Cuts at TV-News Divisions Augur Leaner Approach

Staff cuts at two of the biggest broadcast-television news outfits in the U.S. foreshadow a shift toward cheaper TV news gathering, as broadcast-news groups face shrinking profits and increasing competition from cable and the Internet.

ABC News, a division of Walt Disney Co., said this week it would embark on a "fundamental transformation" of its operations, a move that could cut as much as a quarter of its news staff of approximately 1,500, according to a person familiar with the matter. The move comes three weeks after CBS Corp.'s news division shed more than 6% of its staff of roughly 1,400 and just over three years after General Electric Co.'s NBC News began rounds of stiff cuts. The shift raises the question of how long news organizations can continue to do more with less. "This is more, done differently," said David Westin, president of ABC News. "I'm finding out, 'Can we thrive in this new world?'" A centerpiece of ABC's plan is to rely more extensively on a new breed of journalist who can produce stories using new, digital equipment alone or with much smaller teams. In TV newsrooms, a person who can do the job of both a producer and an editor is sometimes called a "predator."