Television

If you insist.

Oprah Winfrey is stepping down from "The Oprah Winfrey Show" at the end of the 25th season, in 2011.

She will appear on her cable network, OWN, which is set to launch in January 2011, but "The Oprah Winfrey Show" will no longer exist as the world knows it.

For CBS, the owner of syndication rights to her show, it means the loss of its signature program and millions of dollars every year in revenue.

For ABC stations, where her show was largely seen, it means the loss of daytime's most popular program, a generator of giant audiences leading into evening news programs...More widely, her departure will surely be interpreted as an endorsement of the cable TV business, and a blow to the fortunes of broadcast television. (NYT)

The loss of Ms. Winfrey's show will be missed in particular by the book publishing industry. ...

"If it is the end of her daily talk show, we probably won't see something else to match its overall potential impact on book sales in the broadcast arena any time soon," said Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Bertelsmann AG's Random House publishing arm. "She has an integrity and connectivity to her viewership that is unmatched by any other television broadcast personality. Happily she enjoys reading books and wants to persuade her viewership to enjoy them as much as she does. It's not a characteristic shared by any other TV personalities with her persuasiveness." (WSJ)

The media personality and mogul—whose show has served as the main pedestal from which she has engaged newsmakers high and low, transformed obscure products and personalities into runaway successes, and preached a gospel of self-empowerment to her devoted, largely female audience—is betting that, in a world of ever-fragmenting audiences, the future lies with creating her own branded network. (LAT)

ABC News has the full text of the statement she sent to the 200+ stations that carry Winfrey's show.

And what does this all have to do with jobs? Not much, at least not directly. But according to Broadcasting & Cable, stations have been paying more than $200,000 per week to syndicate the show. "If ABC replaced the show with news, it could easily produce newscasts for much less than what it's paying for Oprah. Even if the ABC stations' ratings dropped in the Oprah time slots, the cost savings would likely make up for those declines." More local newscasts means more hiring. On the other hand, "Too much news in a market can mean too much advertising inventory in news, reducing the value of that news inventory for all players." So in conclusion? No conclusions have yet been drawn, but we'll have to watch and see.

Finally: Anyone want some TomKat?

Our TVNewser colleagues got wind that Lou Dobbs would announce last night that he was leaving CNN, effective immediately.

Here's his statement:

And here's what senior BusinessWeek correspondent David Kiley tweeted when the news hit:

Tongue in cheek? Maybe. Your thoughts?

"The operating environment for our businesses continues to improve and we are finishing the year with strong momentum," said Leslie Moonves, President and Chief Executive Officer, in the company's earnings release today.

Revenues for the quarter totaled $3.35 billion; income was $565.6 million compared to a $13.48 million loss last year this same quarter.

TV revenues and earnings were actually up this quarter, though radio saw lower profits and the companys' outdoor and interactive segments lost some money, due to soft ad markets.

Simon & Schuster, CBS's publishing arm, saw revenues increase by 2 percent thanks to Glenn Beck's "Arguing With Idiots".

Discovery Communications, LLC (aka the Discovery Channel) has let about 30 people go at its Investigation Discovery, Military Channel, and Science Channel, we hear (and BloggerNews.net confirms).

The company also reported its 3rd quarter results this week of profit of $95 million, a slide from $134 million in 3rd quarter 2008, hurt not by lower ad revenues but by higher costs.

We reached out to a DSC spokeswoman for comment, and we will update this post if/when we hear back.

Sinclair Broadcasting Group is borrowing $500 million in senior secured lien notes to pay fees and expenses related to the restructuring of its marketing agreements with Cunningham, keeping the company solvent, RBR/TBR reports.

Cunningham, which operates six TV stations under a local marketing agreement with Sinclair, owed more than $30 million that needed to be repaid by the end of July or risk dragging not just Cunningham but Sinclair into bankruptcy. Cunningham instead received an extension and would be able to refinance its debt if it could prove it could repay its obligations within three years. To meet that goal, Sinclair restructured its marketing agreements with Cunningham to inject cash into the company—$29.1 million in ten quarterly installments, all of which will be used to pay down debt, but will be credited toward the purchase price of the stations if antitrust laws are ever relaxed enough that Sinclair can purchase them.

Phew. Mouthful.

Sinclair will announce its Q3 earnings Nov. 4.

The funds from this $500 million debt securities offering will also be used to fund Sinclair's convertible notes and to refinance its Television Group's existing debt.

NBC Universal parent General Electric reported earnings this morning and the media company had a "lopsided" Q3, according to PaidContent.

Earnings rose to $732 million while revenues dropped by a billion.

Parent GE said in its report, however, that overall the financial crisis is "better" and that the recession is "bottoming," though the company offered no information specific to media.

The company's cable business is growing, however, with USA network rated #1 in terms of viewership. And in terms of broadcast, which has suffered losses, GE had just this to say: "Local markets are showing signs of improvement." Not a rousing endorsement but we'll take it.

If you're a newscaster at WTTG Channel 5 in Washington, your job just got a little tougher.

The Washington Post reports that the station is planning to reassign the technicians who operate the electronic prompters that feed anchors their scripts. This is, of course, a cost-cutting move.

The anchors will now have to work their own prompters, something that apparently requires a fair amount of dexterity. One employee, speaking anonymously, compared it to "a literal one-man band -- singing, banging a drum, crashing cymbals, playing a trumpet and strumming a guitar."

TV stations in smaller markets often require newscasters to work their own prompters but the practice "is largely unknown in major markets."

The best part of this article is the fact that in 2009, when you can buy a computer that fits in your pocket, the prompters at WTTG will be operated by "series of hand levers and foot pedals."

Is this some sort of steampunk newsroom?

Speaking of salaries, some experts say the age of the superstar news anchor is coming to an end.

Mendes Napoli, founder and president of a talent agency for the broadcast industry, spoke with TVNewsCheck about news pay.

"For the the general reporters," he says, "salaries have not really come down, although a lot of them have been frozen. The new jobs opening up seem to be in the same range they've always been. So if a station was paying a reporter $60,000 or $70,000 before, they tend to still be paying that."

Out of the agency's more than 400 clients, only 15 have taken a pay cut on the renewal of their contract, and those have been on the higher end of the pay scale, he says.

Anybody making over $250,000 has probably seen a decrease in pay, yet "many still make what we would consider a lot of money. There are still even some in the over-$1 million category. But how many people can we have left in our industry that make that? Perhaps 20 or less."

What do you think? Tempest in a teapot? (We'd certainly take a quarter-mil...)

The near disaster we reported on last month, where Sinclair Broadcasting Group's local marketing partner Cunningham was about to drag the entire company into bankruptcy, might not happen, the Baltimore Sun reports.

The Baltimore-based broadcasting company, which owns 58 TV stations, announced that Cunningham's received an extension to pay back the $33.5 million it owes to creditors; now Sinclair may be able to restructure its $438 million debt to pay creditors 90-93.5 cents on the dollar.

The plan requires 95 percent approval from bondholders. Guys, take it. You're not going to get a better offer if you hold out.

Thanks to the healthcare debate, political ad revenue—usually not seen in a non-election year—is flowing in to TV stations around the country, possibly reducing stations' need to cut jobs further. So, thanks, town halls, for being so polarizing.

According to figures from TNS Campaign Media Analysis Group (CMAG), local TV has seen about $45 million so far, and the money isn't going to stop coming until Washington agrees on a compromise, CMAG President Evan Tracey told TVNewsCheck. "If I was a betting man, I'd say it goes through the end of the year," he says. "There's too much disagreement on this issue, which bodes well for it continuing."

In Elkhart, Indiana, one of the most hard-hit places in the U.S. (and bad enough that MSNBC decided to focus a yearlong reporting project on the town), the local NBC station has had five separate healthcare accounts advertising in the past week.

The money isn't really evenly distributed, and seems not to be reaching big markets yet. But as one station manager said, You're in a non-political year, but you wouldn't know it."