Just a little back ground, this station was an O&O in a top 20 market. An NPPA shop with great photographers and reporters, number 1 in the market, the envy of the other stations. Union shop that fought off the VJ method for 5 or so years, recently in their latest contract the union caved and allowed 3 vj’s in the union contract for the station. The station is no longer an O&O and the market dropped somewhere in the 30’s. Oh forgot to mention that they lost the number 1 spot for the first time in 65 years.
Anyway not to familiar with the stress of the News department anymore but here is an email to all vj’s and reporters. Love to hear your feedback on this announcement by management.
|
Hi folks, now that we’re up and running on our 10 hour days, a few notes about expectations. Your scheduled start time is now 8:45am, not 10:45a. That gives you 15 minutes to settle in and prep for the 9am meeting and you should be out of the meeting and working on your story(ies) by 9:30a. That gives you 1-hour and 15 minutes more time than you’d get on an 8 hour shift to work on your stories. The benefit is two-fold: a) it should make your jobs less stressful because you now have more time to meet your deadlines, but b) your stories should be better, because, you guessed it… you have more time to meet your deadlines. 10 hour a day DJs are now expected to shoot and edit 2 pkgs per day. They may be on the same topic (1 nuts and bolts pkg at 5p, and 1 sidebar pkg on the same story at 6p for example), or they may be two separate one-stop-shopping type stories. The bottom line is you now have an extra hour and 15 minutes of production time. You should not be producing the same amount of content you would have been producing on an 8 hour shift (1 pkg, 1 vosot). If you are working with a photog, you should be turning a noon pkg (short), plus pkgs for 5 and 6p… usually an expansion/retelling of your noon story, plus another story. Remember, reporter/photog teams were expected to turn two pkgs during an 8 hour shift. 10 hour shift teams are expected to produce 3. Expectations: 10 hour DJ 5pm – PKG 6pm – PKG 7pm – whip (:30/:45 stand-up walk and talk covered with some video) 10 hour reporter with photog Noon – PKG 5pm – PKG 6pm – PKG 7pm – whip Notice that fronted VOSOTs aren’t anywhere in this equation. Everything should be tracked, even noon PKGs. Fronted VOSOTs are clunky and provide more opportunities for error (sent to the wrong MOS, wrong rollq, wrong out time, you name it). Of course, there are exceptions every day based on the needs of the newsroom, but this is gives you an idea of what life looks like when you have time. |
Is this the norm in todays TV world or is this person nuts!!!