The Pay Gap in TV News...

Thanks to a new law in Colorado in which employers must post what the job pays, we get a sneak peek behind the curtain as to what jobs pay what.

Let’s use Scripps-owned KMGH (Denver) and three posted jobs as an example.

The station has a Reporter job open and according to the posting, the job pays $75,000.00 - $90,000.00.

While the Reporter gig can pay up to $90 grand, an open job for an MMJ has the pay listed as $70,000.00 - $80,000.00.

It seems a bit unfair that the person that is shooting and reporting their own stories is making less than a Reporter, that will be assigned a Photographer. But, my guess is that this is about experience.

Lastly, is a job posting for a Digital Content Producer, and according to the job post it pays between $45,000.00 - $55,000.00.

While TV station owners continue to say that digital is the future and we believe that as well, a digital job at the station pays almost half of what a Reporter is being offered.

While the salary numbers might change, I’m fairly certain that these gaps are fairly consistent as to what you will find across the industry.

I continue to hear that digital is the future for TV stations to survive and I truly believe that is the case as well.

But, when every TV station is using a website that is a cookie-cutter template of all the websites that the company uses and the people working on digital are on the low pay part of the spectrum, it seems to be a problem.

Digital is the future, but you staff it with inexperience and low-salary people.

Something just isn’t right.

Just saying….