In a text exchange I had with a News Director, he talked about trying to hire talent and how difficult it has become.

“I have an MMJ opening and only 3, yes 3 people applied. I have a main anchor opening and few candidates. It’s horrible right now. News Director’s are fighting over the same shallow pool of candidates. Don’t know if it’s Covid or the pay but the future is bleak if we can’t find qualified candidates to do the job,” the News Director said in a text to FTVLive.

So, when I saw this story from former CBS President Andrew Heyward, I was not surprised.

Heyward is now a Senior Research Professor at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University, and he wrote a story that he believes represents a critical danger for the quality and ultimately the viability of local TV news.

Heyward writes, “What’s the biggest threat to the future of local TV newsrooms? The long-term challenge may be how to build a sustainable model around a new generation of consumers who will never watch a linear newscast at 5, 6, or 11. But news directors and their bosses are increasingly concerned about a more immediate problem: the pipeline of talent for both sides of the camera is drying up.”

“If there is one overwhelming challenge that I hear from every news director I talk to, it is that they’re not getting the same quantity of applicants for jobs that are open as we did maybe as little as three or four years ago. And they’re certainly not getting the same quality applicants that they were getting before,” says newsroom coach Kevin Benz. “It is truly the biggest pain point that I am hearing from news directors across the country.”

You can read the full story here.

FTVLive has talked to a number of hiring managers that have echoed the same thoughts. They said It is hard to find people and the people they do find are just the ones that “want to be on TV.”

“The young kids want to be influencers and not journalists,” is a quote we hear often from ND’s and General Managers.

There is no doubt that TV News is in a crisis and until the pay rate gets to a level that will attract the people that these managers want, it doesn’t appear that it will be getting better anytime soon.

Stay tuned….