adding audience.
Yet, when Ahern got here, he also began pillaging other stations right away, courting Diann Burns from top-rated WLS-TV Channel 7 and bringing her over in a deal reportedly worth $10 million over five years, making her the highest-paid news anchor in town.
Yet, for all Burns' likability, it didn't translate into more viewers, not with Antonio Mora, and not with Rob Johnson brought over from Channel 7 and placed alongside her in the marquee 10 p.m. newscast last year.
Channel 2 remained third at 10 p.m., and when orders came from CBS to cut budget at its owned-and-operated affiliates nationwide, Burns and lead sports anchor Mark Malone were first to go, along with anchor-reporter Mary Ann Childers and even relatively well-paid producers like Phil Hayes and Harvey Moshman.
"We're not unique in this," Ahern said Tuesday, after what he described as "a long hard day" executing the layoffs on Monday. "The economic conditions are awful. … We're in an economic environment where it just demands close scrutiny."
He pointed to the huge losses recently posted by GM and the Sun-Times and said he was not going to let Channel 2 dig the same hole, especially with the investment in the new studios.
It really was a case of ratings performance with Burns.
"We had decided a long time ago that we would not renew Diann," Ahern said.
That led him to reassess the entire news operation, "to rethink how we are going to do business … how we can reorganize for the future, also with an eye toward moving into the new building" -- altogether "an excruciating process."
So, while the actual personnel announcements are yet to be made, Channel 2 figures to go with the lower-priced newcomer Anne State as Burns' replacement, with the newly hired Ryan Baker from WMAQ Channel 5 replacing Malone. For now, in the coming months, Channel 2 will mostly likely rely on its new studios -- and not high-priced on-air talent -- to attract viewers.
It would probably be wrong to characterize million-dollar employees as "canaries in a coal mine," signaling a coming disaster in the industry. It's unclear if it signals a general retrenchment in the local TV industry, although it's worth noting that Mark Suppelsa left Fox WFLD Channel 32 after reportedly declining to accept a pay cut.
"We live in really tight times," said Bruce DuMont, founder and president of the Museum of Broadcast Communications. "Primarily, it's the economy, but there's also high expectations for stations to deliver."
Channel 2 was additionally pinched "when the network is investing a lot in these new studios."
Will layoffs spread in the local TV industry?
"I can't speak for other stations," Ahern said, and other station heads declined to comment. But it seems clear that the days Ahern could drive up salaries across town by boasting of "an open checkbook" are over -- at least for now.