I was excited about traveling to the United States, as it would mean a reunion with familiar faces. And no, I’m not talking about the other WPI fellows and staff, but people I recognize from TV.
Seven years ago, I worked as a visual journalist based in Washington, D.C., and got used to having several TV anchors, such as CNN´s Brooke Baldwin or Don Lemon, in my living room 24/7.
Unfortunately, the reunion didn’t happen as I had planned.
Over the past few years, many TV networks have made major changes to their lineups, and some of the longtime familiar faces have disappeared from the screens. This change is, at least partly, a result of a larger industry shift toward cost-cutting and producing more dynamic content. The audience might have noticed, for instance, that in-stead of two co-anchors there is only one host in the evening newscast.
In January, CNN began cutting about about six percent of its total staff. The company’s strategy is to refocus the business around a global digital audience, which led to rearranging CNN´s linear TV lineup.
According to CNBC reporting, NBC News is also facing cuts. Newsrooms around the nation are in transition as fewer people watch cable and broadcast news on traditional television. The same development is underway in regional markets, including in the Twin Cities.
On our recent visit to Hubbard School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, we met with senior fellow Scott Libin, a former journalist with 30 years´ experience as an on-air reporter and news director.
Libin noted recent shifts on local news programs from having multiple anchors to one. For example, when Randy Shaver recently retired from co-anchoring KARE 11 News with Julie Nelson, the NBC affiliate chose not to replace him. Nelson now anchors the show alone.
Libin described the recent trend in TV news as “the need to do more with less“.
“Technology makes that possible in many areas, he added. But reductions in staffing or stagnant staffing or budget levels with expansion of production can have an impact on quality and credibility.”
The development in the U.S. sounds very familiar to me. In March, my employer, the Finnish Broadcasting Company, announced a series of organizational changes to streamline operations and reduce costs. A public broadcasting company, it marked the Finnish parliament’s largest budget cut in the company’s 100-year history, approximately $77 million by 2027. The cuts have led to many layoffs and to solo anchors hosting all four evening newscasts.
In addition, last week Finnish commercial broadcaster MTV announced the beginning of workforce reductions due to slow market growth. The cuts are expected to reduce the staff of 390 to 345 (about 12%).
Once the centerpiece of many living rooms for decades, TV has lost its dominance to on-demand streaming services, online news and social media.
Libin doesn’t think TV in general or television news are going away, but he believes some of the changes happening are profound and will be permanent.
“Audiences for over-the-air television will probably never again be what they once were, but I don’t think they’ll vanish entirely, either”, he said. “Same with profit margins, but that doesn’t mean most stations will go out of business.”
Could an AI avatar anchor be a cost-effective solution for the TV stations in the future?
That is possible. Norwegian channel TV2 created an interactive news anchor AI clone of their well-known TV personality. The interactive avatar, KI Kjetil, was used online to answer audience questions during the last U.S. presidential election.
The next step could be an AI clone reading the evening news.
Technically, it is possible, but is the audience ready for that?
