When CBS announced Norah O’Donnell would step down from the anchor duties of CBS Evening News after the November elections, most media analysts and skeptics thought, “More cost-cutting,” or, “Here comes the seventh anchor change since Dan Rather’s departure in 2005.”
Both are good guesses as the parent company Paramount Global, moving toward an expected merger with Skydance Media, is rumored to be considering budget cuts. Plus, the continual third-place ranking behind ABC and NBC in the network news category makes these decisions seem like another chapter in the highly compensated news anchor saga.
“I’m glad she got to write the narrative and continue in a special assignment role. I’m sure her exit deal is sweet,” was my internal response. This story and dozens of others vaporized from the media news cycle portion of my brain within 24 hours. I needed to make room for more radio downsizing and record label rightsizing stories.
Within 48 hours, the story repositioned itself in my curiosity tab when CBS announced O’Donnell’s replacement. The Tiffany Network will program an ensemble cast from New York led by CBS News veterans John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, with a prominent role from Washington, D.C., by Face the Nation anchor Margaret Brennan. The executive producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, will add supervisor duties to the new Evening News format with the challenge from his boss to tap into the “DNA of ’60 Minutes.”
The continuing fragmentation of audio media creates opportunities like the evolution of streaming and podcasting. However, the same opportunistic fractures create what most radio management has faced in the last few decades: dissolution and downsizing.
Local stations knew the format and talent change ritual long before debt-burdened radio companies started the annual downsizing and rightsizing dance. It resulted from the strategy not working, the talent not connecting, or the station missing double-digit revenue growth in consecutive years. Yeah, double-digit. It used to be a thing. Upheaval and renewal continue in today’s fragmented audio media landscape, but CBS Evening News’ upcoming ensemble cast approach made me remember when talent replacement or fill-in duties happened within the current staff.
How many jocks/presenters/hosts had “guest host” responsibilities for the morning show? There was a depth-chart of talent to cover sick and vacation leave. It gave the other dayparts a chance to experience a different routine and a new audience. Plus, it gave the audience a different experience with the brand. Maybe they would start listening to the Midday jock because they heard him/her on the morning show this week. Or, because of that listening experience, they would enjoy the morning show more when the host or team returned.
If this sounds like another era, it was. Technological inventions through the decades have presented the opportunity to keep everyone in place through voice tracking and digital recording. Morning Shows started airing best-of or “evergreen” material during time off. Programmers didn’t have to pull out their baseball manager depth charts to move people around during vacations and sick days. Plus, the audience had their favorite familiar show every day of the year, even when the humans weren’t in the studio.
As technology improved, rightsizing created split-shift opportunities where the Midday host could voice track 10P-2A or the whole overnight shift. Weekend listeners started hearing their favorite weekday hosts more often because the technology improvement allowed those jocks to pre-record a weekend shift before leaving the studio Friday. Prime talent on Saturdays and Sundays, and savings for the front office by reducing the part-time or contracted talent base.
When we reached the COVID years, radio hardware manufacturers jumped in with equipment to create radio studios in people’s closets or kitchen tables. Many stations, especially music formats, took advantage of the pandemic shutdown and had talent do their shows remotely. It was one more example of removing a human from the studio.
CBS, ABC, NBC, and all the other network nightly news outlets can’t repeat their content like music radio stations. The nightly news is an in-the-moment presentation. Radio is used differently. A DJ talking over the intro of a Blake Shelton song can be generic and reused multiple times in the voice track era.
It’s a “which came first” question. Did radio music formats ignore the in-the-moment feeling because the smartphone outperformed radio in the immediacy category? Or did radio start losing this perception because the industry took advantage of the expenditure benefits provided by technology? That’s another topic for another post.
CBS’s latest Evening News strategy is a thought-starter for radio stations with humans in the studio. Suppose your morning show decided to walk after your renewal offer embarrassed them. Would you have someone on staff who could step in, or would you go on the marketplace of voice trackers and syndicated talent to replace that show with a financially cheaper option?
The post-Norah O’Donnell ensemble cast of hosts will focus more on reporters and in-depth stories. We’ll find out soon if it’s a watermark moment for news programming. However, I’m intrigued by the strategy. What opportunities does it offer music-formatted radio stations to think differently about presentation options for the audience? Our industry adapts quickly, but we follow the others rapidly, too.
Who is thinking about rotating talent schedules on a music-intensive format so the audience gets a fresher approach daily? “Well,” we’re saying, “You can’t ask talent to rotate their schedules every three or four weeks,” True, but the voice-tracking world allows us to create whatever we want whenever we want it. You may find your next morning or afternoon show by shuffling the lineup.
But maybe you find a different way to entertain your audience because you’re taking risks and not doing it like every other station. Audience benefit: Isn’t that what we should think about every day?
Ron Harrell is a columnist for Barrett Media, and a contemporary consultant specializing in radio, streaming, and podcast optimization. He has worked in every role on the programming side during his career, becoming management and executive-focused in the post-Telecom Act era. Ron has held leadership roles for media groups such as Chancellor Media, ABC Radio, CBS Radio, Hubbard Broadcasting, WAY Media, and Hope Media Group.
Interested parties are invited to learn more about his company Harrell Media Group and reach out by email at Ron@HarrellMediaGroup.com.
