So, you want to work in local television in Buffalo.
Before you do, you should do as much research as you did when you wrote stories for your journalism classes in college.
A local union recently settled a contract for reporters, photographers, producers and other employees who work at WKBW-TV (Channel 7), owned by E.W. Scripps Co.
The details shed light on minimum salaries in local TV news that indirectly explain why so many people represented by the union decide to leave Buffalo after a few years for a bigger market where they can receive better pay.
A union release noted Channel 7 employees represented by the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, a sector of the Communications Workers of America, voted recently to ratify a new four-year contract.
NABET-CWA Local 51025 represents technical employees in the station’s engineering department, commercial production department, promotion department, production, in addition to assignment editors, producers, photographers and editors, reporters and anchors in the news department.
People are also reading…
The release noted, “The collective bargaining agreement includes industry competitive wage increases and preserves the integrity of the collective bargaining agreement.”
Roy Schrodt, the president of NABET-CWA Local 51025, called the contract “a good deal for both the employees and WKBW-TV.”
“Our members at WKBW-TV have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic and the company's representatives recognized their hard work,” said Schrodt in the release. “The WKBW Bargaining Committee and the company came to the table with mutual integrity in mind and got a deal done for the well-being of the NABET-CWA represented employees at WKBW-TV.”
The new deal includes a 10% wage increase over four years, which the union called “industry competitive.”
“In addition, NABET-CWA and WKBW-TV worked together with the mutual goal to attract new talent to Buffalo by securing strong starting wages for news producers hired under Personal Services Contracts (PSCs) and capping the initial terms of the PSCs at two years.
“The bargaining committee struck a good balance with Scripps on producer personal services contracts. These contracts will allow WKBW-TV the flexibility to attract and retain good employees to their newsroom in a tough job market while at the same time, giving our unit members a good financial foundation to set up their life here in the City of Buffalo and Western New York region," added Schrodt.
That all sounds good. But the devil is in the details.
In a telephone interview, Schrodt said the contract gives multimedia journalists (MMJs), who used to be called reporters, a minimum salary of $33,800 a year and they are guaranteed to make $2 more an hour than minimum wage. Producers have a minimum of $36,000. He explained producers have a higher minimum because they are more difficult to retain.
Starting producers are guaranteed a rate of $675 per week, and the company has the option to use a personal service contract with a higher rate and two-year limits that requires workers to give money back if they choose to leave early.
Schrodt added those are just minimums primarily for new college graduates and that some veteran reporters can earn from $60,000 to more than $70,000. News anchors earn more than that, but Schrodt has no details on their earnings. Reporters who have worked in other markets before coming here receive more than the minimum, believed to be in the $40,000-$60,000 range.
Channel 7 General Manager Marc Jaromin declined to confirm specific numbers but said the station has "personal services contracts with all of the producers and reporters and all of their individual contracts are significantly over the minimums.”
“Our salaries are among the highest in the market," Jaromin said. "We have a collective bargaining agreement. We've had a good relationship with NABET for many, many years.
“The reason we have personal services contracts is because we pay much more over (the minimum)," Jaromin added. "Depending on experience, we're not going to pay a flat rate, minimum rate for anyone coming to Buffalo.”
Of course, one doesn’t work in local TV news to get rich.
Consider the financial pressures:
• The average rate of inflation in the United States last year was 8% and it remained above 6% through February. The 10% raise over four years doesn’t approach the rate of inflation.
• Many of the MMJs working at Channel 7 were educated at Syracuse University, where tuition, room and board and fees this year was $77,305. The cost of tuition, room and board and fees this year at Ithaca College, another school popular with communication students, was $65,385. While students may get scholarships or financial aid to offset the cost, graduates can still come from these colleges with steep student loans to repay.
• Minimum wage in Western New York is now $14.20 an hour, and many fast food places offer more. Over a 40-hour week, that is $568, which is equivalent to $29,536 annually. That is $4,264 less than the minimum MMJs receive.
In other words, you can almost make as much money out of college at a fast-food restaurant without any degree as you can at a TV station if you are hired for the minimum in the contract.
Of course, these are minimums and new MMJs can negotiate higher salaries.
Channel 7 does give the recent graduates of Syracuse University that it hires annually in a partnership with Scripps rent for free for a year, which is helpful.
How do companies like Scripps and Nexstar, which owns WIVB-TV and WNLO-TV and is in negotiations with the same union, attract new employees?
Because people in journalism consider it a calling and they hope to use the Buffalo market as a steppingstone to a bigger market that pays much better.
Former Channel 4 morning anchor Abby Fridmann, who recently left the station, used to be one of the idealistic journalism graduates.
“There are a lot of things to consider with this profession, especially when you're starting out,” said Fridmann in an interview when she left Channel 4. “I really feel for a lot of the young journalists just getting out of college right now. I remember what it was like when I got out of college and people told me, ‘OK, you're not going to make a lot of money’ and, in my mind, I thought, ‘that's fine. I'll get a few roommates. I'll live off of ramen noodles. That doesn't really matter to me.’ And now as a grown adult person with a family and a life to think about, I think about those college kids and I just want to look at them and say, ‘OK, really make sure you know what you're doing here.’ ”
If the idealism wanes, they can just go into public relations, where the salaries are much better. And they can write positive releases like the one announcing the Scripps-NABET contract settlement.
