SCRIPPS NEEDS TO PULL THE PLUG NOW!!!!! Posted on March 20, 2024 at 11:20:10 AM by FTVLIVE
Word is that Scripps management is holding another town hall meeting with the staff this week.
“A lot of folks are hoping for a change of direction, but word is that might not happen,” said one Scripps staffer to FTVLive.
One insider told FTVLive that the Feb ratings for the stations that started doing the Scrippscast were not good for many stations.
Scripps stock is once again very near a 52-week low, and many Scripps employees are looking hard to find jobs outside the company.
In all my years in TV news, the one thing I saw over and over again were managers who never wanted to admit to making a mistake.
I feel this is where we are with Scripps right now.
I really believe that the next move by upper management at Scripps should be admitting that the new “news initiative” is not working.
Making a mistake is not fatal; not correcting the mistake is.
Scripps needs to correct the mistake.
Now, onto Scripps News....
An insider at Scripps News tells FTVLive, "They (Scripps News) laid off a bunch of staff and won't even say how many, "the staffer said, "employees having to figure out who is gone."
Brian Donlon, Senior Director of live news programming at Scripps News sent out this internal memo. It touches on the job cuts upfront and then talks about the changes they are making.
The Scripps News staffer said it's nothing more than "Rearranging deck chairs."
Here's the internal memo obtained by FTVLive:
All – It has been a difficult past two weeks filled with change. Disruption came to our door uninvited and unwelcome.
Despite this interloper’s presence in our business life, our goal remains the same: To create a program line-up that can be leveraged by our digital outlets, streaming platforms, and affiliate stations to increase viewership and revenue.
No one wanted to table the development of “For the Record” at 12 to 3 every day or “Weekend Rush” or see any of our colleagues leave as a result of these moves. The hope is both of these shows will return to active program development at some point in the near future.
In the meantime, to ensure our success, we had to re-visit our programming slate, anchor line-up and staffing. Here is what the line-up will look like starting April 1st :
6 am – Early Rush with Jay Strubberg
7 am to 11 am – Morning Rush with Alex Livingston, Rob Nelson, Jay Strubberg and Scott Withers
11 am to Noon – MR 5 (5th hour of Morning Rush) with Carolyn Bruck
Noon to 3 pm – Scripps News On the Scene with Del Walters *
3 pm – Scripps News Live with Chris Stewart
4 pm – Main & Wall with Chris Stewart and Chris Nguyen
5 pm – The National Report (working title) with Chris Nguyen and Christian Bryant
6 pm – The Race with Chance Seales
7 pm – The Debrief with Lauren Magarino
7:30 pm – Trump on Trial with Chris Nguyen**
8 pm – America Tonight with Maritsa Georgiou
9 pm – Newsline with Lauren Magarino
Weekends with Alexa Liacko
There are two asterisks above. The first denotes that there will also be a “news desk” feature to Scripps News On the Scene to supplement the live event aspects of the show with additional news of the day. Carolyn Bruck will assume those duties.
The second asterisk is because as of yesterday, this nightly show about the historic nature of a former president on trial for the next 9 months to a year was due to start on March 25th. . But late yesterday the Manhattan D.A. proposed a 30 day delay in the start of the hush money trial. This will actually work to our advantage and give this program more development time for graphics, guests etc.
In addition, to best execute these updated program plans, we will be changing leadership on some of these hours. The changes are:
Patrick Griffin will move from The Race to Scripps News On The Scene as EP. Tim Melligan joins him from Morning Rush as senior producer. We are now looking for someone to take over Tim’s role on Rush.
Jason Morell moves from Morning Rush to The Race and The Debrief/Trump on Trial. Caitlin Kollar will serve as interim EP while juggling her new role as Director of Content Integration. Upon her return from maternity leave, Hanna Gordola will take over as Rush showrunner. In addition, Robin Dich has been promoted as senior producer and Rodney Young will join the Rush team as a senior producer. We will also now fold the weekend unit into the workflow and team structure of Morning Rush to maximize our efforts 7 days a week.
Illiana Allen is being promoted from segment/line producer to senior producer of Newsline to bolster the planning and content creation on the upcoming new hour.
The Newsline team will be off the air at 8 and 9 pm next week to focus on the launch of that critical primetime program, which will now make its debut April 22nd instead of April 8th. For next week, we will air “Evening Rush” at 7 pm with Jay Strubberg produced by the MR team. It will be a mix of highlights from Rush with a look ahead at tomorrow’s show and news. The Debrief will move to 8 pm and we will replay our recent tech series of specials at 9 pm with some of the recent “instant” specials at 9:30 pm.
In “The Strategy Book” authored by noted writer and consultant Max McKeown, he offered this thought on change: "Adaptability is about the powerful difference between adapting to cope and adapting to win."
We were forced to cope with a business change, but do not finish reading this email thinking that the determination to win is diminished. Nothing is further from the truth.
As always, if anyone has any questions, I’m around.