Anchors, Salaries and the Moyer Deal

In the grand scheme of things, the salaries of most TV anchors still can’t compare to the idiotically inflated sums paid to mediocre athletes and movie actors who can’t act.

Still, the $8-million-plus, six-year contract landed by Paul Moyer this week to switch his allegiance from KABC Channel 7 to KNBC Channel 4 raises more than a few eyebrows in even this tough show-biz town.

You don’t hear movie audiences shouting at the screen in a theater, asking why a leading man or woman is getting paid millions and millions for a 14-carat stinker--not a bad idea, come to think of it. But TV is up close and personal, anchors are daily guests in your home and so their careers seem of more intimate interest to the viewing audience.

The night after Moyer’s contract was announced, the youthful, amiable 51-year-old anchor, who starts at KNBC July 20 and has been part of the local TV scene for 20 years, was dining in a Santa Monica restaurant. Moyer was relaxed, but he is no fool--and he probably knew the question was coming.

So we asked him: With TV news organizations firing staffers, cutting salaries, closing bureaus and slashing budgets during an ongoing economic crunch, did he have any thoughts of how others, including his new colleagues at KNBC, might feel about the contract?

Earlier in the evening, Moyer had stated an undeniable truth about his deal:

“I don’t know of anybody in this business who would have turned it down.”

And now, responding to whether he had been contemplating the reaction, he said:

“Yeah. I’m extremely sensitive to that. Tonight, that’s what I’m thinking about. That’s what’s in my head.

“The State of California is broke, sending out IOUs. One out of 10 people are unemployed in California, probably more in Los Angeles County. Everybody’s running around afraid of the big earthquake. And then they read about this guy that just signed this deal. If people are put off by that, I understand.

“I only hope they understand--I’m talking about my viewers--that I didn’t put a gun to anybody’s head to offer me this kind of money.

“But I can understand when people say, ‘Wait a minute--bull. You know, I don’t even have a job.’ Well, they (KNBC) did it (signed Moyer) because they wanted to do it.

“Now, as far as the people at KNBC, I suspect (their reaction) is going to last about a week. I really don’t foresee any long-term problems with that. They have a tremendous staff.”

Moyer, a native of Los Angeles and graduate of Torrance High School, is an unpretentious fellow, and his deal, while eye-catching, probably would not have given him much reason for afterthought in a healthier economic climate.

From a television standpoint, what remains to be seen is whether KNBC follows through on its promise that Moyer’s contract, the biggest ever for a Los Angeles anchor, will not affect its overall news budget.

That, of course, is crucial. And if KNBC holds to its budget promise, the truth is that this unprecedented contract will really have little significance or meaning in the long run to local television. All it will really come down to is that Moyer, who already makes more than $1 million a year, got a raise because he is regarded as valuable, and that he has a potent agent, Ed Hookstratten, who got him what others could not get.

KNBC is hoping, of course, that Moyer can help propel it back into first place past the station he is leaving, KABC. But those gambles have been taken before--sometimes succeeding, as when Jerry Dunphy switched to KABC, and sometimes not, as when Dunphy switched again to KCAL Channel 9.

In short, TV’s trend toward cutting news salaries, staffs and budgets will continue, with occasional exceptions.

The Moyer move had some inside drama. When the possibility arose that he might leave KABC after his contract ran out, the station yanked him off the air the last week of the May ratings sweeps, refusing to give exposure from then on to a potential future competitor.

Moyer feels certain the move was dictated by KABC’s tight-fisted parent company, Capital Cities Communications, and not by the station’s general manager, Terry Crofoot, with whom he had worked for 13 years.

For a while, callers to KABC who wanted to know why Moyer had disappeared from the station’s newscasts were played a recorded message that said: “Paul Moyer is taking some time off during contract negotiations and after the birth of his new baby. It might be a few weeks yet before he’s back.”

He never did come back, and he has harsh words for those who benched him: “I think it was silly. I think it . . . was stupid. It was not something I would have done had I been in their place. This was very small-time, small-town. This was schoolyard stuff. But again, it was somebody back East, and it had nothing to do with the people at KABC.”

However, says Moyer, being pulled off the air “gave me the opportunity to really reflect and think about what I wanted to do and how I was going to make this decision. And I went to Palm Springs by myself for about five days. I had nobody around me. And when I came back, I knew what I was going to do.”

There is, of course, that other question: Why is Moyer worth more than $8 million?

“I can’t answer that,” he says. “If you’re asking me what they (KNBC) are buying, I think they’re buying someone who’s been in this market a long time. They’re buying, I hope, trust, credibility and someone the viewers are comfortable with. It’s an intangible thing. It’s visceral.

“This is probably the most competitive market in the United States. In the markets back East that I’ve worked in--Pittsburgh, Peoria (Ill.), New York, St. Louis--people are inside in the wintertime and they watch TV. Therefore, (TV) people become known a lot quicker, and they become household words. This market is the most competitive because there are so many other things for people to do. And to really become known in this market, you’ve got to be here a long time.”

There is yet another intriguing question in the wake of the Moyer deal. If KABC remains No. 1 despite the loss of top anchors--namely Moyer and Dunphy--isn’t it a healthy development to know that a television station can get by primarily on a successful news format and with fewer stars?

“You’ve got to have both,” replies Moyer. “You can have all the big-name faces and anchors in the world--but if you don’t have the reporting staff and the desk, it’s not going to work.

“But you can have the greatest reporters in the world, and I still believe you’ve got to have the people in front of the camera that people know and trust anchoring the news. You can’t do it without them.”

KNBC is betting $8 million that he’s right.