Well since Turd has written a screed about consultants, I have to bring this old post out of the archives.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy8fMf082HA

Remember this clip going around about two years ago about Magid and WFMY? Well to add to the horrors of it, in my files I have a copy of a state of broadcast journalism survey done in 1975 by Columbia University.

One of the topics in it was a piece on the effect of Frank Magid (and other consultants) on TV news titled “The Trojan Horse – News Consultants.”

One of the biggest ironies in it and why I included the YouTube clip above was WFMY news director claimed eight earlier that since his station was number one, he didn’t need the services of Magid even though WXII was nipping at his heels. That and interestingly enough, the third affiliate in Greensboro couldn’t get out of the ratings basement in the 70s even with Magid’s help (that would be the then ABC affiliate – WGHP).

The tale of KGO going full bore on implementing consultant suggestions and the accompanying downfall of the “old fashioned” KPIX alongside the rest of Group W is there among other sordid histories of various TV stations of the early 70s.

As an addition to the above, Walter Cronkite’s 1976 speech to the CBS affiliate conference in which he called stations who used consultants “suckers for a fad.” (And the Kuralt RTNDA speech Cronkite refers to.)