NBC 2.0 a wake up call for TV news
Cory Bergman October 19th, 2006
People who work in TV news have been surprisingly resistant to change over the last few years, even with clear signs that technology is drastically changing the business. Today’s announcement by NBCU to slash 750 jobs and redirect much of the savings to digital ventures should be a big wake up call. “Either you drown or you ride the wave,” said NBC News chief Steve Capus about 2.0, which he calls a necessary response to the “tsunami” of change. In a nutshell, TV news staffers need to quickly expand their skill sets and become proactive about contributing content on multiple platforms. They now have to compete with a tech-savvy workforce for these new digital positions. (Recent events have shown that media companies do not automatically shift TV staffers to the web. They lay them off and hire someone else who’s qualified.) And I also believe it’s critical that we redefine the nature of news and expand its boundaries. The WSJ reported this morning that NBC “sees limited growth potential in the news business” and that “most of the initial layoffs will come in the company’s 11 news divisions.” I would challenge the definition of “news” and focus on innovating new products that engage our users through the marriage of information and technology. While it won’t look anything like TV news, it will still inform, educate and enlighten. And journalism will still play an important role.
20 Comments Add your own
1. Safran | October 19th, 2006 at 9:02 am
Tsunamis hit without much warning.
2. Jason | October 19th, 2006 at 9:41 am
If they actually redirect into digital instead of simply achieving cost savings, this will be a great forward step. And I totally agree with the idea that TV people have to learn to transmit on a digital platform. At my station, reporters write web versions of our stories. Some of us blog, I’m also playing with video blogging.
Still, it sounds to me like TV 2.0 is a catchy name for cost-cutting to make investors happy.
3. dancannel | October 19th, 2006 at 10:01 am
The thing that is messed up with layoffs is the technology is the easy part, learning to tell/sell stories is the hard part. When you have good reporters/staff/writiers technology only helps to enhance their creative capabilities. Management only is successful based on the talents of their staffs. Content is not just eyecandy and aggregation. The substance providers need to be retooled and turned loose.
The sad part is many talented professionals believe that they are not as capable in new media tech. You can learn final cut pro in 2 days. It takes years to craft a good story. Our engine is our story telling abilities, not as much as our Java knowledge
4. Don | October 19th, 2006 at 10:14 am
This is more of a hurricane… lots of warning. But in this case, everyone seems to have stood around and done nothing, instead of battening down the hatches — that is, until the storm was in full force.
5. Alyssa | October 19th, 2006 at 10:27 am
Should be interesting to see how this all pans out… and to see how the other networks react to it.
6. Jim | October 19th, 2006 at 10:41 am
How many find it disturbing that of 750 jobs to be lost, Meredith Veira and her reported $11 million annual salary stays on?
Granted she’s been in the major leagues for a while, I have watched her since her “Today” debut and I find her to be adequate at best at her job.
Does this mean Al Roker has to produce his own weather maps? Will his producer be bounced?
Does this mean a reduction in set costs for “Today?” I can recall the props used in segments on new movies and other things using an array of items which must have cost a significant amount of money each day.
Take a look at Ann Curry’s news updates. They tend to use odd camera angles, angles that don’t belong on the show. Why not just replace her with someone that is working out of the newsroom and can provide “real news” instead of a script that is a rehash from “Nightly.”
And think about the excessive expense in having 4 people on the NFL Sunday Night intro show. Costas and Collinsworth is more than enough. Peter King should be shown the door, especially after he announced “my sources tell me (Titans DE) would be suspended at most one game….” The guy got the most severe penalty outside of a drug suspension.
Many of the names above are not the hunters and gatherers. They are the ones who are chaufferred to work each morning.
7. Cory | October 19th, 2006 at 11:12 am
Good points Dan… ‘
Yes, content creators can be retooled, the question is, do they really want to? So far, I haven’t seen a lot of initiative across the industry. To most of them, contributing to the web means giving a heads up to a web producer.
Learning the technology is not the issue here. It’s learning how to let go of the rules of broadcasting to adopt a much more creative medium that allows video, text, photos, data, mapping, etc, all integrated into an interactive screen. How can you best use technology to tell a story? That\’s not easy to learn, and so far, very few reporters and photographers and producers in TV have bothered to try.
Now the problem is, there’s little time to teach them if they haven’t taught themselves — which they should’ve been doing all along in the interest of career preservation. There are lots of content creators/journalists out there who get the web and get video for the web. And they\’re good storytellers. TV news doesn\’t have a lock on storytelling.
It’s unfortunate that there are layoffs. But TV news people everywhere should get the lesson here: there will be cost-cutting across the board in broadcasting, and the people who have taken the initiative to increase their digital skills will stay on the job. And they’ll be the ones telling the stories of tomorrow.
8. liz | October 19th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Bravo, Jim. The Today Show has never looked and sounded worse. It’s like a bad Lifetime set with a very mismatched set of energies. Katie had an energy and a humor that Meredith has none of. She’s so f-’ing uptight that she sucks the air out of the rest of the cast. They are left to doing silly mocking “gags” that fall very flat. Meredith Viera was a terrible choice she’s a “C”player at best and GE doesn’t keep “C” players on board. So they say.
9. Jason | October 19th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Cory, I couldn’t agree with that comment more.
10. Page Up | October 19th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Cory, you’ve got it wrong. TV 2.0 doesn’t have anything to do with digital skills. It has everything to do with consolidating all of the different booking desks, graphics departments, sat ops groups and correspondents. It’s about moving away from self-contained individual show units at NBC (Today show, this means you) and MSNBC that compete against each other for guests. It’s about using the bureaus and News Channel more effectively. It’s about sharing talent across the show units and cable networks instead of wasting an hour and a half sitting in gridlock shuttling people back and forth between Secaucus and New York.
11. 5w30 | October 19th, 2006 at 6:10 pm
Working with the CNN-style central booking desk may work. But there will always be competition between shows, and the anchors that drive them, for the same people. Today and MSNBC may want the same people, but more eyeballs watch Today. So they may win that battle. Isn’t there already a person at NBC News who allegedly works with the shows to smooth out booking stuff?
Centralized, hubbed graphics do work; the NBC O+O’s have been using the system for about 3 years now.
Having one big sat-ops desk based at Englewood Cliffs (which has room for expansion) makes sense.
Everyone has their fiefdoms. And that includes the broadcast unions, who want their piece of the action that’s coming to 30 Rock, which is a union shop.
12. Katie | October 19th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
I devoted 4 years studying broadcast, then realized that everything is headed for the internet. So I’m taking one more year to get my master’s in online journalism. I love producing, and knowing how to work with the internet hopefully will help me get a job. It’s things like this that make me think I made the right decision.
13. TPN :: Box Office Weekly &hellip | November 14th, 2006 at 9:40 am
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