Mike Sechrist

Terry Heaton has written a book.  Those of you who know Terry and followed his musings on where the broadcast industry is headed will recognize his theme and title: Reinventing Local Media.  I found Terry on the internet about three years ago.  He was a man ahead of his time predicting back then the convulsions TV is going through today.  Terry predicted the disruptive force of the internet would seriously impact the revenue model that commercial TV and radio is based upon.  This year, 2008, was supposed to be the ‘good’ year for broadcasters.  Ample political money with a wide open Presidential race and an Olympic year all bode well for the industry.  To be sure no one wanted to think what 2009 was going to be like but broadcast management lives in the ‘now’ and settled in to what looked to be a decent year if not a great one.  Isn’t happening.  The cycle of good even years due to election cycles and Olympic games and not great odd years due to trying to make up all that revenue you made from political and Olympics is breaking down and that’s led to panic in the boardroom.  This comes as no surprise to those that have followed Terry through the years.  If you are into this kind of stuff the book makes for fascinating reading and does a good job of identifying the players who are moving into the space once held by the mainstream media.

 And that leads me to my rant of the day.  I have a love hate relationship with The Tennessean.  As bad as things are for your local broadcaters they are worse for a newspaper industry that was once so lucrative they could have just as easily been printing money along with the morning paper.  This industry has been in decline for more than a decade now and there is no end in site.  I hale from a generation that looked forward to the morning paper.  I did most of my growing up in Los Angeles and the L.A. Times was just a wonderful way to the start the day.  I know The Tennessean is having a rough time all newspapers are but just about the time I have resigned myself to a paltry amount of news and very intrusive advertising (a hint to those advertisers who use the sticky notes pasted on the front page of the paper, I immediately tear those off, wad them up and throw them away) I now get a blackmail letter from the boys at 1100 Broadway.  It says my subscription rate is going up “about 5.7 cents per day, including Sunday,” and get this, “There will also be an incremental charge for the delivery of the Thanksgiving Day paper, one of the largest of the year.“  So I now have to pay extra for the privilege of getting all those adds.  But wait, “The good news is you can keep your subscription rate the same, and avoid any increase, simply by converting to EZ Pay.”  I just have an inherent dislike of my newspaper telling me what my method of payment should be.  I still like writing checks for services.  It makes me think about just how valuable they are each month.  My money doesn’t just magically disappear through an electronic transfer.  I’ve got no beef with anyone who wants to pay this way it’s just not my cup of tea and I don’t think I should be penalized for it.  And don’t get me started on their subscription rates.  Go to a prarty and if you can find people who still get the paper ask them how much they’re paying.  It’s all over the board like airline tickets.  The trick seems to be to cancel your subscription and wait for a call from the circulation department promising a weeks worth of papers for only the weekend rate.  I’ll let you know if it works.  

Here’s a link to a story that further illustrates the changes sweeping the broadcast news industry.  Phil Balboni, the much respected and honored creator of New England Cable News (NECN), the country’s largest regional news network, has resigned to start a U.S. based website that will cover international news. This will be interesting to watch.  I remember when Balboni started NECN there were a lot of naysayers.  He turned it into a formidable news organization and it sounds like he’s ready to try his magic on the web.  I’m told the dollar figure of investment money mentioned in the article, $7 million is really $70 million which would make more sense considering the amount of bureas they want to open.  No word yet on whether they’ll be using VJ’s.

It looks like the end of the HD DVD war is in sight.  As I have written before I’m a sucker for new technology especially if it deals with television.  I’ve bought everything from an RCA SelectAvision to a Mattel Intellivision.  I jumped early into the VCR vs Betamax wars and by chance ended up on the winning side.  I’ve been tempted but reluctant to buy and HD DVD but all the signs are pointing to Sony’s Blu- ray format triumphing over Toshiba’s HD DVD.  If you went Toshiba there is always ebay.

 This is a must see video aimed at those dallying around while their websites languish but it can just as easily apply to any project you are putting off.  Be forwarned it isn’t safe for today’s work environment not because of the video but the audio. 

I would like to make an introduction.  Some of you may already know of Bob Lefsetz so you are familiar with his passion; the music industry.  What Michael Rosenblum is to broadcasting Lefsetz is to Music Row. I was introduced to his Lefsetz Letter through a friend who is consulting a major record label.  Actually I should say he is trying to save a major record label who is gasping for air like a three pack a day smoker. Lefsetz takes on all comers in his no holds barred opinions and judging by those who fire off an angry response from time to time he is a must read by industry execs and artists alike.  I found his Howard Beale like rant against Ticketron most a great read.  Today he reviews weekly sales figures and has this gem which made me laugh out loud.

19. Alvin & the Chipmunks “Soundtrack”

Sales this week: 25,295
Percentage change: -3
Weeks on chart: 9
Cume: 274,062

This is a career act. They never sold out, all the original members are still in the band. There’s no Shemp, no Curly Joe, just Alvin, Simon and Theodore. And Simon and Theodore know who the star is. They just laugh at Alvin and pocket the bread. And if they’ve been to rehab, I’m out of the loop.

They don’t change the sound… Sure, they do contemporary material, but it still sounds like them. You’ve got to be true to who you are, you may reap some momentary rewards by following the flavor of the moment, but those new fans are casual and will abandon you, you have to play to your core, your core keeps you alive.

And they went indie too! It’s not only Radiohead and the Eagles who’ve abandoned the major labels, Alvin and his entourage have decamped to Razor & Tie, which is more nimble, which can give them more attention, can press the button on TV advertising!

Funny how the younger generation is listening to their parents’ music. But when something is great, it’s TIMELESS!

So give him a read and check out the link at the top of his page which asks if you should watch the Grammy’s or not.  Good stuff.

A story making the rounds today highlights a website launched by WFLD the Fox owned station in Chicago.  The site, livenewscameras.com aggregates some fifty live news feeds.

Andrew Finlayson, Channel 32 vice president and news director, told the Poynter Institute’s Al Tompkins: “We’d like LiveNewsCameras.com to be the place the world turns to for streaming video of any important news, weather or live event.” (from FTVLive.com)

The site has staff members online monitoring the feeds and giving viewers a heads up to anything they find interesting.  The site is also similar to another, mogulus.com, which sans the host is broader in scope and aggregates what looks to be hundreds if not thousands of “channels” from all over the world.  Kudos to Finlayson and WFLD for trying something new.

This is another sign of the changes that are bearing down on the broadcast business as it is currently practiced.  We are only a few years away from “wathcing” the web on the same screens as we watch broadcast television.  The quality of web video continues to improve dramatically.  Check out “Lost” in HD on ABC.com if you have any doubts.  You want news from your “hometown” from anywhere in the world?  Not a problem, it will be available on the web when you want it.  The storms that hit Tennessee and other states on Tuesday night could be watched in real time anywhere with internet access as WKRN, WSMV and WTVF all streamed their coverage to the web.  These are the opening salvos in the tumultuos changes to come.  More stations need to be experimenting ala Finlayson and crew.

Critics Choice 

 A good friend of mine, Mark Antonitis, says, “It only counts if you really did it.” I really did mean to post yesterday.  Had my subject matter all lined up and sat down at the keyboard numerous times only to be interupted by the phone which would send me off in directions never contemplated and would lead to more calls and one long conference call.  When the dust finally cleared it was time to leave for a meeting and I never did get back to the computer. 

 One of the subjects I wanted to discuss was the criticism a N.Y. media critic was throwing at a station in the Big Apple that made the decision not to carry the Super Bowl victory parade for the Giants football team.  It seems almost every other commercial station in town covered the parade live but WPIX, Channel 11 took a pass on the parade and kept to their regular schedule.

Ch. 11’s general manager and vice president Betty Ellen Berlamino said,”It’s not like the market was deprived,” Berlamino said late Tuesday. “Personally, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with one station being an alternative viewing.”

And she is exactly right.  This wasn’t like news coverage of killer tornados roaring through the area.  There is a lemming like attitude on the part of broadcasters when it comes to this stuff and believe me we are not thinking about the viewers.  I was just as guilty in my career.  I remember the President was coming to Nashville for a visit.  All the stations had their live trucks at the airport waiting for Air Force One.  I sat in my office watching a bank of monitors tuned to all the local stations.  Suddenly Channel 5 went live to the airport reporting Air Force One was on final approach.  I immedialtely grabbed the phone and called the news director wanting to know why weren’t live.  Within seconds everyone else cut in as well.  Twenty minutes later the President still hadn’t left the plane and we were all reduced to vamping his schedule and sharing fun facts about Air Force One.  We had all “jumped” too early and none of us wanted to be the first to break away.  The next day the ratings told the story as the numbers dropped from frustrated viewers finding more interesting programming elsewhere. 

Today Ms Berlamino had the last laugh as reported by the N.Y. Daily News.

The station was No. 1 from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. with viewers between the ages of 18-34 and 18-49, and tied for 25-54.

“We provided an alternative,” said Ch. 11 general manager Betty Ellen Berlamino. “The decision was right. People who had no interest in watching the parade watched us

I have hired a lot of people over the course of my career in broadcasting but the job search I was undertaking some three years ago was different from all the rest. I was looking for a blogger to work at WKRN.

Mention the word blog back then to most people even those in our own newsroom and you were met with blank stares. Today you can’t pick up a newspaper or listen to a newscast, local or national, without reading or hearing references to blogs.

The search for a blogger was underway because of a visionary by the name of Terry Heaton. I had stumbled over a blog post Terry had written predicting how the internet would turn the broadcasting world upside down. It was radical stuff back then and I was intrigued enough to start reading him regularly…so intrigued I eventually emailed him and offered to fly him in to Nashville to talk with the news and sales staff. You usually don’t know the location a blog is originating from and I had just assumed Terry was living in
Silicon Valley or somewhere in the bay area. His affirmative reply made me laugh. “I live twenty minutes from the station.” Terry became a regular around Channel 2 for the next few years.

Terry introduced me to
Nashville’s diverse and creative blogging community and that lead to invitations to local bloggers for a Saturday morning ‘meet-up’ at the station. The success of that gathering was the genesis of

Nashville is Talking (NiT) which was launched in April of 2005. The decision to hire a local blogger to run NiT was really the key to its success.

As we searched local blogs for likely candidates the name Brittney Gilbert popped up. I checked out Brittney’s site which chronicled her life as a waitress. I was impressed with her stories enough to invite her in for an interview. It was only natural she would blog about the experience.

Brittney got the job and the next two years were a tumultuous roller coaster ride as we attempted to do something no one had done at a commercial television station at that time. We were making up the rules as we went along (no F Bombs, no pornography) and although that can be risky in a high profile endeavor such as NiT it’s also a lot of fun.

Today finds Brittney in San Francisco doing the job (commercial first) she defined so well in
Nashville. A number of stations throughout the country have followed the lead of NiT and I think it’s safe to say many more will follow.

Terry Heaton now lives considerably more than twenty minutes from the station outside of
Dallas and has parlayed his blog into a high profile consulting job with a well known media consulting company. As for me, well instead of sitting in an almost windowless corner office on Murfreesboro Road wondering how I’m going to keep expenses down and revenue up while simultaneously cursing the Nielsen company I’m sitting at home this Tuesday morning working on my third cup of coffee and taking a trip down memory lane.

Thank you Brittney.

My self imposed exile from this blog ends today.  If you are just tuning in for the first time a little history.  This blog originally started out as the WKRN GM blog in January of 2006.  It was rare back then for a TV GM to blog so it was a curiosity to many.  A lot of my colleagues thought I had taken leave of my senses especially when the comments got hot and heavy.  But I loved that interaction.  Sure there were always those waiting in the weeds to pounce but they were a minority compared to the majority who were grateful and intrigued to hear from the guy in charge why certain decisions were made.  They were helpful as well.  I’ve spent a lot of time since leaving the station talking to various groups about the potential of the web and when I talk about the benefits of a GM website I tell the story of a problem the station was facing and how it was a reader of the blog, a viewer, who helped us come up with a solution.  Instead of rehashing the whole thing you can see it unfold here and here.

I’ve had numerous emails from people asking why I stopped blogging.  The long and short of it is I needed to put some distance between my departure from the station and the blog.  As I have noted before, my biggest surprise was to learn how much of my viewing habits were driven by my job.  I rarely watch network TV these days and that includes network news as well.  I did watch last night’s return of Lost and found myself frustrated with the unbelievable amount of commercials crammed into it.  Today I can watch it online at abc.com and in HD with “limited commercial interruptions.”  This is the kind of stuff that kept me up nights when I was a general manager.  I’m constantly asked if I miss being a GM.  My answer is I miss the people but not the job.  My last three years at the station were a time of tumultuous change. 

My days are in the web now.  That sense of wonder, creativity and making it up as we go along that was once a staple of local broadcasting has departed for the internet and I decided to tag along.     

Labor Day always marked the end of summer for me ever since I was a kid.  A lot of my early school years were spent in districts that adhered to the tried and true Memorial Day to Labor Day summer vacation schedule.  The day after Labor Day meant a return to the early morning bus line.  So for me summer is officially over and it’s time to get back to work.

 It has been almost four months since I left WKRN.  I’m amazed at how fast that time has gone. I left in early May and spent the remainder of the month and most of June with a BlackBerry pressed to my ear.  I heard from all sorts of people in and out of the broadcast business who think broadcasting as we know it and big media in general is in for some radical changes.

July was the month I had promised to relax and did so spending most of my time on a lake in upstate PA near the

I’ve worked steadily for the past thirty years in broadcasting.  I’ve been fortunate that I found a job in an industry that I truly love.  During those thirty years no matter what job I was doing I was happy to be pulling into the parking lot thinking how fortunate I was to be working at a TV station.  I left WKRN because I get that same excitement from the web.  The past three years at Channel 2 of reaching out to the blogging community, starting

Saw this article today from TV Week and it mirrored a conversation I had during lunch with a friend yesterday.  As old seasoned broadcasters the conversation always gets around to “what are you watching?”  As we began extolling the virtues of our TiVo Season

“… cable viewership this summer has been driven by original programs. Cable networks have several strong returning shows, led by TNT’s “The Closer.” Many cable networks also launched new shows this summer that have outperformed what was in the time slot last summer.At the same time, the broadcast networks are seeing double-digit declines in viewers. Erosion is particularly bad in scripted drama, the most prevalent genre on the broadcasters’ schedules.” It’s this business as usual attitude that is going to hurt the networks this fall.  September is just around the corner and I can’t tell you one new show ABC or any of the networks is launching this season because I haven’t been watching any of their programming to see the promos.  But I am watching The Closer, Eureka, Making News: Texas Style, Anchorwoman, Flipping Out, The Bronx is Burning, Welcome to the Parker and the absolutely perfect BBC produced Hotel Babylon which harkens back to the days of great network TV.  Incredible production values, well drawn characters and get this an actual open with a an actual theme song.  Something most network shows no longer do in order to cram in another spot or two.  It will be interesting to see if the networks can bounce back after a summer like this.     

Lost Remote has an interesting post that should be a must read for TV general managers with newsrooms.  The upshot is newspapers are finally getting into video in a big way.  I’ve talked with some newspaper folks since leaving WKRN and their main concern these days is video and being able to go after broadcast dollars in their markets.  Now for the broadcaster this can be like an additional station in the market doing news.  But unlike a CW or My Network station the local paper will have instant credibility, contacts throughout the market and a savvy sales force.  It’s all part of the changing landscape and if you are not planning on how to compete with your local paper you better start and fast.  We’ve been talking about this stuff for years now at industry meetings and cocktail parties usually followed by a skeptical laugh but it is here now, it is actually happening.  I don’t foresee the end of TV news but I think it will be dramatically altered in the next three to five years by more people migrating to the web for their news and local papers flexing their muscles. 

I’ve been in the broadcasting business for more than thirty years.  I’ve hopped, skipped and jumped around the country in that time at various stations and jobs.  I guess if I took the time to add it up I’ve probably averaged four to five weeks vacation a year over that time usually taken in one week chunks. Two week vacations seem to be rare in our business the thinking being the company might figure out things can run just fine without you.  When I left WKRN in May colleagues, friends and family urged me to take a long vacation.  “Who knows when you’ll ever have this time again,” was the consistent theme.  I had a flurry of activity scheduled immediately after my departure so the decision was to take the month of July off. 

Early in my career a very fortunate thing happened for me and my family.  Through a series of events that had to be heavenly inspired we were able to buy a two bedroom house on a small lake in the northwest corner of Pennsylvania. We spent a week there in July of ’84 with friends who had a house on the lake and fell in love with the place.  In the latter part of winter the next year I asked our friends to see if there was something we could rent for a couple of weeks the coming summer.  No rentals they reported back but there was a house for sale.  Well that didn’t do me any good.  There was no way I could afford a second home on a news director’s salary but that is where divine intervention kicked in.  The previous owner was willing to carry the loan for fifteen years (there was no way I was qualifying for a second home loan through a bank) and out of the blue a very unexpected ‘bonus’ check had shown up due to the sale of WTNH that covered the down payment.  This has been our 22^nd summer at Conneaut

I have learned a lot during this downtime.  I have rarely watched any broadcast news since leaving Channel 2.  I get most of my news off the web and for the first time since coming to the lake don’t even drive to the local market to get a newspaper in the morning except for Sunday’s.  If it’s a rainy day and I’m not in the middle of a book I’m usually watching TLC, AMC, The History Channel or A&E.  I don’t hold myself out as a “normal” viewer of TV but I’m amazed at how the traditional networks have slipped off my radar screen.  Our youngest son who is sixteen has had a number of friends up visiting this summer.  I’ve taken great interest in watching their viewing habits which start with ESPN, move to MTV until we yell at him to, “…turn that crap off,” and then it’s the Food Network. 

We head back to Nashville on Monday.  The sixteen year old starts school on Thursday which is inconceivable to people up here who for the most part are still on the Memorial Day to Labor Day summer schedule. So it is back to the fray starting next week and I welcome it.  The time off has been great for body and mind but the batteries are recharged and I’m anxious to see what’s next .