Word: wbbm
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...demand for anchors spurted as local stations across the U.S. expanded their news coverage; Los Angeles' KNXT last month introduced a 2½-hour newscast, and a number of stations (Los Angeles' KNBC, Chicago's WBBM and New York's WNBC among them) mount three shows a night. Local news operations, once money-losing public service efforts, have become universally profitable; at many stations news is the most important source of income. Now anchors and their agents routinely play one station against another at contract-renewal time, and the stations pay up willingly...
...find, and keep, an anchor with that certain something -looks, sex appeal, credibility-that viewers like. A single ratings point in a major market like New York, Los Angeles or Chicago is worth more than $500,000 in yearly station revenues. When executives at Chicago's CBS-owned WBBM this year figured they would lose three evening-news ratings points if Anchor Bill Kurtis jumped to NBC-owned WMAQ, they won him back by counteroffering $250,000 a year. They considered it a bargain. Says Joe Saltzman, a veteran TV newsman who teaches broadcasting at the University of Southern...
...years of experience as reporters and still dash out of the studio like Dalmatians when a big story breaks. Washington's David Schoumacher put in two decades as a newspaper reporter and network correspondent before joining Washington's WJLA as anchor last year (at $120,000), and WBBM's Walter Jacobson ($140,000) is one of Chicago's most respected political reporters. Says New York's Larry Kane, a radio reporter at 15: "The press is abusive to say we're all mannequins. There are no major anchormen in the U.S. who are phonies...
...with Los Angeles' KNXT for $150,000, was fired six months later during a ratings slump, and is now looking for work. "They put their guts on the line every day, and they know that if the ratings fall they could be gone just like that," says WBBM Station Manager David Nelson, snapping his fingers. Muses Schoumacher about his career: "It's nice now, but how long will it last? I'm glad I'll always know how to type...
...afford it. "Obviously there's a limit to what we can pay, but we haven't hit that limit yet," admits WNBC's Fein. WABC's Roger Grimsby may reach $300,000 when his new contract is signed this year, and Station Manager Nelson of WBBM predicts that salaries of top anchors will hit $500,000 within the next five years. Says one KNBC newsman: "Remember when you were a kid and the teacher told you not to read with your lips? Well, you shouldn't have listened...