CARVER CORNER: What station managers can do now to attract, develop, and keep the people who will determine what local television becomes next.

Let’s be honest: most television stations do not have a talent shortage. They have a talent-retention problem, a compensation problem, a leadership problem, or a reputation problem. In some cases, they have all four.

For years, our industry relied on a fairly predictable talent pipeline. Good people started in smaller markets, worked long hours, learned the business, moved when the next opportunity came along, and waited their turn for a promotion. That model is breaking down. The people you want to hire have more options. The people you need to keep are being approached. And the next generation is not automatically lining up for a career that, from the outside looking in, can appear exhausting, underpaid, and increasingly uncertain.

If you are waiting for the talent market to “get better,” you may be waiting a long time. The better move is to make your station a place good people actually want to join—and stay.

Start With the Mirror

Before blaming the labor market, take an honest look at your own operation. Do your managers actually develop people, or do they hand out assignments and complain about turnover? Do employees understand what advancement looks like at your station? Are you asking one person to carry two or three jobs, then acting surprised when they take a recruiter’s call?

Candidates are not just interviewing for a job anymore. They are interviewing you. They are researching your station, your leadership team, your reputation, your turnover, your culture, and your compensation. And yes, they talk.

If your station becomes known as a place where people burn out, get lowballed, or get stuck, you are not simply competing against the station across town. You are competing against every company—and increasingly every industry—that can offer a talented person a better career and a better life.

That should get the attention of every GM in this business.

Stop Hiring for Yesterday’s Job

Television has changed. Too many television job descriptions have not. You cannot say you want a digital-first seller, producer, manager, or leader and then offer them a role designed fifteen years ago.

The strongest candidates understand that their careers need to evolve with the industry. They want skills that travel. They want experience with streaming, CTV, audience development, social, data, AI tools, content strategy, and revenue solutions that go well beyond the traditional spot. That does not mean every employee needs to become a technology expert overnight. It does mean station leadership needs to get serious about identifying the skills that matter now—and investing in helping people develop them.

The station manager who says, “We need someone with more digital experience,” while refusing to develop the people already on the payroll is usually communicating something else: “We want someone else to solve our problem.”

Good luck with that.

Pay People Like You Want Them to Stay

Compensation is not the entire answer. Culture matters. Leadership matters. Flexibility matters. Career growth matters. But none of those things gives a company permission to underpay people.

If you lose a strong employee over a few thousand dollars, money may not have been the only issue. But the money probably confirmed how valued that employee already felt. Compensation sends a message, especially when someone is being asked to take on more responsibility, lead through uncertainty, develop a new revenue category, or solve a staffing problem nobody else has been able to solve.

Do not ask a Digital Sales Manager to build a business, train legacy sellers, manage client expectations, understand every new platform, and carry a serious revenue number—then compensate the role like an experiment. Do not ask newsroom leaders to manage staffing shortages, digital demands, breaking news, social content, employee burnout, and public criticism without giving them the authority and resources to actually lead.

The job changed. Your compensation structure needs to recognize that. Pay people for the job they are doing today—not the job that existed ten years ago.

Build Your Bench Before You Need It

Too many stations start recruiting the moment somebody resigns. That is not recruiting. That is reacting.

The strongest station managers are constantly building relationships with talent. They know who is emerging in smaller markets. They keep in touch with former employees. They ask department heads who is ready for more responsibility. They pay attention to people who are performing at a high level even when those people are not actively looking for another job.

There is another piece of this that gets overlooked: know the talent outside your building before you need it. Some of the best people in this industry are not applying for anything. They are working. They are leading. They are producing results. But they may quietly listen when the right company, market, compensation, culture, and career opportunity come together. Those relationships should exist before the resignation letter lands on your desk.

The same applies internally. Every station should have a real succession plan for critical positions—not a document buried on a shared drive that somebody updates once a year because corporate asked for it. A real plan. Who could step into your Local Sales Manager role tomorrow? Who is developing toward News Director? Who has leadership potential but needs coaching? Who is ready for more responsibility? And maybe most importantly, who are you likely to lose because they have outgrown their current job?

If you do not know those answers, you do not have a talent strategy. You have a staffing strategy. There is a difference.

Promote Potential, Not Just Tenure

Some of your best future leaders are already inside your building. They may be the account executive who earns trust across departments, the producer who stays calm when everything goes sideways, the reporter who understands the community better than anyone, or the digital employee who keeps bringing ideas to the table that leadership has been too busy to hear.

Too often, talented people leave because nobody gave them a reason to believe their future was at that station. Don’t wait for an outside offer, a resignation, or a crisis to suddenly recognize someone’s value. Give high-potential employees meaningful opportunities to lead. Let them manage a project. Put them in front of senior leadership. Give them coaching and honest feedback. Expose them to parts of the business beyond their current department.

You do not have to promise everyone a promotion. But your best people should be able to see a path. If they cannot see one with you, eventually they will find one somewhere else.

Fix the Hiring Process

There is a special kind of irony in a station complaining about a talent shortage while taking six weeks to return a candidate’s call.

Strong candidates do not stay available forever, particularly candidates who are currently employed, performing well, and being pursued by other companies. If your hiring process requires excessive approvals, multiple interviews asking essentially the same questions, delayed feedback, weeks of silence, and finally an offer that arrives after the candidate has emotionally moved on, you may be creating your own talent shortage.

Move faster. Be clear. Be direct. Tell candidates what the job really is, what success looks like, what the compensation range is, what schedule is expected, and what the growth opportunity actually is. Do not sell somebody a dream and hand them a nightmare on day one.

A strong candidate experience matters even when that person ultimately declines your offer. This is still a relationship business. People remember how they were treated. And in television, your reputation can travel faster than a breaking-news alert.

Give People a Reason to Believe

The industry has plenty of uncertainty. Consolidation is changing org charts. Streaming is changing audience behavior. AI is changing workflows. Budgets are tight. Revenue models are evolving. And most employees are being asked to do more.

Your people already know all of that. They do not need leadership pretending otherwise. What they need is clarity. They need to understand where the station is headed, how their work matters, what skills will be valuable next, and whether the people at the top are willing to invest in them.

You cannot control every corporate decision. You cannot eliminate every budget cut. You cannot promise that this business will look the same five years from now. But you can control how you lead. You can communicate early. You can make decisions. You can fight for strong employees. You can recognize good work. You can create flexibility where it makes sense. You can develop people before they threaten to leave.

And you can stop treating retention like an HR problem that gets discussed after your best people have already walked out the door.

Retention is a leadership responsibility.

The Bottom Line

The station managers who win the talent battle will not be the ones with the most job postings. They will be the ones with the strongest reputations. They will pay competitively, move decisively, promote intelligently, develop people, build relationships with talent before they need it, and stop treating every resignation like a surprise.

They will also understand something that I believe is becoming increasingly important in this business: great employees are not necessarily looking for an easier job.

They are looking for a better leader.

And in an industry fighting harder than ever for relevance, revenue, and audience attention, good leadership may be the most valuable thing you can put on the air.

About Carver Talent

Carver Talent specializes in recruiting high-impact leaders across local television, digital media, revenue leadership, news management, and broadcast operations nationwide.

We understand this industry because we live in it every day.

And in a media landscape evolving this quickly, strategic talent decisions matter more than ever.

Ty Carver has over 30+ years of recruiting, HR management, sales, and leadership experience…including the last 15 specific to the broadcast media industry. He is the Founder/CEO of Carver Talent, a local broadcast media management recruiting firm. As the former Head of Recruiting for Raycom Media, he has deep industry relationships. Have a media corporate executive/management or television station management recruiting need? Contact ty@carvertalent.com for more information.