Producers, Directors, and Horizontal Communication in Television News Production

This study examines the horizontal communication between producers and directors as they put together a television newscast. Results of the Internet survey show that producers tend to be younger and less experienced than the directors they work with, that producers and directors don't communicate often or effectively in the process of putting together a daily newscast, and that they don't believe their counterpart contributes the information they need in order to best perform their jobs. Correlations between the amount of information relayed between producers and directors and ratings performance indicate a link between internal communication and market profitability.