How Many Places Can A Person Lead At Once?

(New York City) In a surprising development. The National Football League announced today that it will allow a single head coach to lead two teams simultaneously for the remainder of the current season. The league says it will allow the request from the owners of the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns to hire one coach to take over the leadership of both Ohio teams. The two franchises, which have consistently underperformed on and off the field for years, are said to be talking with longtime NFL coach Mike Tomlin, currently a commentator and analyst for NBC’s NFL coverage, about the new role. Addressing questions about the arrangement, the league said that on days when the teams are scheduled to play each other, the head coach will attend the official coin flip at the start of the game to determine which sideline he will be on for the first half. During halftime, the coach will move to the other locker room and spend the second half coaching from the opposite sideline. Both teams deny that cost savings drove the unprecedented decision.

OK, let’s stop right there and make it clear that the preceding paragraph is a complete work of fiction. Well, Mike Tomlin is currently working with the announcing crew for NBC’s Sunday Night Football, so that one part is true. But as far as we are aware, there is no plan to have him—or anyone else—coach two NFL teams at the same time.

That would just be ludicrous.

So consider this update from our friend and “industry insider” Rick Gevers, who reported earlier this week that Jesse Williams is taking over as News Director for Scripps’ KMGH-TV in Denver. She will also oversee the newsrooms of sister Colorado stations KOAA/KKTV in Colorado Springs and KKCO in Grand Junction.

Is this move any less ludicrous?

We don’t know Ms. Williams personally, but by all accounts, she is a solid newsroom leader. She is moving to the position in Colorado after a successful run as the Senior Director of News at Scripps’ KTNV in Las Vegas. (What is it with the seemingly endless ways to title the position of the person leading a local station’s news department?)

But no matter how talented she is, dividing her attention between news operations in markets #17, 87, and 187 is a tough ask. (Hopefully no coin flips will be involved in determining her schedule.) Depending on where in the Denver metro she lives, the drive to Colorado Springs is only an hour or so, depending on traffic. But the hop over to Grand Junction is more like four hours by car—assuming that’s her mode of transportation. (Alas, KMGH ditched its news helicopter some years ago, so that’s not available for a quick flight over to KKCO.)

Maybe she can travel with her boss? Scripps recently installed a new “regional leadership structure” across its local television markets and named Kathleen Choal as a “regional general manager” based in Denver at KMGH, but also overseeing the stations in both Colorado Springs and Grand Junction.

One key difference in these new “leadership structures” at Scripps is that there will no longer be a local general manager position in either Colorado Springs or Grand Junction. But according to the report from Rick Gevers mentioned earlier, both markets will still have news directors.

We assume that this will make Ms. Williams’ new title something snazzy like “Senior Director of News Directors.”

And we’re not the only ones confused by all of this change inside of Scripps. One industry veteran recently asked us the pointed question about the Cincinnati-based owner of some 60 local stations: “Does anyone know what the hell they are thinking over there?”

We certainly don’t claim to understand whatever is passing for strategy in the halls of the Scripps tower overlooking the Ohio River these days.

The obvious assessment is that these moves are ultimately driven by the pressure to meet tighter financial goals. But it can’t be that simple, can it? Sure, one general manager is less expensive than three different ones (assuming, of course, you aren’t paying the one as much as the three combined were making)

And Scripps CEO Adam Symson has a direct financial incentive to cut costs wherever he can. According to its SEC filing, when the company extended Symson’s employment agreement earlier this year, it included a performance-based cash award of up to $10 million if certain metrics are achieved. That figure is on top of his annual salary of $1.4 million and an additional annual bonus of up to 175% of that amount.

(We also note that the company also agreed to reimburse Symson up to $50,000 for “attorney’s fees incurred while negotiating his employment agreement.” We might suggest that any on-air folks working for Scripps ask for that same benefit in their next negotiation, but we don’t want to see them get laughed out of the room.)

All in, that is a solid compensation package for the leader of a corporation that has seen its stock tumble from around $15 a share when he took over in 2017 to under $3 a share when trading closed as we wrote this column. Our trusty TI-84 calculator, left over from taking the SATs many years ago, puts that at an 80% drop in value.

Of course, the entire broadcast industry has been slammed by an unprecedented change in its business model. Ad revenues and audience sizes have fallen faster than anyone could have predicted nearly a decade ago, when Mr. Symson was elevated to President and CEO, despite never having once been a general manager at a local television station.

Speaking of General Managers, Scripps is still looking for one of those “Regional General Managers” to lead its stations in, of all places, Cincinnati (WCPO) and Cleveland (WEWS). But because leading two teams at the same time isn’t challenging enough, whoever takes that position will also have to be regularly traveling a bit further north up Interstate 90, because they will also be managing Buffalo’s WKBW.

So you’d have to cheer for the Browns, the Bengals, and the Bills all at the same time? Even a coach as great as Mike Tomlin wouldn’t take that big of a challenge on.

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