Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Former CNN'er on Taking the Money and Running
Former CNN Anchor Bobby Battista is featured today in The New Times commenting about her contract buyout several years ago when CNN was bought out by AOL:"Bobbie Battista also believed in the company where she enjoyed her professional success, but when the corporate culture changed, she used her severance offer to create her own culture. Ms. Battista, 54, was one of the original anchors on CNN Headline News when the company started in 1981, and expected to remain at CNN until she reached 55 or 60. But after the network merged with America Online, she was offered a voluntary buyout package in 2001 of 23 months’ salary and benefits, one month for each year with the company.
“For me it was a no-brainer,” she said. She did not share the goals of her new managers, and felt the offer would not be available for too long. At 50, with an offer to renew her contract for three years, she decided to take the buyout and start her own public-relations company with her husband and other former CNN colleagues. “What surprised me is how easily they let me walk out the door,” she said. “But it’s a new era at CNN. Anybody who was part of the old era was dispensable.”
Ms. Battista said she had long been interested in starting her own company, but expected it to come later. Now she advises companies that CNN used to cover about how to navigate the media landscape.
Since starting the business, Atamira Communications, in early 2002 in Atlanta, the toughest part of the transition has been the change of pace, she said. “In the newsroom, it can be like a crisis 24/7. It was a bit of a transition moving into an office. It’s quieter. I had to put a TV in the office.”
After four and a half years, she said, she is making about half her salary at CNN, which was “well into the six figures but not near a million.” But she expects to surpass her old income someday.
After the start-up days at CNN, she is not daunted by the risks of starting again on her own.
“When I went to work for Ted Turner, I had no idea what I was getting into,” she said. “I’ve always been O.K. going off the deep end, venturing into territory that is not familiar and making it work.”
The television in her office, she added, is tuned to CNN. Some affinities die hard."
# posted by ATN @ 12:13 PM 
