Working in broadcasting

I'll echo a lot of what's been said earlier - although I'll quibble with ringer's point about writing in present tense. At Fox affiliates they go for the present tense, but most other places hate it.

But be clear on one thing - if you are considering making the jump because of the issues in the newspaper business, this may not be your best move. My shop had a meeting with the GM today so he could talk about the layoffs that were made yesterday. Other stations in town have made much deeper cuts than we did (although they had far bigger staffs).

TV advertising revenue is drying up just like newspaper advertising. In a lot of cases, TV stations are being impacted by print losses as well. There are five English-language stations doing news in my market. They are owned by Gannett, Belo, News Corp, Meredith and Scripps-Howard. Not exactly a group that is immune to print problems.

 

I have a radio friend who works for the Clear Channel cluster and can't say enough bad things about them. He's currently doing the work that used to be handled by three or four people. The others were dropped because of budget cuts, and he worries that he'll be the next to go. There's no real warning, no cause, just the idea that they need to cut costs. Goodbye.

It all depends on where you work and what you do.

On the positive side, ESPN has taken a lot of print people with almost no broadcast experience and had success with them. I'm thinking here of Mortensen, Clayton, Gammons, Gomez, Olney, Alexander, among others.

 

Oh, I made a vow to myself long ago that I would NEVER work for Clear Channel no matter how desperate for a job I was.

 

Agreed. About 80 percent of those morons can't see past their ego. But it's the other 20 percent in the biz that make it all worthwhile.

 

I was recently laid off after 24 years in tv (started in newspaper my junior year of HS, did that for eight years... lots of radio too). Local TV news especially is right behind print in circling the drain. As several have said, no one's buying cars, so no one's advertising. All news media are trying to figure out how to make the web work, some with limited success.

I worked in a Top-50 market and for the last four years was the one in a one and a-half person sports department. That means I did most everything (except shoot) Monday-through-Friday. The vast majority of stations no longer have photographers dedicated solely to sports, so it was a daily grind fighting for photogs so we could cover local sports. Editing was always one of my favorite parts of the job, especially on deadline (most of us are adrenaline junkies, aren't we?), so I didn't mind that at all. Minus the grind mentioned above, along with other cutbacks (time, personnel) I loved going to work every day. And then I was told I was no longer needed (or wanted for that matter).

So as those above have said, learn to "write the way you talk," and do the work of three or four people... and by all means, work the web to your advantage. Managers will love you for it... until they don't.

 

learn how to say "(station name here) has learned..." without giving proper credit to where you stole the info from.

 

Outstanding post, ringer, but this one item I'd amend a bit. THese days, you don't get a shooter, a sound guy, or an editor. In fact, YOU will be the sound guy, the shooter, and the editor. And graphics? Forget it. You'll give those imaginative requests to a 21 year old pot smoker who's in his 6th semester at the community college and pray that he can see through the haze to spell your slug correctly, or won't be lazy and not find the images or backgrounds you want.

Some places just have a generic clip generator, which means you'll build your own graphics from your desktop PC.

The one man show is creeping up the market ladder, too. I'm in a top 60 market and it's definitely here. Hope this doesn't sound negative, there are still several aspects of the job I like...but it's the new reality, and it's here to stay I'm afraid.

 

There's a growing number of one-man-band reporters in my market, and I'm in market 12. And most of them are at the #1 station.

 

Here's what I'd do: Call ESPN or HBO and try to get an internship or a P.A. job. I'd also look into the alumni network at your school. If you don't have connections, don't worry. Call anyway and be persistent. Another idea- call the national networks and see if you can work a game they'll be televising in your area. They always need gofers. If you're competent, they'll let you work a lot of these gigs. It's a great way to know the producers and announcers. You won't get rich, but you will make inroads. Stay hungry and remember -- never to complain when you're asked to do B.S..

 

What's sad about all these one-man band shops, is the markets where they're occurring.

I worked in a market between 100 and 110 and in our sports department, there were three anchor/reporters, including our sports director. They also had two part-time photogs and got lots of help editing.

Each of our reporters had a photographer/editor when available, which was fairly usual. We also had a full-time editor for our evening newscasts as well as our early morning show. When I left, they were hiring a part-time editor to help with the noon show and the weekend morning show. The other station in the market had one-man bands, but they couldn't beat us in the ratings for anything.

Other stations in the nearby metro had backpack journalists, but most of their reporters had photographers assigned to them every day. The same was the case at the station where I worked before that is just inside the top 100.

 

Good thread. I'm curious to know if anyone has gone the Connecticut School of Broadcasting route. I have a good friend of mine taking the classes now and he seems pretty optimistic about his chances for a good job when he's done. And he does have a print journalism background.