FCC approves rule allowing joint TV and newspaper ownership in same markets

That was the argument. But, when the regulation was written, there were only 13 available television channels available per market. The idea was that one person or company could not control thought, or more importantly ad rates in a certain market.

 

I'm in a market where the NBC affiliate and the major newspaper are both owned by Gannett, and have been for several years.

At first they tried very hard to put their higher-profile print people on TV. They learned rather quickly that talent in one medium does not necessarily translate into the other medium. One guy, a business reporter, made the transition so well he is now an anchor. The others are likely hoping everyone they know has forgotten their TV appearances, because they were absolutely brutal.

They have also tried having TV people write columns which have generally been a waste of space.

The website is a single entity.

Occasionally the TV station will scoop the competition at 10 with a story that was pretty obviously generated by the print side, which I would imagine galls the print folks to no end. Speaking as someone from a competing station, I'm very glad they do not cooperate more than they do. The newspaper could easily have a reporting staff 20 times larger than ours.

 

If I'm the dominant or especially the no. 2 station in town, I buy controlling interest in the local newspaper, have my sales reps sell for both platforms. Utilize print stories for TV and stream newscasts and hourly updates on my standalone Web site. I cut the existing newspaper web staff. Keep the paper's features department and a sports columnist, an outdoors reporter and a beat guy(s) to keep the TV folks updated on whats going on with the team(s), and a preps person.
And you cut GA and cops reporters, maybe keep a political reporter, an investigative reporter and a floater or two to work on news features or other non-daily stories that come up.

 

love ya lugs, but fixed...

 

I was at a small dinner party Sunday and I was surprised how informed these normal people were that this was going to happen and how much it pissed them off. I was trying to tell them that it's probably not that big a deal now that there's the Internet, but they weren't buying it.

 

Lugs, as usual, hits it out.

 

Well of course, if you don't play nice with your new coworkers you could find yourself out of a job. May not like them, or even respect them, but you have to work together.

 

Hemorrhaging money? Not happening. Cuts are being made over profit margins dropping 2 or 3 points to the low 20s, not over operating losses. And TV "news hole" is being cut, too. And in the instances I've seen synergy at work, it has mostly been TV having the newspaper writers come on air to report a story, or in a couple of instances jointly working on stories. Now, when I was growing up in St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch owned the NBC station, and the paper's movie critic had a regular gig doing on-air reviews.

 

I love it when rile everybody up. ;D

Fishy makes a great point about ad rates. I've heard sales people talk about "bundling." i.e. Giving an advertiser commercial time, print space and online ads.... But from what I hear, not every advertiser is thrilled with that kind of offer... they simply want what they want.

I've heard people say cross-promotion can be effective. Like... the newspaper gets free spots during the Super Bowl... while the TV Station gets to advertise in the paper for free.

But that's supposedly not the Democrats' concern. Their concern is news.

And I just don't see much news-sharing. I see more media, more reporters.... It's a damn media explosion right now.

 

But how many of these reporters are full-time media professionals? The non-newspaper bloggers are mostly writing for free, the Web sites are employing partisan hacks, etc.