M:M On Renewal

(Photo: Peggy Phillip)

By Richard Thompson
Mediaverse:Memphis

After seven weeks of languishing on the proverbial beach, Peggy Phillip is anxious to get started again.

“I just about went crazy,” she said Friday about the time since her December resignation as WMC’s news director.

After eight years, she is leaving Memphis, the 44th ranked TV market, to be the news director of WSTM-NBC3 and WSTQ-CW6, the Barrington Broadcasting Group duopoly in Syracuse, NY, the 79th ranked market. She starts next week.

“It’s a small market. In fact, I’m happy about it,” she said, adding that “it’s never been about market size.”

Indeed, she's worked in Tulsa, the 62nd market, as well as Chicago (#3), Boston (#7) and Miami (#16). “The bigger the market size, the more egos there are to get in the way,” said Phillip, who just turned 50 and is looking for a greater sense of purpose.

“I was looking for a place where local news is still very important, where a news department or newsroom is engaged to feel like they can make a difference,” said Phillip.

She also wanted a GM with whom she felt a connection. “I felt that way with Chris,” said Phillip, who met Chris Geiger when he interviewed for a job in Memphis in 2001. Geiger was appointed vice president and GM of WSTM/WSTQ last December.

(Coincidentally, WSTM and WSTQ are former affiliates of Raycom Media, WMC’s parent company; Barrington acquired them as part of a 12-station, $262 million deal completed last August.)

“While at WMC, Peggy led their "Action News" team to some of their highest metered market ratings in station history,” Geiger wrote in a memo to employees Friday. “Her extensive experience will serve us well as we work to continue our newsroom growth and momentum.”

To be sure, though, Phillip has baggage.

Phillip was one of the first TV news directors to blog – not just about her life, but also about her competition. Over the years, even as WMC dominated the TV ratings, her sharp, insightful, sarcastic and hypocritical views about her competitors divided people, including those in her newsroom, into two camps: those who liked her and those who didn’t.

It was the latter who forced Phillip to take down her blog in February 2006, even going so far as to send letters to Raycom’s corporate office demanding her firing. Needless to say, something had to give when WREG, the CBS affiliate, knocked WMC from its perch as the local ratings leader for the first time in 20 years last year. That likely ushered former WMC President Howard Meagle out the door last July; it was only a matter of time before Phillip would be next.

She announced her resignation in November and managed to finish out the year. “(WMC’s new president) Lee Meredith was very sensitive to how hard the decision (of her resignation) was for both of us,” she said.

Yet, Phillip said a change needed to happen. A die-hard Memphis Grizzlies fan, she saw herself in the team’s former coach Mike Fratello: “I wasn’t getting the team to run up and down the floor. That’s a very difficult self realization: to know that you are trying as hard as you can but it’s not going to be good enough.”

Phillip said if she could have figured out how to be successful that she would still be at WMC – and nowhere else in Memphis. ("It’s not in my DNA to go to a (competing) station.")

“(Meredith) allowed me to stay and walk out with my head up and I really appreciate that,” said Phillip, who admitted that on her last day she cried once she got inside her car. “I wish them nothing but success.”

She added: “If I could tell them what to do to kick Channel 3's or Channel 13’s ass, I would tell them.”

Pure Phillip – competitive to the last, even to a fault. She admits that too. “I am extremely competitive and sometimes to a fault. I hope people will remember me as a person who was passionate about what I did, that I truly loved the city and I loved my job. I couldn’t wait to get to work everyday.

“That’s why I’m leaving (Memphis) Monday.”

Will she blog again? Phillip is non-committal. “If I were to blog again, I would have a better focus on my blog. My blog before was sort of all over the place.”

Right now, though, she’s not worried about that -- or the snow. She’s a South Dakota girl. She’s just focused on working.

“I don’t know what you’re supposed to feel like at 50,” said Phillip. “I have a real renewed sense of purpose from my seven weeks of unemployment. I feel great.”