Highest paid meteorologist in local tv series#
Highest paid meteorologist in local tv tv#

In a 2009 salary survey by the Washington, D.C.-based Radio Television Digital News Association, an electronic news media trade group, the maximum salary for a sports anchor and weathercaster was $350,000, and a news anchor topped out at $600,000. Every other market is doing the same thing, except New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.'ĭetroit is the 11th largest television market. We were in the top five or six, revenue-wise. 'This used to be a destination for broadcasters. 'It is the worst time in the market that I've ever seen, and that goes back to 1968,' he said. And the new talent is likely to be young and inexpensive, he added.

Highest paid meteorologist in local tv tv#

'You either take a severe reduction, or you don't get renewed,' said Baskin, who represents numerous TV news clients, including Hodak for more than 30 years and Shane at times in the past.ĭetroit is no longer a destination of on-air talent, Baskin said, and stations here are cutting salaries like every other market except for the very largest. Tom Leyden is the interim sports director for the station until a permanent replacement is found, Fernandez said.Įntertainment industry lawyer Henry Baskin, who is president of The Baskin Law Firm in Birmingham, said the financial realities have been harsh on veteran TV news talent. Shane, 59, who retires in March but did his last sportscast on Wednesday night, joined the station in 1989. She had been with the station since 1982 after starting her career in 1972 with Lansing-Jackson's WILX-TV Channel 10. There's just no mystery to it.'Ī message was left for Timmons, who retired in October to run the Michigan chapter of a thoroughbred race horse rescue organization. 'The stations want to go with younger, less-expensive people. 'In my career, I haven't seen anything quite like this,' Hodak said. He'd been a meteorologist at the affiliate since 1977, apart from a brief stint at Detroit's WJBK-TV Channel 2 in the 1990s, and was replaced at Channel 7 by Dave Rexroth. Hodak, 69, announced in July 2010 that he was retiring from WXYZ in September of that year. He was believed to have been paid at least $200,000 annually.

Her current deal is believed to be worth between $800,000 and $1 million annually on a two- or three-year contract.Īnchor Erik Smith, who had been with the station since 1962, didn't have his contract renewed in 2010.

It happened to be coincidental, the timing.'įernandez declined to discuss contract details or negotiations, but he did note that Shane's contract was up within the next 12 months.Īnother financial decision looms for the station: The contract for anchor Diana Lewis, a fixture at WXYZ since 1977, is up in September. Don said he wants to (retire) because he can, to spend time with his family. 'Jerry and Robbie were well past retirement age. 'In all their cases, finances had nothing to do with it,' he said. While a generation of older television talent is reaching its natural retirement age, some on-air personalities are leaving because their contracts are being renewed at lower pay rates.Įd Fernandez, WXYZ's general manager and vice president, said the station's bottom line wasn't a factor in Shane, Hodak and Timmons calling it quits.

That's the combined estimated base pay of anchor Robbie Timmons, meteorologist Jerry Hodak and Shane, who announced his retirement Wednesday.Įven so, the retirements are only a mixed blessing and reflect a wider trend across the broadcast industry: Veteran on-air TV news talent is leaving stations, taking brand equity built over many years with them but also providing salary relief for news outlets under financial pressure fueled by the loss of viewers and advertising dollars to cable, the Internet and social media.

Highest paid meteorologist in local tv series#

Last week's retirement of sports anchor Don Shane is the latest in a series of departures of longtime on-air talent from ABC affiliate WXYZ-Channel 7 over the past 18 months, taking what industry insiders say is more than $1.3 million in sal-aries off the Southfield station's books.