TV News Refrain: Talk to My Agent   

Even in smaller markets, anchors and reporters are likely to have agents these days.

Years ago, network news personalities and big city local anchors were usually the only people in television news who had agents. Not anymore. Today many people in local TV news use agents to help them find jobs and negotiate their salaries.

"There are more agents around and they extend further down into the smaller stations and the less experienced on-air people," says Fred Young, director of broadcast operations for Hearst Broadcasting, which owns six network-affiliated TV stations.

"I have clients in all sizes of markets, from New York and Los Angeles to Rochester, New York, and Twin Falls, Idaho" says onetime newsman Bill LaPlante, executive director of Media Alliance, a small agency in Burlington, Connecticut. "Most of my clients are anchors or reporters, but I also have a few producers and even a couple of news directors."

Carol Rueppel, news director at WDIV in Detroit, believes "an awful lot" of on-air talent in the top 50 markets are either represented by an agent or looking for one. "A lot of times I hear about somebody, a reporter or anchor, in a smaller market and when I call them up I'll find out an agent has just signed them up."

Rueppel wasn't involved with agents in the mid- 1980s when she was news director at KMTV in Omaha, the nation's 74th largest market. But her successor is. "About six years ago, I started having agents call me about anchors," says Loren Tobia. "Now they're also calling about reporters."

It's not clear that everyone who now has an agent really needs one.

Longtime agent Richard Leibner, whose clients include Dan Rather and Diane Sawyer, believes most reporters and anchors should not hire agents until they are in at least their second or third job. "They have to make their way through the small markets, developing their skills and learning how to scrap for themselves as they gain a basic understanding of the business," says Leibner. "They leave themselves terribly exposed if they haven't fended for themselves and are roped in by agents too early in their careers."

Leibner says there are rare exceptions, and most agents agree. "I have a young woman in Idaho, the 207th market, who has great potential but she needs help to move," LaPlante said. "I got her interviews in Boston and other major markets which she couldn't have gotten on her own. She needed an agent now."

Some agents who work alone concentrate on helping younger talent in the smaller markets. "I tend to go with people in the 100-to-150 market range who have the kind of talent that will allow them to go really far," says Bill Slatter, a talent agent in Mississippi. "I can help them move up more quickly."

"It really depends on the individual's needs and where he or she is at on the food chain," says Don Fitzpatrick, who heads a major broadcast news recruiting company that helps stations and networks find on-air talent. "You probably don't need an agent if you're working, say, in Yakima and want to move up to Boise or Spokane. But if you're in Spokane and your next step may be Seattle or San Diego, then an agent might help you."

Reporter Stacy Santos Miles agrees. After leaving graduate school in 1992, she had three jobs in small markets before an agent helped her land last fall at WPIX-TV in New York City. "I needed to learn what to do to move on," she says. "But I didn't have the contacts in the big markets where I wanted to go or the time to find out where all the openings were. I got an agent and she found me this job."

Rick Gevers, who became an agent last year after leaving his news director job in Grand Rapids, Michigan, says time and contacts are crucial. "It's difficult for anyone looking for a job to keep on top of all the openings and make the phone calls, particularly with the competition in the bigger markets," he says. "An agent does that."

"Agents are in contact with so many news directors," says Rueppel, "that they usually know when and where the openings occur before they get advertised."

But having an agent doesn't guarantee anyone a better job or bigger salary. One reporter working in a medium-size Midwest city complains that his agent "didn't find me this job and hasn't gotten me one interview in eight months but I still have to pay his commission."

Another problem is that sometimes agents can work against the client by attempting to pressure a prospective employer to pay more than is allocated for the job. "If there are two candidates who are about even, one may be eliminated because the agent has pushed for too much," Fitzpatrick says.

"You have to have an agent who is in tune with what you want to do and where you want to go," says reporter/anchor Vince Gerasole. Gerasole did not use an agent to get his current position at KHNL-TV in Honolulu, but an agent helped him move up from Reno to Pittsburgh. "It has to be the right fit or it won't work. It's like a marriage." l