Last week in her online “behind the scenes” column, Texas Cable News anchor Jolene DeVito wrote, “You’ll likely notice different faces and programming in different places over the next few weeks, as our boss tries to accommodate all the holiday vacation requests.” Turns out TXCN execs found a way around the scheduling conflicts. Three days later the cable news network, carried locally by Time Warner, dumped 45 of the news channel’s 75 employees, including DeVito, a former KXAN anchor.
The layoffs represent the latest cost-cutting move by Dallas-based Belo Corp., which also owns The Dallas Morning News and Austin’s KVUE-TV. Although the channel jettisoned all its anchors and on-air personnel, TXCN General Manager Jamie Aitken told the Fort Worth StarTelegram, “A lot of this change is internal, not external. It’s more about what you won’t see than what you will see.” (Aitken could not be reached by Naked City for comment.)
What TXCN viewers will see is more repackaged reports from other Belo-owned stations, including KVUE. Almost all the original programming on the channel will be dropped, except for weather. Aitken told the Morning News the lack of interest from cable systems “just does not support the investment in this. We’ve had to scale back.”
This article appears in December 10 • 2004.