PROVIDENCE – WLNE-TV Channel 6, the ABC affiliate serving the Providence-New Bedford market, is the latest local news outlet to cut its staff, Stephen Doerr, the station’s vice president and general manager, confirmed today.
ABC 6 has laid off four full-time and two part-time workers from its news and engineering divisions, effective immediately, Doerr told Providence Business News. The only on-air worker affected was reporter Jennifer Gannon.
Doerr described the layoffs as a response to the continuing downturn in the advertising market. “You have to make ends meet,” he said. “It’s hard to say goodbye to colleagues you’ve worked with for a long time, but every business in America is making tough choices.”
The Providence-based station generally ranks third in the Providence-New Bedford ratings market, behind NBC 10 WJAR-TV in Cranston and CBS 12 WPRI-TV in East Providence.
“We’re a small family-owned company, and we’ve done everything we can to handle this [declining market] without affecting our employees,” Doerr said.
The layoffs leave Channel 6 with about 90 employees, he said. By comparison, the station listed a staff of 105 in October 2007, when it was acquired by Global Broadcasting LLC. (READ MORE) It reportedly idled several employees in January 2008, one engineer in July and several more workers, most of them part-timers, last fall.
The job cuts at ABC 6 are the latest in a series of staff reductions at local media outlets:
• The Providence Journal Co., publisher of the state’s largest daily newspaper, last month eliminated 100 positions: 74 by laying off union and non-union workers and the remainder by refraining from filling 26 vacant positions. Those cuts – and the elimination of 53 positions in September and October: 22 through voluntary buyouts and 31 workers through layoffs – left the Journal with a staff of 562 full- and part-time employees.
Journal Publisher Howard G. Sutton described the downsizing as the result of a drop in advertising revenue amid the global recession. Each round was part of a 500-job companywide reduction by A.H. Belo Corp. (NYSE: AHC), the newspaper’s Dallas-based parent company.
• In January, Cranston-based WJAR-TV NBC 10 laid off 10 employees – nine of them from off-air positions – and said more cuts are expected this month. (READ MORE)
Those staff reductions follow the elimination of seven Cranston jobs last year, as Richmond, Va.-based parent company Media General Inc. (NYSE: MEG) pared its staff by 11 percent companywide. Lisa G. Churchville, president and general manager at Channel 10, cited lower advertising spending caused by the recession.
So far, Rhode Island Public Radio WRNI 1290 AM and 102.7 FM in Providence, the state’s National Public Radio (NPR) affiliate, is the only local media outlet bucking the trend by adding staff. (READ MORE) But ABC 6’s Doerr today told PBN he is convinced that an economic turnaround is on the way, holding out hope that an expansion of his station and other local media outlets will not be far behind.
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WLNE-TV Channel 6, the ABC affiliate serving the Providence-New Bedford market as Tiverton-based Channel 6 and Rehoboth-based digital channel 49, has its studios in downtown Providence. It is owned by Global Broadcasting LLC, a Delaware corporation based in San Francisco and Providence, which purchased the station in 2007 from Freedom Communications Inc. of California. Additional information is available at www.abc6.com.
