Radio, Television and Cable Broadcasting

The influence and pervasiveness of the electronic media in American society is well known,¹ but few comprehend the tremendous changes now taking place within the broadcast, cable and satellite industries. These developments will certainly change the way Americans receive information; they also will alter the way the producers of this information accomplish their work. Employer-employee relationships, work rules and jurisdictions are shifting rapidly, creating new challenges both for the workers in these industries and for the unions representing them. This chapter briefly outlines these trends and discusses how some unions are rising to the challenges they present.

Radio, Television and Cable Workers: An Overview

Radio and television broadcasting employed 247,000 workers in 1998, while cable and other pay TV services employed 181,000. The largest growth in employment during the following ten years will occur in the latter activities, so that by 2008, cable and other pay services, like satellite, will employ nearly the same number of people as broadcasting. The Internet, being so new, defies attempts to project employment at this time.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (Career Guide to Industries, 2000–01 Edition), more than 60% of the jobs in television, radio and cable are in firms with 50 or more workers. The largest of these establishments are stations clustered in large metropolitan areas. Typically, radio and television professionals employed in such large metro markets enjoy markedly higher earnings than their counterparts in smaller markets; the Career Guide to Industries, for example, estimates that personnel at the largest stations often earn twice as much as those at the smallest stations.

Weekly earnings in 1998 averaged $633 in radio and television and $564 in cable and other pay television services. These earnings are quite a bit higher than the average of $442 for all private industry (Career Guide to Industries, 2000-01 Edition).

Trends in the Industry: Growth, Innovation and the Rise of Media Conglomerates

Perhaps one of the most significant and far-reaching developments in the broadcasting industry occurred with the widespread introduction of cable television, which happened at a rapid pace in the 1980s and 1990s. Growth in the cable industry can only be described as astronomical, increasing from 4.5 million subscribers in 1970 to 65 million in 1999. The amount of money spent on cable services in the U.S. likewise has exploded, from $5.5 billion in 1982 to $35 billion in 1999 (Cable Advertising Bureau, 1999).

While certainly offering more viewing choices and expanding television employment opportunities, cable has greatly increased competition for viewers and advertising dollars. Brown (1996), for example, estimates that 60% of American homes now receive more than 30 channels, including a multitude of pay-per-view events, regional sports and information channels. This expansion has dramatically cut into the audience share — and the advertisers that came with it — once securely held by the television networks, eroding both their ratings and profits (Fortune Magazine, January 12, 1998; New York Times, January 11, 1998). Additional pressures have resulted from increasing production costs, forcing the industry to look for new ways to remain competitive — a search that frequently ends in mergers and acquisitions.

A prime example of this trend was Disney's 1995 acquisition of ABC, transforming the former Hollywood heavyweight and theme park operator into a huge media conglomerate. The new Disney encompasses ABC radio, ABC network news, a bevy of television stations reaching 24.5% of all U.S. households, several newspapers and magazines, theme parks, record companies, book publishing, motion picture production and several cable stations, including A & E, Lifetime, the Disney Channel and ESPN (The Nation, March 17, 1997). But Disney is not unique. General Electric, for example, owns NBC, the cable network CNBC, 50% of MSNBC, GE Americom (satellites) and GE long distance telephone services. The CBS–Viacom merger brings CBS, MTV, VH1, converging industry comprising information and entertainment producers and the distributors of such content via cable, broadcast, satellite, publishing, the Internet, etc.

Meanwhile, the technological revolution, primarily in the form of digital technology, moves rapidly ahead. While the transition from analog to digital transmission is by no means complete — or very widespread, at this point — the potential benefits are widely touted. These include greatly enhanced picture and sound quality, the capacity to offer more than one channel at a time interactively and perhaps most notably, the ability to transfer content easily and quickly among a variety of media, including the Internet. All this is so seductive that media companies have been tripping over each other to join forces with the telecommunications and computing sectors.

Working Conditions and Issues

The advent of audio/visual products in digital form, coupled with new forms of distribution through cable, satellite, phone lines, etc., have had widespread effects on working conditions within the industry. As technology evolves and different sectors of the industry merge and converge, the skill mix needed in the industry changes and relationships between labor and management are challenged.

The ability of new technology to de-skill many technical jobs seems to be gathering speed. Beginning with the introduction of handheld cameras (allowing a sharp reduction in the size of camera crews) in the 1980s, digital equipment has continued to become smaller, lighter, more portable than its analog predecessors — and easier to use. This means, among other things, that less time is spent editing and re-editing, and more time can be spent in the field (Pierceall, 1997). With this in mind, some news operations have proposed that reporters carry their own audio equipment and cameras, thus reducing further the need for technical personnel (Gray and Seeber, 1996).

Even radio, the oldest form of modern broadcasting, is affected by new digital technology. With the increased use of satellites, super stations and national programmers will find it easier to transmit their programs to all regions and localities, thus reducing the need for local disc jockeys and announcers. At the start of the new century, satellite-based companies like Sirrius are poised to begin delivering CD quality, continuous programs of music, news and information to all parts of the country, and to individual trucks and cars as they move across the continent.

The advent of new technology and the trend toward conglomeration pose huge challenges for all unions representing workers in the industry.

First, the rise of national and international conglomerates composed of numerous separate but affiliated companies, requires that unions be prepared to negotiate with a variety of employers (some foreign) in a variety of markets. Negotiating with foreign-owned companies has always been difficult for unions (Gray and Seeber, 1996). Now it will be far harder – especially in an industry that is highly mobile and can move production, promotion and distribution of "product" (i.e., programming material) literally with the press of a button.

Additionally, the blurring of work jurisdictions by technological changes has confused union jurisdictional lines. Inter-union cooperation in bargaining and organizing will be tested as never before. To some degree, industry consolidation may be matched by labor consolidations. In the final years of the twentieth century, CWA completed mergers with NABET, the Typographers and with The Newspaper Guild, thus moving from a communications union based in telephones only to one embracing news, publishing and broadcasting, as well.

¹ 1998 estimates place television in more than 98% of American homes, radios in 99% and cable in 67.4% (Cable Television Developments, 1999).

Sources Cited

Amman, John. 1996. "The Transformation of Industrial Relations in the Motion Picture and Television Industries: Craft and Production." In Under the Stars: Essays on Labor Relations in Arts and Entertainment, edited by Lois S. Gray and Ronald L. Seeber, pp. 113-155. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Brown, Les. 1996. "Technology Transforms." In Under the Stars: Essays on Labor Relations in Arts and Entertainment, edited by Lois S. Gray and Ronald L. Seeber, pp. 50-85. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Bureau of National Affairs. Union Membership and Earnings Data Book: Compilations from the Current Population Survey. 1996 and 1999 editions. Washington, DC.

Cable Advertising Bureau, Inc. 1999. Cable TV Facts: 1999. New York, NY.

Communications Workers of America. 1995. "A Picture of the Converging Information Industry." Washington, DC.

Communications Workers of America, News From CWA, http://www.cwaunion.org/pressreleases/press.Release.asp.

Gray, Lois S. and Ronald L. Seeber. 1996. "Looking Ahead." In Under the Stars: Essays on Labor Relations in Arts and Entertainment, edited by Lois S. Gray and Ronald L. Seeber, pp. 181-191. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Gunther, Marc. "What's Wrong With This Picture?" Fortune Magazine, January 12, 1998.

Lander, Mark. "Media Executives Lose Their Edge." New York Times, January 11, 1998.

Miller, Mark Crispin. "Free the Media." The Nation, March 17, 1997 (centerfold).

Pierceall, Rich. 1997. "The future of digital production, from field to broadcast." Broadcast Engineering December: p. 82.

U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics. 2000. Career Guide to Industries 2000-01 Edition, Bulletin 2523. Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC.

Warren Publishing, Inc., Television and Cable Factbook, Cable and Services, Vol 62, 1995; Nielsen Media Research, 1999.