NBC ax bypasses Burbank news bureau.

NBC ax bypasses Burbank news bureau

Network keeps operation separate from L.A. station

NBC Television Network officials last week said that NBC's approximately 65-person news bureau in Burbank will survive the news bureau system's budget slashing being orchestrated from New York, but the president of a local union said several employees have already accepted contract buyout offers.

"We've been going bureau by bureau, and Burbank will remain intact at roughly the same size," said Peggy Hubble, media spokeswoman for NBC News. "L.A. remains a strong key bureau for us. There aren't going to be any major changes there."

Dick Smith, president of the National Association of Broadcast Employees & Technicians (NABET) Local 53 in Burbank, countered: "I'm not sure that the fact that 13 people have taken buyouts constitutes status quo."

He agreed that local NBC executives "succeeded in talking the people in New York out of combining the L.A. bureau with KNBC."

In some other cities, NBC has closed news bureaus and merged those operations with the news departments of local television stations.

Sue Binford, vice president of media relations for NBC in Burbank, said local officials have been told there are no such changes planned at the Los Angeles news bureau.

Meanwhile, at Capital Cities/ABC, staffers in the Broadcast Operations and Engineering Division in Los Angeles and New York and in the network's news department also are being offered contract buyout deals.

Reportedly "a few dozen" people in the BOE division will lose their jobs. ABC spokesperson Julie Hoover confirmed the estimate but would not specify how many people are being laid off on each coast.

"We do not generally release numbers," said Hoover. "We are not going to elaborate on that statement."

Richard Daszkowski, president of NABET Local 57 in Los Angeles, said "several people were offered buyouts."

"A number of managers in L.A. have taken buyouts," he added. "There's a management shuffle going on. . . . They haven't notified us of any layoffs. We haven't received anything official."

NBC confirmed recently that it was closing its 10-person regional news bureau in New York. However, Hubble said only two jobs will be lost, as bureau staffers will be transferred to WNBC-TV in New York or will work out of NBC's national central news desk, which also is in New York.

Hubble would not say how many people work at the central news desk. She stressed, however, that the bureau closing reflects a restructuring of the news operation, not an elimination of news coverage at the network's headquarters.

Betty Hudson, NBC senior vice president of corporate communications, added: "In terms of cost savings, this is not a biggie. This is not particularly significant in terms of budget cutting."

NBC is trying to trim about $200 million from its 1992 budget.

So far, the network has announced that about 40 jobs will be lost in Burbank when the so-called "D Network," which feeds network programming to West Coast affiliates, closes down in 1992. And the network has announced news bureau closings in cities including Miami, San Francisco and Frankfurt, Germany. There have been cutbacks at other bureaus.

Reports indicate that about 100 jobs are being eliminated nationwide in the ABC news division. ABC has announced the closing of some foreign news bureaus, plus a bureau in St. Louis, and cutbacks in Miami.

The network, however, also recently announced that it will launch a "World News Overnight" program that will have a staff of 35 people, reducing the need for layoffs.

Sherrie Rollins, spokesperson for ABC News in New York, would not specify the number of layoffs, but said the estimate of 100 was "not far off."

"We hope wherever possible to absorb people (into the new program)," Rollins said, "so the net loss will be significantly less than 100."

She said there have been no layoffs in Los Angeles, but she wouldn't say how many people work at ABC's Los Angeles bureau.

Hoover said the cutbacks in news and operations "just happened coincidentally at the same time."

She denied that the network has ordered division managers to make specific cuts in staff or budget. She said executives were voluntarily trimming spending to comply with "an ongoing corporate ethic to save money and not waste money."

"My sense was there was no corporate directive," Hoover said.

Securities analysts are projecting a 30 percent decline in ABC profits in 1991.

Many staff cuts reportedly are being made through attrition and voluntary agreements to buyout contracts and take severance packages.