Stations Cut Costs by Using News -- More or Less

As ad dollars continue to decline, television stations are looking at new options with news: In some cases, cutting back, but in others, actually expanding the amount of local news they offer. By stretching their existing news resources into longer or additional news programming they open up more revenue opportunity without adding too much to costs. Television news directors in Los Angeles came under attack last month for their initial lack of coverage of the arson-caused Station fire, which killed two firefighters, destroyed about 80 homes and became the largest wildfire in Los Angeles County history. The fire was already spreading out of control on Saturday, Aug. 29, the day of Sen. Edward Kennedy's funeral, an event that received widespread coverage. Viewers in the fire-affected areas as well as local politicians and television critics complained that LA stations had dropped the ball that weekend by not providing extensive fire coverage Los Angeles Times critic Mary McNamara went so far as to call it "a virtual, and inexplicable, news blackout." Was it because of the economy? It's common knowledge that news departments operate on the weekends with only a fraction of their Monday-through-Friday staff, but that additional personnel is called in — or simply shows up — when a big story breaks. Not a single news executive would admit that any budgetary cutbacks affected the initial fire coverage, saying their stations provided comprehensive reporting before the fire turned deadly and threatened residents. All the same, media watchers have been warning recently that layoffs and cuts are having an enormous impact on the quality of television news.