CBS layoffs signal a financial squeeze on TV stations

Although local television stations historically have enjoyed some of the fattest profit margins in the media industry, the business is less robust now. Stations are feeling the same financial squeeze as their newspaper and network news brethren. An economic slowdown, combined with changes in news consumption patterns and the migration of advertisers to the Internet, have contributed to a lean start to a year that was supposed to benefit from a gush of political advertising. "What is happening is that 2008, on the local level, is not as strong as people had expected," said Michael Nathanson, media analyst for Bernstein Research. In a report released in July, the Writers Guild of America, East, reported that CBS and ABC news writers said recent workforce cutbacks had led to fewer investigative stories, less fact checking and an increased use of promotional video news releases at their news outlets.
http://www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-stations9apr09,1,359112.story
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