Got your attention huh?   Well, read on, you may find that this idea has a lot of merit.

The broadcasting depression has caused stations from coast to coast to jettison longtime, very popular anchors – simply because their salaries are out of line with the new business model that faces every TV station in America.   Just in the last week, KNBC’s Paul Moyer, WNBC’s Chuck Scarborough, Marty Mathews at WTSP in Tampa, Sports icon Len Berman in New York, Warner Saunders at WMAQ in Chicago, and well-known veteran reporter Roberta Baskin at WJLA in Washington, DC have been shown the door after dozens of years of service at their respective stations.

You may have heard that the depression has also made for big changes in the movie business.   Big-time movie stars that commanded $20-to-30 million dollars to ply their trade, are suddenly finding a new paradigm.  Movie studios are offering much less upfront money, and instead pinning the total dollars paid to the stars on the amount of money brought in by the movie.   If the movie scores big – so do the stars.  If the movie bombs – so do the stars’ paychecks.  

Now it seems to me that this idea fits well into the new business model for local television newscasts.   Pay your anchors a decent – but not over-inflated – salary, and give them a stake in the success of the newscasts where they are the stars.   If the newscast scores great ratings – and you are able to sell that program for more money – they share in the success through a bonus program.   If they fail to move the ratings needle upward – their pay check doesn’t increase either.

I would assume that the smart anchors would also become much more active in garnering high ratings for their newscasts.   Instead of walking in late in the day you would think they would be more involved in planning and writing the newscasts to make them stronger.  You would also assume the anchors would be willing to make more public appearances, and perhaps even go on sales calls to help add some star power to the sales effort – and assist in closing the deal.

I’m sure management and anchors have strong opinions on this concept.   Let me hear from you.

Jim

This entry was posted on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 9:34 pm and is filed under Willi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.