What a Joke!

Scripps CEO Adam Symson may go down as one of the worst General Managers in local TV history.

Symsom seems to believe that people still care what he has to say. The CEO posted a long message on his social media.

We will post that message below, and it will be followed by a take from a General Manager in the industry, who used to be a News Director.

Symson’s drivel:

A few years ago in an On My Mind email, I wrote about my family’s television habits, recounting how my daughters watch on their laptops and iPads, my wife was into streaming Netflix and my parents faithfully relied on their cable subscription and the little flat screen in the kitchen, where local and network news played nearly all day long. Those habits have continued to evolve, and the fragmentation I described has only accelerated.

With the exception of live sports, my daughters are now nearly entirely on-demand viewers. My wife and I still live in a hybrid world, especially because of live news and sports. My parents, now in their late 70s, still have that cable subscription, but today they watch more streaming than linear television. And everyone, from my parents to my kids, gets more of their news through social media.

I share this observation because my family, like yours, is not unique. Millions of Americans mirror the same consumption shifts of your families and mine.

Last month, I had the privilege of joining WCPO’s morning editorial meeting. It was great to see how the geographic beat coverage was surfacing a real diversity of stories from across the Cincinnati region. I was heartened to learn more about the station’s upcoming “Finding Solutions” event focused on youth gun violence – an initiative that reflects the kind of community connection we should be leaning in on. And I also was impressed by the depth of the coverage planned for that day’s Kentucky primary.

Naturally, the discussion turned to the newscasts and when the reporters’ packages would need to be ready. And it struck me: This editorial meeting looked and sounded remarkably similar to the hundreds, maybe thousands, of editorial meetings I've attended over the past 30 years in this business. That’s not to say that the news team at WCPO (or any of our other stations) is doing anything wrong; it’s a commentary on how our industry as a whole has not shifted to meet the consumer where they are.

Taken together, these two observations about my family’s television habits and our own editorial processes have been sitting with me ever since. Because they point to an uncomfortable question: How often do we execute our work around what our audiences truly want and need? Or do we more often work in a way that is familiar, convenient and centered around us? It’s a question worth pondering whether you work in news or sales, at the networks or in a local station.

I think, as an industry, we owe ourselves an honest answer.

For decades, local and network television operated from a position of enormous structural advantage. Viewers came to us at the time we prescribed and on our platform. Advertisers followed the audience. We built our operations around that reality, and these same workflows have been handed down for 50 years. Those rhythms are deeply embedded in how we think, how we staff and how we measure success. And for a long time, the economics supported that model.

But here’s the thing, the viewer stopped living by that schedule a long time ago. And when we lose that viewer, the advertiser who is seeking her attention drifts away with her. Digital fragmentation did not just redistribute our consumers. It revealed something we did not want to see: We are built for ourselves, not for them.

This is precisely why our transformation work and our Ways of Working are so important, the first of which is to “Lead with the customer.” This means starting with what our audiences and advertisers need and working our products and solutions backward from there. The shift in mindset I am seeking presents us with a stark reality: The linear television business faces economic pressures that require us to make choices. These pressures aren't easing – in fact, I expect them to intensify. The path forward demands that we fundamentally rethink how we allocate resources, where we invest and how we measure value. To succeed, we’ll need to make dramatic changes to the way we operate, to the journalism and entertainment we create and to the advertising products we sell.

This shift in mindset is already taking hold.

Recently, I got a glimpse into the future when we tested new technology in Tallahassee at WTXL that allows us to “reverse broadcast.” Instead of producing for a scheduled newscast and then streaming it afterward, we’re focusing our news operating rhythms on producing a live stream, continuously updated by journalists filing elements, look-lives and packages as they are ready. As they are completed, they will go across digital, social and streaming platforms in native formats. That stream is secondarily syndicated for broadcast. Fresh stories go live immediately and are not held for a broadcast window nor repeated hour after hour.

It’s exactly the reverse of how we’ve done things for decades. It’s an ambitious change to prioritize the way consumers choose to engage with our journalism. And while Tallahassee's approach won't be right for every newscast in every market, they're proving something fundamental: When we put the viewer at the center of everything we do, it works.

This technology wasn’t handed to us. It was developed by Scripps producers, software engineers and AI experts who started by answering a primary question: How would we build a news product that meets our audiences' needs and isn’t constrained by our own? I believe the answer to that question will make us even more valuable to our audiences and advertisers, and it will help us build a more sustainable business model that allows us to continue serving our communities for the next 150 years.

Thanks to the transformation and our own employees’ ingenuity and initiative, we are on our way.

In the coming weeks and months, we'll share examples of how this technology is transforming operations at stations across the country.

Adam Symson
President and CEO

This is the take from a GM:

WHAT A JOKE.  These ruthless executives cut everything far beyond the bone, then have the nerve to say stations aren't "leading with the customer".  What these self-proclaimed geniuses don't address is the fact that they won't allow local stations any reduction in linear newscast production, oh no that's still expected, along with running all the commercials that kill the audience.  So, despite having to feed that beast, and cover breaking news, and serve the community in times of need; somehow the few employees left are supposed to invent new ways to reach audiences, invent new timelines, establish new product lines, transform the "Way we Work", and don't forget to stream, feed social, create a vertical video, upload to YouTube and respond to Instagram and Facebook.

Yeah, right Adam, YOU work at a modern station for a while and tell us how innovative you prove to be.