KXAN
CUTS???
You cannot make this stuff up. Separate sources tell NewsMcNabb that Eric Lassburg, president and general manager of KXAN TV (NBC), KXAM TV (NBC), and KNVA TV (CW), the weekend before last, escorted a woman through the TV station in downtown Austin. She was said to be looking for sources of positive and negative energy.
You cannot make this stuff up. Separate sources tell NewsMcNabb that Eric Lassburg, president and general manager of KXAN TV (NBC), KXAM TV (NBC), and KNVA TV (CW), the weekend before last, escorted a woman through the TV station in downtown Austin. She was said to be looking for sources of positive and negative energy.
KXAN TV, solidly in a ratings war with Belo’s KVUE TV (ABC), must be looking for answers. The important May sweeps period is well underway. TV stations can throw out certain nights, asking Neilson not to consider them. KXAN may well choose last night, Monday, May 11th at 6 p.m. There was “negative energy”. Once again, the station’s automated system, called “Ignite”, failed them. They were unable to begin the newscast. Instead, producers frantically called on weatherman Jim Spencer to bail them out once again. Much of Spencer’s weathercasts are based on computers separate from those in the control room.
I do not have the rating numbers from last night. For all I know, the audience may have hung around, transfixed on a train wreck. How long, however, will people watch a train wreck? Anchor Robert Hadlock apologized Tuesday (May 12, 2009) on Facebook, “Hoping our technical problems [are] solved for our 10PM news tonight. Last night was ‘rock and roll’!”
Looking for “evil”? Find it in LIN (TVL) Television’s annual report. LIN TV owns KXAN, KXAM, and KNVA TVs. “We will continue to automate our master control operations. In addition, many of our studios are fully-equipped with robotic cameras that are programmed with hundreds of shots,” said Vincent L. Sadusky, LIN TV chief operating officer based in Providence, Rhode Island in the recently received annual report. “We have reduced LIN TV’s headcount (people) by 11% in the last four years, while building our digital teams and improving the quality of our local news product,” Sadusky continues. “Our goal is to produce more news on a 24/7 real-time basis for our web, mobile, and TV outlets, using fewer resources.” (I have written before about “Doing More With Less”.)
It was that automated system Sadusky lauded that failed. One of my axioms is that information is not news until it is published. KXAN’s systems had a hard time publishing last night. (I have a lot of friends at KXAN where I worked for 16 years before leaving as managing editor in 2005. If I were still there, I would have been throwing things.)
LIN TV does not expect the financial sun to shine soon. According to the annual report, “We expect decreased demand in advertising categories…in 2009. These developments are likely to result in decreased revenues and weaker results of operations for us, and, if they persist, and if we are unable to offset the decreased revenues by additional cost savings, could have a material adverse effect on our financial condition and cash flows.”
The above statement mentioned “additional cost savings”. Interpret that as cuts. Elsewhere, in a recent LIN TV news release, the company said, “Given the state of the economy and the level of uncertainty in predicting advertising revenue, the Company has defined a series of further cost reduction actions that the Company could potentially enact and largely realize during the remainder of 2009.”
How could those cost savings be manifest? The answer may be in a recent Security and Exchange Commission filing: “Our further cost reduction actions may include, among other things, decreases in headcount, salaries, and related benefits, reductions of business travel and advertising expenditures, and the sale of certain non-strategic assets.”
Further LIN has considerable debt, although it has been successful in reducing that debt over the past few years. The recession, however, may be a game-changer. LIN is now saying that it may need to restructure its still heavy debt. Earlier this year, the LIN stock came close to being “de-listed”. The stock has been improving lately.
In the middle of the May Sweeps, however, this is “bad energy”.
LIN TV owns and operates or programs 27 full power television stations in 17 mid-sized markets. Austin is the nation’s 49th market.
(Note: Eric Lassburg, president and general manager of KXAN TV was contacted in two emails concerning separate aspects of this report. Mr. Lassburg did not respond.)
© Jim McNabb, 2009