Stephen Doerr, the new general manager/acting news director at WLNE-TV (Channel 6), has become a subject of keen interest in the local TV news industry -- and not just because of questions about whether the ABC affiliate can shed its identity as the perennial third-place ratings laggard of Rhode Island newscasts. Until very recently, Doerr was a news consultant for WJAR-TV (Channel 10), the traditional local ratings leader.
Doerr, who today marks his fifth day in his new gig, downplays the significance of his coming to Channel 6 after having worked for Channel 10. “I don’t really have much to say about it,” he told N4N yesterday. “And all [the details of] that stuff would be confidential. In television, people cross the street all the time.”
Doerr, who came to WLNE from a post as a Cleveland-based principal and senior station strategist with Audience Research & Development, compares the situation with how football coaches like Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick have gone from one team to another. Without getting into detail, he touted plans to build up WLNE, which axed its previous news director and general manager after being acquired last week by new owners, Global Broadcasting of Southern New England.
Doerr’s previous profile at AR+D, which bills itself as “the premier television branding company,” offers this information:
It's safe to say that nobody does "different" like Audience Research & Development Senior Strategist and Principal Steve Doerr. As a senior corporate executive, major-market general manager and news director, Doerr has earned a reputation as a leading innovator and change agent . . . .
Doerr brings a wealth of real-life experience to Audience Research & Development and its clients. As News Director at Cleveland's CBS/UPN duopoly WOIO/WUAB, he led an unprecedented turnaround in ratings and revenues.
WOIO's innovative and carefully crafted "19 Action News" captured the attention of the market and the industry. WOIO's "Body of Art," a first-person account of world-renowned photographer Spencer Tunik's mass nude "installations" is arguably the most controversial and talked-about story in local television history.
Observers at competing stations and in academia are divided on the significance of a news consultant for one station moving to another one in the same marketplace, particularly after he had been seen in his former client’s newsroom as recently as about a month ago.
One school of thought contends that there’s not much of a secret about the approach of local newscasts, since they’re broadcast and visible every day. “TV’s pretty basis stuff,” says one observer, who sees Doerr’s move to Channel 6 as not being much of a big deal.
In Rhode Island, where viewed habits are largely a matter of tradition, WLNE has long faced an uphill battle in making ratings gains.
But Belle Adler, a professor at Northeastern University in Boston, a former CNN producer who specializes in TV, says via e-mail, “The move from AR&D to the news department is rather odd. Usually, it goes the other way. News director[s] leave the business and go into consulting. As for the ethical concerns about working for the competition, I would guess yes, there are some concerns. Of course without details or specifics, it’s hard to criticize, but theoretically speaking, it’s possible that the gentleman knows a lot about the ratings, the plans for personnel changes, the series that are in the works. It will depend on how long ago the guy worked at AR&D and what he did.”
The move comes as local stations continue to plot for the all-important November sweeps period.
One source calls the propriety of Doerr’s move “a totally valid question and one that has come up in television circles.”
Betty-Jo Cugini, Channel 10’s news director, is on vacation this week and couldn’t be reached for comment. Joe Abouzeid, the news director at WPRI/WNAC-TV (Channel 12, Fox 64), declined comment.
Asked if Doerr shared how he was considering a job at WLNE, WJAR general manager Lisa Churchville tells N4N that he didn’t. In an e-mail, she writes, “I don’t think there were any big surprises in the market shares, brand positioning demographics that could [be a concern] per se. He has lots of opportunities that I am sure the new buyers understood fully. He knows that you don’t need a chopper to compete in Providence!”
The last remark seems like a dig at WPRI/WNAC, the second-rated newscast, which has stepped up its challenge to WJAR in recent years and which heavily promotes its use of a news helicopter (Disclosure: I am an unpaid panelist on WPRI-WNAC’s weekly Newsmakers’ show.)
Churchville, who had previously worked with Doerr at Philadelphia's WCAU, an NBC affiliate in the mid-’90s, has only kind things to say about him. “I have worked with him, on and off, since,” she writes. “He’s a great guy – funny, energetic, bright, and a Six Sigma black belt. He was a very good consultant and a great choice for the station. He will have a positive effect.”
Alan Schroeder, a Northeastern University professor, author, and former TV producer, offers a more critical view.
“There’s such a revolving door in the news director business. People are in and out from station to station, and also from stations to consultancies and back again. It’s not atypical that you’re going to have this kind of maneuvering," he says, "but what’s unusual here that it’s within a single market.
“Obviously, I think, the ethical issue it raises would be that this guy, Doerr, is in a position to know the trade secrets that he’s been dealing with at WJAR. Going over to the ABC affiliate, he’s in a position to know things about the competition that normally a news director would not know, and I imagine that the people at WJAR are justifiably concerned about that.”
Schroeder adds, “The bottom line is his news department has to deliver on its own basis . . . But it is a little dicey, and normally in a situation like this you would wait six months or so before you begin taking on the competition.”
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