Major Tegna Reorganization

“We will not make news for TV,” were the words of Tegna CEO Mike Steib in an internal email about the reorganization of the company.

Steib sent out an internal email to the staff. Here is a portion of that email.

Team,

This week we're initiating a reorganization of the company that will not cause anyone to lose their jobs, but will change many folks' roles and responsibilities. I am excited about what this will mean for our communities and for each of you, and I hope you will be, too.

Let me tell you why and then share the details.

Why: Local news is crucial to the success of our communities and our country, and it is in peril. Big tech has been taking audience, cable subscribers, and ad dollars at a precipitous rate. To create a sustainable future for local journalism, we have to beat the enemy on their turf — serving our audiences 24/7 on CTV streaming and mobile with the highest quality local news in every market.

The only way to do more local news while cash flows are shrinking is to improve the way we do our jobs. In the last year, we have made great progress together: we have reduced unnecessary bureaucracy and non-critical spending; we have embraced automation and AI to improve our overall productivity; we have increased accountability and continued to grow and elevate our talent. We've done it all transparently, because we believe every teammate at TEGNA will play an important role in this transformation. And we've done it with urgency, because the mission demands it.

Our early success in growing our CTV streaming audience and bringing TV advertisers to digital convinces me that we are on the right track and that now is the time to build on this success.

So, here's the org change:

(1) We are combining each station's digital team and TV news team. Digital directors will report to the news directors. We will not make news for TV; we will make news for wherever the audience is, every minute of the day. This story-first news making approach will set us up to eventually provide our local audiences with true 24/7 local news coverage. With leadership from Adrienne Roark's team, including her new vice presidents of content, Carol Fowler, Javi Morgado, Chris Peña, Michael Valentine, and Julie Wolfe, and rapid testing and iteration at each station, we will be able to better serve our local communities.

(2) We are asking our GMs to lead our revenue transformation from TV to digital. This means, that while our GMs will continue to play an important local leadership role, their priority focus will be digital and TV revenue. With leadership from Tim Fagan's team and our new regional revenue leaders, Mark Cornetta, Richard Dyer, Kristie Gonzales, Kari Jacobs, and Brad Ramsey, we will bend the revenue curve and create our sustainable future.

(3) We are moving some of the distribution tasks from the local digital teams to marketing, under Mat Yurow. Optimizing search, social channels, YouTube, etc., is a constantly evolving art and science and we want to give it full-time attention. And we are moving our National Sales Managers into TEGNA Sales, to ensure we are coordinating to best serve our advertisers.

Okay, there is many thing to unpack here. First is that Tegna News Directors are now glorified Assistant News Directors at their stations. All the shots will be called by Adrienne Roark and her band of new vice presidents of content.

The General Managers are now salespeople.

“This raises the question what happens to the Director of Sales (DOS)? The national sales manager now reports to the corporate guy. Really not much need for a DOS,” said one Tegna employee to FTVLive.

This line from the memo, truly is Tegna speak, “With leadership from Tim Fagan's team and our new regional revenue leaders, Mark Cornetta, Richard Dyer, Kristie Gonzales, Kari Jacobs, and Brad Ramsey, we will bend the revenue curve and create our sustainable future.”

“Bend the revenue curve,” what the hell does that even mean?

A Tegna employee who received the memo, thinks this is another nail in the coffin. “The industry is imploding fast. When the dust settles it will be like radio, several corporate entires will own everything and duopolies will rule,” said the staffer, adding, “If you signed a Tegna contract in the last 6-8 months you better read it. Tegna has 90 day outs. Figure that's how long transfers of stations will take.”

The reorganization seems to make News Directors jobs nothing more than a paper pusher who will server the overlords of the Adrienne Roark team.

As for General Managers, many of them worked their way up through the sales rank and after this reorganization, they are basically right back where they started.

In the end, this is all about cost cutting and you can expect more shoes to drop.

Stay tuned…