TV Anchors All Play for Same Team in CBS, NBC, ABC Cost Cutting

By Brian Steinberg

Senior TV Editor

In a bid to examine the difficulties Americans face in getting their hands on lifesaving drug narcan, NBC News in February turned to what would once be seen as an unlikely resource: reporters at many of its parent company’s local stations.

Over a three-week period, correspondents from WBAL in Baltimore, WDTN in Dayton, Ohio and WOWT in Omaha, among others, visited 64 drugstores in 15 states and Washington, D.C., all to determine whether the nasal spray that can help reverse the effects of an opioid overdose could be found easily by those who might desperately need it.

Such cooperation “is definitely a cultural change” in relations between a media company’s local and national news operations, says Valari Staab, the chairman of NBCUniversal’s local stations, adding: “In the past, the networks and stations have missed some real opportunities.”

With new economic pressures weighing on the media sector — and the TV-news businesses they power — national and local TV journalists may be working together even more closely than the ones at NBC. Paramount Global, Disney and NBCUniversal have all in recent years taken new steps to merge the business of their TV stations with that of their national newsgathering units. Such moves are quickly giving local reporters new opportunities to play on a bigger field while siphoning off some of the swagger from the national anchors and correspondents who have long stood at the top of the TV-news pecking order.

With traditional ratings in decline and local ad dollars under pressure, there’s little wonder that it’s time to reorganize the troops. “There’s a massive focus on finding efficiencies,” at media conglomerates, says John Harrison, leader of the Americas media and entertainment practice at EY.

Indeed, in recent weeks, both ABC News and CBS News have cut staff, including popular anchors such as Jeff Glor, the co-anchor of CBS’ Saturday-morning news program. At NBC News, a new executive, Matt Glassman, has been put in place to work directly with local stations to improve collaboration that will result in original reporting and stories. Eventually, Harrison believes, the companies may rely on local reporters to dig up colorful details on the ground and tap national journalists to synthesize such color into a story that has resonance for broader audiences. The resulting story can be used in both local and national outlets.

Local correspondents are popping up in unexpected places. “CBS Sunday Morning,” long a bastion for familiar contributors such as Mo Rocca and Lee Cowan, recently featured a report from Jennifer Mayerle of WCCO in Minneapolis, who visited the Greyhound Bus Museum in Hibbing, Minnesota. In the past, an appearance by a reporter from a local CBS station on the program has been exceedingly rare, according to a person familiar with the matter. NBC News, meanwhile, incorporated Jonathan Dienst, a veteran investigative correspondent for New York’s WNBC, into special reports on the recent hush-money trial of former President Donald Trump. Dienst has contributed to the national news unit for years, but “we began incorporating him more into specials on Trump reporting in ways we didn’t previously,” says Rebecca Blumenstein, president of editorial for NBC News, who put in place the new executive to direct the work with local stations.

While top network anchors like George Stephanopoulos, Lester Holt and Gayle King are treated like celebrities — and typically make bigger salaries than many others — executives believe viewers see little distinction between the anchors who lead national evening and morning news programs and their local counterparts.

Audiences who watch New York’s WABC, for example see “no difference from [Good Morning America co-anchor] Robin Roberts to [Eyewitness News evening co-anchor] Sade Baderinwa,” says Debra OConnell, president of Disney Entertainment’s News Group and Networks. “They are, from a viewer perspective, one team.” Indeed, Baderinwa in late August filled in on late-summer broadcasts of “GMA.”

CBS News is testing the theory even more aggressively. After the 2024 presidential election, a new “CBS Evening News” will launch that is co-anchored by John Dickerson, a veteran CBS News anchor who specializes in politics, and Maurice DuBois, a king of the New York City news set who has anchored newscasts at the New York station WCBS for years. Lonnie Quinn, the WCBS weather reporter, will also play a sizable role.

Yet viewers who have become accustomed to seeing an evening-news anchor jet off to trouble spots around the world may be in for a surprise should they tune in to the new program. “It’s all about who is the best possible person to be in Maui, to be in Israel, to be in Ukraine, and having that person be there, right?” says Wendy McMahon, president and CEO of CBS’ national news, local stations and syndication businesses. “There could be times when – guess what? – it’s a great political story and there’s no one stronger than John Dickerson, or there’s a huge story in New York and it makes sense for Maurice to be on there,” she says. But a reporter at a CBS station in Denver or Pittsburgh might be the most knowledgeable operative for events that occur in those areas. “We are always going to ask that question first: Who can do the very best job in service to our viewers, versus the optics of playing television?” adds McMahon.

During her tenure, McMahon overhauled CBS News in ways her predecessors might not have contemplated. Journalists at CBS News have been told that they are expected to contribute to all the unit’s news operations, not just programs like “CBS Mornings” and “CBS Evening News,” says a person familiar with the business. National newsgathering has been put under the aegis of Adreinne Roark, an executive with experience primarily tied to management of local stations. The signature program on the company’s live-streaming service is a so-called “whip-around program” that takes viewers to news stories bubbling up in regions around CBS’ stations. The format relies in part on local- station personnel. A new unit devoted to news about health and wellness relies not only on Dr. Jon LaPook, CBS News’ chief medical correspondent, but Stephanie Stahl, a medical reporter based at Philadelphia’s KYW.

Putting journalists from stations and CBS News together “drives reach, drives impact, but also enables us to be really smart about, operationally, how we work together from an effectiveness perspective and an efficiency perspective,” says McMahon.

The strategy has drawn some scrutiny in recent days, with the national CBS News arm involved in a handful of gaffes. The Paramount Global unit addressed an eyebrow-raising interview between “CBS Mornings” co-anchor Tony Dokoupil and author Ta-Nehisi Coates during which Dokoupil suggested the author’s book, “The Message,” which examines the state of relations between Israel and Palestinians “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.” CBS News staffers were told the interview did not meet the unit’s editorial standards, a decision that has drawn backlash. CBS News has also had to contend with questions about the recent interview of Vice President Kamala Harris on “60 Minutes’ after the candidate’s response to a question from interviewer Bill Whitaker appeared to be different in a promo for the show than it was on the actual broadcast. It is not uncommon for news networks to edit segments for time constraints, and promos are typically much shorter than a full segment of content.

“Wendy is an outstanding, accomplished leader,” said George Cheeks, the Paramount co-CEO who oversees CBS in a recent statement following the revelation of scrutiny around Dokoupil’s interview. “She and her leadership team are passionate advocates and stewards for CBS News standards; that won’t change.”

None of those controversies lessens the pressure to consolidate forces. News at ABC, NBC and CBS once thrived on having only limited contact with viewers each day — chiefly in the hours before the audience went to school or work, a few minutes in the evening, and another visit on Sunday. Now, all three networks are trying to set up 24/7 streaming hubs to fuel the broadband fortunes of their parents Paramount Global, Comcast and Disney. Suddenly, there’s a need for fresh content across most of the day, not just a few parts of it.

And in an era when more Americans are inclined to distrust traditional media, local journalists still command favor. Pew Research Center found in May that 71% of Americans feel local journalists cover the news accurately and 68% feel local media covers the most important stories and issues. A 2022 study by the same organization, however, revealed that half of U.S. adults believe that news organizations in general do a good job of covering the most important stories, report the news accurately and serve as a watchdog over elected leaders.

In the past, a journalist who wanted to ply the trade on TV would have to start out at a small local station, work to a larger market, and then try to jump to a network. But the rise of streaming and tougher economics are making both sides part of the same team. Perhaps they should have been all along, suggests Andrew Heyward, a former CBS News president who studies the future of local journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. “To some degree, divisions over the years between network and local were artificial., It’s based on someone’s ego or corporate infrastructure or leadership teams,” he says. From a journalism perspective, he adds, bringing the forces together “makes a lot of sense.”

Besides, local stations have grown more ambitious in the streaming era, taking on projects that resemble those of national counterparts. “I think the tired image of local news just doing fires and crime news is really out of date,” says Heyward. “Local stations are much more focused on enterprise reporting, and they are in a more competitive environment.”

The big media companies are putting new bets on local at a time when some important partners are not. Advertisers are seen putting their dollars elsewhere in months to come, particularly as streaming outlets like Hulu and Max make new outreach to small and regional marketers. “We expect the two primary contributors of local TV broadcasters’ revenue — retransmission and core advertising — will modestly decline over the next few years,” says Rose Oberman, media and entertainment director for S&P Global Ratings, in a recent research note.

One recent effort to fuse local stations and national reporting failed. E.W. Scripps in September said it would cut 200 jobs and scrap Scripps News, which distributed national news programming across the company’s local stations and via streaming. “Amidst an already difficult linear television advertising marketplace, many brands and agencies have decided that advertising around national news is just too risky for them given the polarized nature of this country, no matter the accolades and credentials a news organization like Scripps receives for its objectivity,” said Adam Symons, Scripps’ CEO, in a statement at the time. “I vehemently disagree, but it is hurting Scripps News, along with every other national linear and digital news outlet.”

Using local reporters may add new qualities to the networks’ national product, says Heyward. “It’s going to make the coverage more varied and less of that parachute-jump-in” style that has a national correspondent fly into a place with which they are not familiar.

Both ABC and CBS expect to add more original hours of programming to their streaming outlets, according to OConnell and McMahon, moves that are likely to accelerate the need for personnel. McMahon’s willingness to weave local newsrooms into national news concepts is well documented, but OConnell keeps future strategic notions closer to the vest. The company has for years used some personnel for both local and national purposes, she says, as it has with Sam Champion, the popular weather journalist who works for WABC but makes appearances on national programs. Could some popular ABC News programs benefit from more faces from stations?” We get our report card every day and our viewers are telling us what they prefer,” she says. “That’s what we focus on.”

Tapping local newsrooms helps “to double our resources and our reach,” says NBC’s Blumenstein, and the local touches the journalists bring make the reports “feel very unique.” The work to develop more connections between NBC News and local stations, she says, is “just at the early stages here.”