The latest market to see competing television newsrooms sharing resources is Cleveland. Gannett’s WKYC-TV (NBC) and Raycom’s WOIO-TV (CBS) announced a deal to pool video coverage of planned news events.
The video sharing deal will eliminate duplication in covering events such as news conferences, court hearings and groundbreaking ceremonies. Only one station will send a photographer to such events, but both will get the video they shoot.
"This new collaboration will allow both stations to shift more resources toward enterprise stories that support our individual style of news gathering," said WKYC President and General Manager Brooke Spectorsky in the joint announcement.
"We, like all businesses, are looking for ways to be more efficient without compromising the fine work being done by our reporters and anchors," said WOIO/WUAB President and General Manager Bill Applegate. The news department of his CBS affiliate, WOIO, also produces a newscast for sister MyNetworkTV affiliate, WUAB.
In the biggest video-sharing deal, NBC Local Media and the Fox Television Stations announced in November that they would establish a news video joint venture in each market where they both have O&O stations. That was first implemented in Philadelphia and is being expanded to the other markets where they compete locally: Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Dallas and Washington, DC.
