Media: WHOI owner stages surprise layoffs for 10 in Texas
Via The Monitor:
KGBT-TV, the Valley’s CBS affiliate, quietly laid off 10 staffers Tuesday and finalized plans to cut the noon newscast starting Monday. It was the third round of cuts for the station which in 2008 saw then-reporter Janine Reyes and longtime weatherman and Valley fixture Larry James join the swelling ranks of the unemployed.
“‘It’s part of what is going on around the country, and we’re having to cut you just like them,’” [weatherman Romeo] Cantu recalled being told when he was let go minutes after finishing a 9 a.m. news segment. “The only thing I really regret is I didn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye to the Valley.”
Cantu was told moments after he wrapped up morning news, denying him the opportunity to say goodbye to viewers. Stations go to make it seem like their personnel are part of viewers’ families. That’s a pretty crappy to treat family.
KGBT is owned by Barrington Broadcasting, owner of Creve Coeur-based WHOI.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:10 am
I was let go from a job once, on a Friday afternoon with no time to do anything but clean out my desk and leave. The thing that bothered me the most long after I had found another job and moved on was not being able to say goodbye to many of my coworkers, who had been a part of my life for nearly 15 years — longer than my husband or my child had been!
I know this is common practice nowadays, because employers don’t want fired employees hanging around to drag down morale among the rest (or, God forbid, go postal on them).
Still, for most people, their workplace is a big part of their life, practically a second family (for some, it’s their ONLY “family”) and it would be nice if they could have some, ahem, closure before they depart.
In the case of these TV reporters, anchors, and weather people, whom as you point out, are like “family” to viewers, that’s even more important.
January 29th, 2009 at 6:48 am
My peep tells me that Friday will be when the ax falls at ‘HOI.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
It is sad that we are transitioning to a concentrated media enviornment. Losing WHOI would stunt the availibility of differing viewpoints and stories that central Illinois have to choose from. What WEEK might consider important to viewers, WMBD and WHOI might not and vice versa. However lets break down the peoria stations…….. I have no qualms with WEEK news, as they have had an extremely stable news staff and I have seen the same faces on that channel for 25 yrs. Tom McIntyre ranks up there with grandpa when it comes to being a part of the family. They deliver a consistent newscast 7 days a week. Their owner, Granite Broadcasting, has pretty much run the station with a laissez faire approach. Granite is also the company that took WKBW in Buffalo, NY from a solid 1st place to a dead last and way behind everyone else 3rd place by getting rid if the same news theme (move closer to your world) they used for 30 yrs and their “It’s 11′o clock do you know where yout children are?” speech that was a fixture on their news. Thank goodness they didn’t screw up WEEK like that. WMBD has had bad luck in the last decade. With the selling of the station to Nexstar, a downright dirty company that doesn’t care about it’s viewers and that can take a powerhouse CBS station (WCIA) and reduce it to the pile of crap it is today, it has managed to hold on to some reliable names, like Larson and Collins. Nextar also owns KOLR in my current state of Missouri, (note, I keep pretty regular tabs on Peoria News, as I go up there weekly and watch the local newscasts) which has undergone numerous staff changes and theme overhauls after Nexstar came in and screwed things up for them. This leads me to WHOI, the “Who is the anchor this week station”. The only person I really know on there is Mattson. The station has been passed around like the joint at a rock concert when it comes to owners. It has it’s advantages, a strong analog signal (out in Minier, it came in the clearest),and the lowest channel number on the dial (in an all UHF market, I don’t quite know the total significance of this). The station is notorious for going though anchors like underwear. It used to be a strong 2nd place station with WMBD being in last place by a good margin. I would like someone with the ratings sheet to tell me when and where things went wrong (I spent some time where I was not getting back to the area regularly). It will be sad to see WHOI lose the news that they produce and report, even though it will be taken over by WEEK from what I hear. It is nice to have someone elses opinion on what makes a particular story important.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I agree with the previous commenter. Nexstar, from what I hear, is a horrible company to work for. I was always told when I was in television to never work for Nexstar. They destroyed WCIA in Champaign. WCIA used to be a solid #1 station in Champaign. After Nexstar took over, it turned to crap. It’s a #2 station in Champaign now and probably a #3 in the rest of the market (Decatur & Springfield). WMBD has had its share of ups and downs. It’s a revolving door of talent. And what is the deal with stations owned by Nexstar and their web sites? WMBD web site = horrible! WCIA web site = horrible! I can never find what I want, and it always looks like things are just thrown on there. I hate it. As someone who still works with the media on a daily basis, I can’t stand going to web sites like that. So yeah, I would never work for Nexstar.
January 30th, 2009 at 1:48 pm
In response to the two previous comments, I’ll add what I have said before: On any given evening, any of Peoria’s three television broadcasters are capable of producing excellent journalism. On any given night, the opposite is true. All three have their strengths and weaknesses. I don’t work for any of them, and I cannot say what’s it’s like to work for them. I’m also not a stockholder, and I don’t measure their success by ratings, but the quality of the news.
January 30th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Agreed Billy, I have seen the best and worst on all three stations. That being said…..In this man’s opinion, however, when it comes to the Peoria market, people like familiar faces. You could put a story on dog crap on the 10 o’ clock news, if it’s Tom McIntyre reporting, it would fly. When you change the anchor staff on a regular basis, it goes against the grain of what the people of the area are used to. If they replaced McIntyre on the 25 news tomorrow out of the blue with some new college grad that knows nothing about the area or it’s people, what do you think would happen to the station? I’m not saying that the new college grad would do a poor job at journalism. It is a ratings game. WHOI does some damn fine reporting, but less people are watching it. That’s what’s so sad about news these days. It doesn’t matter how well the story was told, just how many people watched it.