Thursday, October 19, 2006

TV 2.0, Bloodletting at NBC: News Division Isn't an Area of High Growth

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(image via inetours)

Ah, ther curse of "growth." Forget, for a second, that NBC News is the apex predator -- the alpha, if you will -- of network news divisions (Isn't Bob Wright on his way out?). It just simply isn't an area, as Jeff Zucker, AKA "Zippy," might call high growth. MSNBC and all that. And so 5-percent of the workforce is being severed (Exaggerated cough suggesting feigned detachment). Spun as a reevaluation of the news business in the era of digital media, it will be a hard sell to be sure to those now presently unemployed.

This trend may explain, all told, CBS News' uneasy marriage of the Sports and News divisions ("Tonight on '60 Minutes, yet another beefy athelete on steroids and drugs"); it might also explain The Great Katie Couric Experiment (tm).

It seems that if network news is going to survive, it will have to take on the characteristsics of entertainment. It also seems as if we are just going to increase the time we spend watching the BBC.

From the WSJ on the bloodletting at 30 Rock today:

"NBC's restructuring plan also makes it the first major TV company to say that it sees limited growth potential in the news business. Most of the initial layoffs will come in the company's 11 news divisions, and they will include on-air talent. Operations for the cable-news channel MSNBC in Secaucus, N.J., will be shuttered and moved to Rockefeller Center in Manhattan and another facility in New Jersey.

"'We will aggressively protect all of our brands,' Mr. Zucker said, but he added that the company has to acknowledge news isn't an area of high growth."

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