Female Anchors on Local TV Paid 28% Less

Although women co-anchor every single local newscast in Los Angeles--the second-largest market in the country--most earn, on average, 28% less than the men they share the screen with, according to a new survey by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

In radio, pay disparity pales in comparison to the lack of opportunity for women, according to the report. Fifteen of the 19 local radio stations have a single anchor--a man--handling the morning and afternoon drive-time programs, which draw the most listeners. By contrast, no woman hosts any of the drive-time shows alone in a market that has nearly 100 radio stations; instead, they share the air time with one or more co-hosts.

The AFTRA report, which was obtained by The Times, is scheduled to be released to the union’s 1,000 Los Angeles-area members in the coming days. Among the other statistics:

* In television, female anchors at KTTV-TV Channel 11 on average earn half of what their male colleagues make.

* In radio, female deejays at KLOS-FM (95.5) on average earn less than one-fourth of what their male colleagues earn.

* On talk radio, there isn’t a female salary to compare, because there is not one woman employed by the union’s three local talk stations in a full-time host position.

* On average, female TV broadcasters earn 20% less than their male counterparts, while in radio, female radio newscasters and hosts earn an average of 26% less.

Reports of Bias Are Increasing

“It’s disappointing and disgusting,” said Gerry Daley, director of AFTRA’s broadcast department. “We will fight discrimination based on age, race and gender and so on. Before you take on a fight like that, you have to get the facts and give those facts to your members. I don’t want to reveal what we might or might not be planning with regards to negotiations [based on these findings].”

TV and radio station managements largely declined to comment or dismissed the data.

The AFTRA figures bracket the most recent U.S. Department of Labor estimate that women’s salaries are 23.5% below those of male colleagues, with increasing pay disparities between the sexes in managerial and professional jobs.

Daley charted out the salaries this spring in response to what he called “a rising tide of anecdotal reports of discrimination” in Los Angeles’ market. The survey does not include salaries from the three largest television network affiliates--KABC-TV Channel 7, KCBS-TV Channel 2 and KNBC-TV Channel 4--which declined to participate in the AFTRA study. However, at those stations experts say salaries are usually higher for anchorwomen like KCBS’ Ann Martin, who in 1994 signed a deal estimated at $1.7 million annually, a salary that reportedly dropped during contract negotiations last year as the station’s ratings also declined.

The average salary for reporters at the television stations surveyed falls between $100,000 and $200,000, while few radio reporters--male or female--earn more than $100,000. Television anchors earn above $300,000, while radio announcers earn above $62,000, Daley said. Within that financial universe, women consistently earn less than their male colleagues. Daley declined to release any raw salary figures due to confidentiality agreements.

“Money’s pretty good when you get to L.A. No one’s missing any meals, so I doubt you’ll get much sympathy for this,” said a longtime television reporter who, like all the other on-air female talent that spoke to The Times, did so on condition of anonymity. “But when you see how they decide who gets what, it’s jaw-dropping.”

Television’s female broadcasters have long commiserated with one another about life in the pink-collar ghetto. Women on television say they are assigned the lighter, lower-profile stories about cosmetics and fitness during the early morning and early evening newscasts--segments when audiences have a higher percentage of female viewers.

“If we don’t get the ratings, fine, kick us out,” said a female anchor on a popular evening television newscast. “But give us a chance to get those ratings by leading newscasts.”

Research on television news viewing habits suggests that gender plays no significant role in building an audience, with most stations concluding that a male-female co-anchor team works best, said David L. Smith, president for entertainment at Frank N. Magid Associates, a survey research firm.

“All of the evidence is that people are more critical of an anchor of their same sex,” Smith said. “[But] it’s much more about the appeal, tone and content [than personality].”

Women began moving into co-anchor positions on TV newscasts nearly 30 years ago, with Seattle the first city in the country to have a female co-anchor. It was 1972 and within a few years viewers across the country began seeing their local male anchor joined by a female colleague. Today, Philadelphia’s WPVI-TV appears to be the only local newscast in the country among the top 200 markets with one male anchor.

“Stations realized if [their on-air talent] looked like their community, they’d do better,” said Bob Papper, professor of telecommunications at Ball State University in Indiana and supervisor of the annual news survey for the Radio and Television News Directors Assn. “And there’s evidence to support that.”

Industry analysts believe that the AFTRA survey is the first of its kind, particularly in a major television market.

At KTLA Channel 5, Hal Fishman has opened the evening newscast for 37 years, and last month Nielsen Media Research said his 10 p.m. show drew the largest audience in the market. But Fishman’s female colleagues on average earn 62% of what their male colleagues do, according to AFTRA. KTLA’s general manager, John Reardon, said he did not want to comment on the salary figures. (KTLA is owned by Tribune Co., which is in the process of acquiring The Times).

AFTRA found the closest parity at KCAL Channel 9, where on-air talent Jerry Dunphy has been a mainstay in the Los Angeles news market for years and where Nielsen ranked the 10 p.m. newscast as third in the market in the just-completed May sweeps. KCAL’s anchorwomen earn on average 93% of what their male colleagues do, according to the union.

Data Released by Mistake

Although the three major network TV affiliates refused to supply the union with specific salaries, a clerical error several years ago publicly revealed some salary comparisons between men and women.

In 1996, a union clerk mistakenly mailed a two-page list of newly negotiated salaries for seven KNBC broadcasters to almost everyone at the station. The list showed a well-integrated breakdown by gender and job title, in increments of $100,000. Of the seven anchors who made more than $500,000, five were men, two were women.

Barbara Cochran, president of the news directors association and former vice president of news and Washington bureau chief at CBS News, suggests that the more progressive atmospheres at the network television stations in Los Angeles are a reflection of their female executives. Nancy Bauer-Gonzales is the news director at KNBC, whose 11 p.m. newscast leads the market, while Cheryl Fair is the news director at KABC, the No. 1 station for daytime news.

“That’s nothing to sneeze at,” Cochran said.

When it comes to complaining about pay disparity, the on-air female talent say they fear being labeled as troublemakers. That’s not surprising to Patti Paniccia, a former CNN reporter based in Los Angeles who settled her gender bias suit against the cable network in 1996, after two years of litigation. A lawyer by training, Paniccia now teaches at Pepperdine University and has written a book, “Work Smarts for Women; The Essential Sex Discrimination Survival Guide.”

“The fact that people don’t take action reflects a complacency that we see these days. If you look at statistics reporting discrimination to the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission], they’ve really remained the same,” Paniccia said. “People aren’t reporting much, or there’s a horrendous stigma. The stigma is worse when you’re on-air talent.”

At KMEX-TV Channel 34, the flagship station of the country’s largest Spanish-language television network and the home of veteran anchorman Eduardo Quezada, the evening newscast draws more viewers than any other broadcast in the market, in Spanish or English. But according to the union study, KMEX pays its female anchors, on average, 70% of what it pays its male anchors.

The general manager at KMEX, Augustine Martinez, declined to comment to The Times. But a female broadcaster at KMEX told The Times that in addition to the pay disparity at the station, two of the male anchors have offices, while none of the three female anchors do. What’s more, she said, female broadcasters who have complained in the past were told by management that they will do more for the community by appearing on television than by complaining and getting pulled off the air.

“They tell me they have tapes of 200 other people who can do my job,” she said, referring to what she considers to be an implied threat if she presses the issue.

Forging a career as a female radio broadcaster seems even tougher, according to the AFTRA study, with women earning on average 26% less than their male colleagues. “They can just say, ‘We don’t feel you’re as talented as he is.’ Talent is very esoteric,” said one on-air radio veteran. “The only millionaire [female] radio personality is [nationally syndicated talk show host] Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Now, she’s a psychologist, and that’s OK. And it’s OK for women to laugh at some unfunny guy’s jokes. But it’s not OK for us to host our own radio show.”

National radio personalities such as Schlessinger, whose show is produced at Premiere Radio Network’s Van Nuys office and who is not employed by a local station, were not included in the study.

Tommy Edwards, program director of the oldies rock station KCBS-FM (93.1), said several of his female employees make the same amount as their male colleagues.

“With 50% of the population being women, it wouldn’t make sense not to give them equal opportunity,” Edwards said.

But, like nine out of 10 of the Los Angeles radio stations surveyed by the union, both KCBS’ morning and afternoon drive-time shows--not only the most listened-to but also the programs that command high advertising rates--are hosted by men, Joe Benson in the morning and Bob Coburn in the afternoon.

Edwards said: “They are legendary talent who have been in L.A. for 20 years. . . . I don’t want to discriminate because they’re men.”

In addition to the pay disparity, the on-air life spans of female newscasters still lag behind men’s, according to industry watchers, despite an increasing number of age discrimination lawsuits that have made it more difficult for stations to replace aging women with younger versions of themselves.

One of the rare public looks at the practice came in 1997 when KTLA anchorwoman Marta Waller filed a discrimination suit against the station, alleging that she was demoted from anchoring both the noon newscast and the 10 p.m. newscast. She cited age as a factor but continued to work at the station. She settled the suit several months later under terms that were not disclosed.

The pay disparity, some executives suggest, continues in part because so few women in Los Angeles radio and television are in a position to sign off on salaries. As the first female program director at the rock ‘n’ roll station KLOS-FM (95.5), Rita Wilde is second in command at the station, which draws the largest non-minority male audience in Los Angeles. Wilde believes the union’s salary survey is misleading because it implies that women earn below standard pay, when in fact they all earn above the minimum union negotiating wage.

Nevertheless, according to the union, at KLOS, opportunities for on-air female talent remain bleak. Female deejays on average earn 24%--less than one-fourth--of the salaries of their male colleagues. In addition, KLOS’ listeners will hear only one female voice out of nine deejays throughout the week.

KLOS’ general manager, Bill Sommers, said the union’s statistics are sloppy because the average percentages are skewed by a few highly paid on-air stars, like the hosts of his station’s morning “Mark and Brian Show,” who have been in the market for 15 years.

“Doesn’t that throw the percentage out? I don’t think these figures are the best barometer,” Sommers said. “Like everything else, it takes time to come through the ranks. The pay is commensurate to the position, whether it’s a male or a female.”

Sommers also runs the talk station KABC-AM (790), where on-air females earn an average of 63% of what their male colleagues make. Again, Sommers pointed to the comparatively inflated salary for KABC star Larry Elder, a 15-year radio veteran who pulls in high ratings during the afternoon drive.

But the notion of “star salaries” throwing off the scale is exactly the problem, many female broadcasters say. If the Los Angeles market were equitable, there would be major female stars whose salaries could offset those of the top male talent.

“And even if we took out the highest-paid individual at each station--even if you did that, the men, on average, make more than the women in almost every case,” Daley said.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Salary Imbalance

According to a survey by the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, female broadcasters do not make as much as their male counterparts. Shown here is how the average woman’s 1999 salary compares with that of a man’s for a comparable job.

*

Music Format Radio

WestwoodOne: 92%

KKBT: 74%

KLOS: 24%

KTWV: 66%

KCBS: 82%

KRTH: 40%

*

TV Anchors

KCAL: 93%

KTLA: 62%

KCOP: 83%

KMEX: 70%

KTTV: 50%

*

Source: American Federation of Television and Radio Artists