Changing Channels: A Look at Recent Media Moves in Phoenix – www.phoenixmag.com

Changing Channels: A Look at Recent Media Moves in Phoenix  www.phoenixmag.com

For more than 50 years, PHOENIX magazine's experienced writers, editors, and designers have captured all sides of the Valley with award-winning and insightful writing, and groundbreaking reporting and design. TV anchor shakeups reflect a shifting news landscape in Phoenix. In her last few months as a news anchor on 3TV/CBS 5’s Good Morning Arizona, Olivia Fierro would sometimes glance down at her phone during commercial breaks and see the daily social media rankings – an emailed list comparing engagement stats for every anchor and reporter in the market. “Eventually, it got to the point where the numbers would come out during the newscast,” she recalls. “If you had bad numbers the day before, that could be kind of defeating.

And you still had three more hours of show!” The past two years have seen major shakeups in Phoenix TV news, and Fierro pins some of that on engagement fatigue. Anchors today are no longer just delivering the news, she says. They’re also expected to be online content creators, lifestyle influencers and podcast hosts, building audience loyalty not just at the anchor desk but also in the algorithms. “The bad news is I think there’s a bigger burnout factor in local news than there ever has been,” she says. “But the good news is you’re taking away a really broad range