JOHN BRINSLEY
Staff Reporter
The merger of the two companies that provide L.A. with its traffic news is unlikely to lead to many changes in the sky.
On the ground, though, things could get more turbulent.
The $900 million acquisition of Metro Networks Inc., the nation’s largest traffic news provider, by Culver City-based Westwood One Inc. will join one operation in L.A. in which employees are unionized with another in which they aren’t.
Union employees at Shadow Traffic in L.A., which already is owned by Westwood One, are now in negotiations for higher wages comparable to reporters at traditional radio news organizations.
Negotiations already have been disrupted by the merger. A scheduled meeting this month between Shadow management and negotiators with the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists was canceled in the wake of the purchase announcement and has yet to be rescheduled.
“It’s thrown negotiations into a tizzy,” said the manager of one local radio news station. “It’s completely shaken things up No one knows if Shadow reporters are paid less than Metro’s. Now that these two shops are merging, we’ll see.”
Officials with the union said the merger has had no impact on the talks.
“Negotiations and relations have continued as normal since the merger,” said Paul Worthman, AFTRA’s national director of organizing.
But he acknowledged that the prospect of Metro and Shadow under one roof presents concerns. “It’s fair to say that AFTRA does have an interest in not having a situation where it’s part union and part non-union,” he said.
Any potential strike threat by Shadow’s staff could be diminished by the prospect of Westwood One having ready-trained, non-union replacements after the Metro purchase is complete.
“A strike threat looks pretty silly because if the two companies are owned and managed by (the same company), it could use Metro’s employees to run Shadow,” the station manager said.
Executives from both companies have taken pains to stress that with the exception of sharing some equipment and resources, the operations won’t be joined and employees won’t be affected.
“They are going to be two separate companies under the Westwood One label,” said company President and Chief Executive Joel Hollander. “There will be some synergies, not of people but of systems. They are more valuable apart than together.”
Hollander said it is premature to talk about Metro’s labor situation because the acquisition is not yet final. The deal has been tentatively approved by shareholders of both companies but awaits Department of Justice approval, which probably won’t come until late in the year.
Westwood One is operated by Infinity Broadcasting in New York, a subsidiary of CBS Corp. Infinity owns 25 percent of Westwood One, and CBS owns about 80 percent of Infinity.
Houston-based Metro is the biggest provider of local traffic reports in the country and its news division is the fastest growing part of its business.
Along with traffic information, it’s one of the leading broadcast sources of local and national news, sports and weather. Last year, it provided information services to more than 1,700 radio stations and 150 television stations in 47 of the country’s top 50 markets.
In L.A., the nation’s second-largest radio market, Metro’s 160 employees farmed out reports to about 65 radio stations and five television stations. Shadow has about 80 employees and serves 49 radio stations in the city.
Like Shadow, Metro operates under a barter system, exchanging news information for advertising time at the end of a given spot. It then sells the time in packages to advertisers across the country.
“(Advertisers) don’t buy radio as radio,” said Kelly Barton, vice president of product marketing for Houston-based Metro Networks. “They buy a package of 500 to 600 spots over a given period that rotates through our network, reaching multiple markets.”
