Quick Take
In a move that stunned staff and viewers alike, Salinas-based KION abruptly shuttered its newsroom after 56 years, leaving the Central Coast with just one local TV news outlet and raising questions about who will tell the region’s stories.
Morale at CBS affiliate KION, the Salinas-based TV station, was trending upward.
At least that’s how Victor Guzman, KION’s assistant news director, felt as the news team gathered for a rare weekend meeting last Saturday. Producers, reporters, editors and meteorologists huddled inside the station on Moffett Street in Salinas, passed around slices from Pizza Factory and discussed how they could improve their operation.
Guzman referred to it as “an airing of grievances” but with an aim toward progress, not putdowns. Professional and pointed, they talked about quality control, deadlines and script edits, he said. Then, Guzman said, Lee Solomon spoke up. The meteorologist, a local celebrity, had been with KION for only a few months, after more than two decades with competitor KSBW.
“Lee told us that this is the smartest crew he’s worked with in all of his career, and we were all like, ‘holy s–t,’” Guzman said. “That’s a really cool thing because he’s someone who has been working in news for more than 20 years. That was the pick-me-up I needed to want to come into work on Monday.”
Then on Tuesday, after he finished producing, anchoring and working the technical booth for his 5 to 7 a.m. show, Guzman received a call from his boss telling him that KION’s local news operation was closing immediately. Starting with the 5 p.m. slot, the station would begin airing newscasts from KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco. Guzman’s boss told him to come by the office and clear his desk.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Guzman, a born-and-bred Salinas native who described his role at KION as a childhood dream. “I still can’t believe it. I ended my morning show by saying, ‘We’ll have more news at 5.’ I had no idea.”
Guzman’s Tuesday morning show was the unexpected swan song for KION’s news team, which had worked to bring local TV reporting to Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties, for 56 years. As a result, 16 people were laid off, Guzman said.
KION’s owner, Missouri-based News-Press & Gazette, did not respond to Lookout’s requests for comment. Guzman said the company offered to pay employees what they are owed for the rest of their contractual year, and to help people relocate to one of its other nine stations, two of which are in California.
In a written statement, NP&G did not offer a reason behind the closure, only that KION will “no longer produce its own full local newscasts” and that CBS-owned KPIX would work to bring local stories to viewers in Monterey, Salinas and Santa Cruz. The company’s executive vice president, Rall Bradley, framed the change not as a loss but as a “partnership” that would expand KPIX’s coverage and ensure that Central Coast viewers “continue to receive the high-quality local journalism they deserve.”
Now, KSBW stands as the lone local broadcast news station for more than 750,000 residents across Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties. By all accounts, KSBW has long dominated the ratings; however, a news employee at the station said losing competition hurts everyone.
“Having competition is key for motivation,” the employee said. “This is just a big shock and a total surprise.”
Mary Duan, the former managing editor at Monterey County Weekly and a 27-year Salinas resident, said she was surprised by the closure.
“It’s terrible from a competition aspect,” Duan said. “If KSBW is it, they can call the shots on what they cover.”
Duan said KION’s closure was just the latest hit to local news coverage, especially in Salinas, a city nearly three times larger than any other in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties. The Salinas Californian, once a bustling newsroom that had 35 reporters in 1999, has no local reporters left, at last report. The Monterey Herald — owned by Alden Global Capital, the same venture capitalist firm that owns the Santa Cruz Sentinel — has dwindled its focus on the city over the years.
Robert Papper, a research professor at Syracuse University who tracks changes to local broadcast news coverage through a regular census, said despite the trend of consolidation in local news, he was surprised to hear about KION’s closure.
“Santa Cruz-Monterey is a decent enough-sized market, it should have been able to support at least two local news stations,” Papper said. “Maybe the issue is how they operated it, because a No. 2 station closing is not something we have really seen happen.”
Papper similarly lamented the loss of competition, and the impact that has on news reporting.
“The most expensive news you can run is investigative because it’s so people-intensive for comparably little profit,” Papper said. “When you take away competition, that’s one of the places that will suffer. You will see less of that hard investigative stuff that requires serious energy and time. The trend is terrible.”
Guzman said over the past year, as KION implemented a hiring freeze and faced budget cuts, he quietly grew impatient with the ownership, and hoped NP&G would get out of the business. With KION now in his rearview mirror, Guzman said he hopes to stay in local news, but is unsure in what capacity.
“I’ve always talked about starting my own news agency, but I don’t think that’s going to happen because I don’t have the money,” Guzman said, chuckling to himself. “But maybe someday, if I win the lottery I’ll do that, and try to keep a station alive as opposed to these people.”
Have something to say? Lookout welcomes letters to the editor, within our policies, from readers. Guidelines here.