Yesterday, FTVLive told you how WFSB (Hartford) was going onto a college campus to try and find and recruit Producers.

The fact that a top 30 market station is looking for kids, not fresh out of school, but still in school is an eye-opening occurrence as to where this business is right now.

A couple of people weighed in on that and we wanted to share it in the Inbox:

Email:

Hi there!

 I read your brief article about WFSB TV going to college campuses to search for producers and interns. As someone who works at the station, you should know the problem goes much deeper than a producer shortage.

 It’s a two-fold scenario.

 First, there is a pay problem. While WFSB is the number one station in the market, it is last when it comes to producer salaries. Inflation, and the high cost of living in CT, has exacerbated the problem too. It is nearly a guarantee, though, that you can go to any other station in the market, and get paid more.

 Second, Gray plans to add more local news. It will add two and half more hours of local news during weekdays by the fall. The first phase of this starts next month. This will likely stretch thin an already-strained producing staff. This explains the sudden, attempted hiring ‘blitz’, if you will.  

 To management’s credit, hiring more people will help address some problems. But, the bottom line remains the same. If you want to attract more producers, and keep the ones you have, pay them well. Pay them better.

 Email:

Hey Scott,

I saw your post of WFSB and the recent desperation to fill producer roles. I'm 35 years old who worked in production and basically the industry churned me out 3 years ago. When I was in college I used to read up on the industry and think omg imagine what it would be like to be pushed out the industry at 50+ years old? Even to see on air talent how ridiculous it was to see them pushed out at that age over dumb shit. So now here I am at age 35 and I'm already out of the industry and not by choice, but the industry literally allowing the churn to go at warp speed. Growing up all I wanted to do was work in tv. As a kid I even used to ask my parents for various lego sets just to get pieces to make tv sets and newsrooms. On 9/11 watching Aaron Brown and Peter Jennings live on the air along with everyone else that day cemented that I was going to do this, to produce news as my classmates signed up to go to Iraq. I now see all these openings for producers and even on air talent that need to be filled. Would I love to go back, of course I would. But I spent X amount of money trying to pat my resume with mini college programs, and certs just to now spend the past 3 years working in a boring but steady corporate communications position. There's a lot of talented people out there that the industry pushed out because everyone allowed this churn to speed up to an unrealistic threshold. If you have an opening at your station and know someone who is skilled that you worked with than right a wrong and get them back into it. Try to change the culture instead of feed it to become worse than it already is so that you don't have to recruit producers to lead your newscast right out of college in market 30.