Washington is the latest market to host a content-pooling agreement among rival stations. Gannett’s WUSA, Fox’s WTTG and NBC’s WRC have created a “local news service that will share video newsgathering resources at general market news events.”
The service begins June 15. In addition to the ground sharing efforts, WTTG and WRC will continue their aerial news footage partnership.
The lone Big Four holdout in the #9 DMA is Allbritton’s WJLA, which shares a newsroom with corporate sibling The Politico.
Independent news service management will determine the stories to be covered each day in Washington, say the principals, and arrange the collection and delivery of the video footage for each of the participating stations. All employees involved in the shared operation will remain employees of their respective organizations.
The stations will continue to operate independently in all other aspects of their businesses.
Fox and NBC are working toward having joint news services up and running in New York and Los Angeles in the next couple months—an aerial share in both, and likely some sort of ground partnership too.
