TED ROWLANDS is leaving KTVU for "personal reasons" --his last day was Friday. The move shocked many of his colleagues in the newsroom --not so much for his own leaving but what it bodes for the future at the Fox Bay Area O and O.415 Media has learned that Rowlands is heading back to the Midwest to work for an athletic shoe company and not a TV News operation.
Fox is making waves at its Oakland division for the implementation of staff cutbacks--particularly those individuals that are high-salaried anchors, reporters and producers. High on the list are some big money reporters and anchors who have contracts coming up and might be non-renewed or simply have their salaries cut.
That distinction may have hastened Rowlands move to leave as he was only back a brief time at KTVU and whose return to Jack London Square was heralded as an uplifting decision for the staff and Rowlands himself who was leaving CNN to come back home.
The feeling amongst some senior staff is Rowland's move will trigger more people leaving and/or a series of big-money staffers being directly axed out at KTVU in the coming months.
Oh how the mighty have fallen, or in this case pushed off the cliff by people who have no idea what they're doing. It's all about companies/people wanting to be large and in charge and destroying things successfully built up by others. Legacy stations like KTVU and KGO Radio have been destroyed by those with a ton of selfish thoughts and no clue about anything.
ReplyDeleteIf KTVU is going to ax big-money staffers, let's hope they start with the pompous lead male anchor on The Ten O'Clock News.
ReplyDeleteThe television / radio industry is attempting to incorporate that "Billy Beane" type business model...if you are not either at or around the top of the food chain of any workplace (e.g. CEO, CFO, VP-OP, etc..) you are regarded as irrelevant. And if you are irrelevant, you are replaceable. Not surprised to see board ops at most radio stations make not much above minimum wage. Look to see many behind-the-scenes people, mainly technical staff, have their wages and hours cut. This way they do not have to pay out any benefits like health insurance. Pretty soon most everyone working at these TV or Radio stations will be contract-temp. workers (with little or no benefits) who will work on 6-month to 1-year assignments at an insanely low rate of pay. Sadly, this is the mindset that most of these dirt bags owners / senior managers operate at. Work people to death, treat them like shit and kick em to the curb when you are through with them.
ReplyDeleteWhen KTVU's highest paid staffer is purportedly a traffic reporter making mid six-figures, I'd also be wondering what the heck is going on and taking a closer look at the local management of the station.
ReplyDeleteFrank may a little too full of himself, but not even the 49ers are dumb enough to make a special teams player the highest paid member of the team.
When your internal research shows a traffic reporter is more TRUSTED than the others.....
DeleteNow what Sherlock?
See the problem we have created?
Another Keba Arnold who stayed with KTVU for a year, but Ted stayed for less than a year. Wonder who is next????
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I were just talking about local TV news last night. We both worked in various behind-the-scenes positions at several of the "big four" stations here. We're both out of the biz now; we're both teachers.
ReplyDeleteWe're not surprised at the downsizing/low-balling of salaries...because we both know that less people are watching local news. Both of us (college-educated; she with an advance degree) haven't watched a local newscast in more than five years. We get all of our local news online through...*GASP* a station's website! They've all done such a good job of hyping their websites--to the point where both of us just go to their websites every morning/evening to check out what's going on in the Bay Area. Hell--most of the time we don't even click the video "play" arrow; we just read the accompanying script for the details. We also don't buy newspapers anymore--again, we just go to the (lousy) Chronicle or (much better) SJ Merc sites for our news.
Same with our students: None of them "watches" local TV news anymore. I make it a point to stress to my students about the importance of being informed of what's going on in your community--I tell them to click on TV station and newspaper websites to find out what's going on.
So...less viewers = less ratings numbers = less ad revenue generated = less money to pay employees.
No great mystery here.
I remember Ted Rowlands from the Laci Petersen case, and like his reporting, he was very professional, knew his stuff, stayed with facts, didn't get overly dramatic or sensational, the case itself was sensational enough. He was often on Larry King or Nancy Grace's show on CNN. I think he even went to work for CNN for awhile. I don't watch local news so I lost track of his career.
ReplyDeleteAt least we still have Heather Holmes... and Ken Wayne, of course (the best TV husband and wife in the BA).
ReplyDeleteIf I'm Ken Wayne (AND actually had a say in the matter) I'd dump Heather for Alyana in about .8 heartbeats; Alyana's far more professional and relatable, has a far superior screen presence, seems to know what she's doing AND is far hotter than Heather...
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