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The audition tapes and resumes are piled high upon WFTX-TV News Director Mark Pierce's desk. Pierce has received more than 1,000 tapes after the Cape Coral television station announced they are starting a news operation.
Down the hall in the General Manager Chris Andrews' office something else is taking up plenty of space: Bills. Adding a fourth newscast to the Naples/Fort Myers television market is becoming an enormous cost for the local Fox network affiliate.
Pierce could not cite a specific dollar amount but said the station is spending "several million dollars," to launch the news operation which should be on the air "in less than six months."
"All of our equipment will be state of the art," explained Pierce. "The salaries for our on-air talent will be comparable with the other stations in the market and in some cases higher."
The decision to build a news department was a bold one for WFTX, considering the market already has three other stations doing local news.
"We have always wanted to do news and we got to the point in the evolution of the station where this was the next obvious step," explained Andrews.
"Local news is a big part of creating a station personality. Yes, this is a big challenge but we know who we are. Sometimes to be successful you have to step out of a grove and go your own way."
The owners of WFTX--Waubach Valley Broadcasting and station management based their decision on several factors:
Missing part of the pie
Almost every important decision made by television general managers...