Syndication wide open, where's the game shows?

[Matt Ottinger]

In the small market "farm league" stations, the overall quality of up and coming news talent has really gone down as the starting salaries for most of these positions is at or near minimum wage. And compared to 15-20 years ago, these college grads are now doing the work of 2 or 3 people for that minimum wage.

When we had the shooting at Michigan State a few weeks ago, it was painful seeing the "reporters" in the Lansing market struggle with breaking news and staying on the air.  It's like, they knew that's what they should be doing, they just didn't really have any idea how to do it. It wasn't until Grand Rapids reporters showed up on the scene (from about an hour away) that we got respectable coverage.  And Lansing is generally considered a mid-sized market (#115 out of 210).  I would hate to see what smaller markets aren't capable of.

[TimK2003]

In my small market, we recently had a reporter who thought she was one of those Saturday E/I kid show hosts.  She would "segue" between scenes by either jumping out of one scene and landing in another or duck down in scene 1 and pop up in scene 2.  She served her one year contract here then was finally gone.  Also on that station, for a time, one of the "main anchors" was still in college, not even 21 (but she was one of those good reporters who was smart enough to leave the industry).  The one who remains, sadly, tries to do Dad Jokes during the newscast and other "unprofessional" bits (wearing a storm trooper mask on Star Wars Day 5/4)

Over at the other channel, their solo evening anchor can't even read a story without stumbling on a word.  Their morning show host "gets it" and does a phenominal job.  Why they don't switch the two people?

So where are the News Directors that are supposed to mentor  and reprimand these newbies?  Instead of a college degree, all you need now is just a pulse to break into TV news.

[Sodboy13]

It's bad out there in part because 28 years of endless consolidation and "streamlining" enabled by the Telecom Deregulation Act has really nuked the farm system and required those who remain to do more with less, and for less. It is nowhere near the attractive field it used to be, and too many getting into it don't have their nuts and bolts down and are trying to set a glide path toward influencing or PR.

[chrisholland03]

So where are the News Directors that are supposed to mentor  and reprimand these newbies?

They were all pushed out.  My partner was one.  Unless you're an on-air personality or in a top-25 market, the station groups won't pay the salary that comes with experience.

[BrandonFG]

I dunno if I’m just getting older and everyone under 25 looks like babies to me, but anytime I watch the local news, the reporters and even anchors look like they just got their degrees last week. And I’m in a Top 50 market, so when I worked in news in the late-2000s it was still a good 2 or 3 years before you made it to a metro like mine.

Of course there were exceptions back in the day, but now it seems more like the norm.

[Joe Mello]

It's bad out there in part because 28 years of endless consolidation and "streamlining" enabled by the Telecom Deregulation Act has really nuked the farm system and required those who remain to do more with less, and for less.

It's that, I'm sure, but it's also streaming trying to kill traditional broadcasting and cable. As Chelsea had mentioned upthread, there's no incentive to put something into the broadcast space right now, even though you would have a larger potential audience.