Washington television viewers now mourn the death of Jim Vance, longtime news anchor at WRC-TV. He was 75. His passing reminds us not only of the deaths of some Baltimore TV people who once seemed larger than life, but of the TV news business itself.
Once, local TV news seemed like the future of journalism as we simultaneously witnessed the diminishing and the dying of daily newspapers. Now, with the advent of so much new technology, local TV news seems to have vanished not only from many people’s nightly viewing habits but also from relevance.
Vance lasted several decades in Washington’s local TV news scene. Around here, we recall such mainstays – some gone, some merely retired – as Jerry Turner and Al Sanders, and Susan White and Jack Bowden, and Rolf Hertsgaard and Vince Bagli.
Denise Koch has co-anchored over at WJZ ever since Turner’s death, and Vic Carter after Sanders. They’re still there. But neither of them – and no one else on the local scene, either – has had the impact of local news’ earlier anchors, who seemed like pop culture figures we delighted in welcoming into our homes, even when the news itself was bad.
It’s not that the current on-air folks are to blame. After all, anchoring the local news is mainly a business of reading lines off a teleprompter. Never mind those old promos where you’d see intrepid anchors out in the streets pursuing a story – the only time they actually left the studio was to shoot those silly promos.
No, the business has changed, and people like Jim Vance are part of a vanishing breed mainly because the culture itself has changed. Viewers who used to stay up for the 11 o’clock news and weather now check their phones all day long and into the evening. The late news is, literally, late delivering the news.
Years ago, when Turner and Sanders were anchoring at WJZ, the station was getting 25 shares in the ratings. Each share was worth roughly 10,000 homes. That comes to a quarter-million households.
Some weeks back I bumped into a top management person at WJZ and asked how the ratings were. “Fine,” he said. “We’re getting 5’s now.” That’s what passes for “fine” these days – one-fifth the old number of viewers.
Later I asked a couple of people who still work at the station about the remark. They said the management guy was exaggerating considerably. For the record, the other stations in town are facing the same ratings struggles.
There was a time when local TV news all over America was so popular that first names alone sufficed – Jerry and Al, Richard and Oprah, need we say more?
But those days have passed. Jim Vance’s demise over in Washington is only the latest nail in the coffin.
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