Title:
KNSD Channel 7/39 president, general manager
Education:
Bachelor of arts, radio/television journalism, San Diego State University
Birthplace:
New York City
Residence:
Coastal North County
Hobbies:
Reading, family time
San Diego Feels Like Home For KNSD-TV Exec
In one of the six TV screens in Phyllis Schwartz’ office at KNSD Channel 7/39, Regis Philbin is doing the usual 9 a.m. chatter. Matt Lauer is in the midst of an interview on NBC’s “Today Show,” and Mark Steines is introducing a segment on summer movies in an installment of “Entertainment Tonight.”
And before you have time to look at the other screens, Schwartz, the station’s president and general manager, comes in the door.
She has a day filled with meetings. One is a demonstration of equipment for the station’s new Downtown offices, which has a target move-in date of late October.
At noon, there’s a conference call with NBC network executives in New York City.
And she’ll check in with the station’s departments, including creative services, finance, advertising and news.
Schwartz was on the road by 7:30 a.m., and expects to be driving back to her home in North County at the same time that evening.
Before any of it, though, Schwartz, a former TV news producer, stops for an hour and tells her own story.
An Affinity For Facts
The basic feeling of facts, and finding out how and why they happened, appealed to her early on, Schwartz says. She enjoyed writing in her journal and contributed stories to her junior high school newspaper.
Being the daughter of two history teachers also inspired her interest in current events.
“We watched the national news while we were eating dinner and growing up as a young person, I had a sense that I wanted to do something like that,” Schwartz says.
In high school and college, it became clear she wanted to get into television news. She watched coverage of the Vietnam War anchored by Walter Cronkite.
“I thought, ‘Wow, as it’s happening, we’re getting information from overseas,'” she recalls. “I liked that feeling of being able to provide information as it’s happening.”
Born in New York City, Schwartz and her family moved to Los Angeles when she was a year old. She spent the rest of her youth in Southern California, with one exception. When she was about 10, her father had won a Fulbright Scholarship, and brought the family along on his yearlong stay in a rural village in India.
The culture shock was a little jarring for a youngster, she recalls.
“It was really, really exciting and interesting and it probably in some way shaped me as a person. When you’re in it, it was tough, but after it, it was the experience of a lifetime.”
College Life
After their return, Schwartz and her family settled in San Diego’s College Area.
Schwartz began her higher education at UCSD. After two years, she transferred to SDSU’s more specific journalism program.
After graduating in the late ’70s, she worked at KFMB Channel 8 and eventually became a producer. Three years later, at age 25, she decided to explore a larger, grittier media market, and moved to Chicago.
It was 1980, and over the next 18 years, Schwartz worked at three stations in Chicago, climbing to such posts as newscast producer, executive producer and, eventually, news director. Schwartz became certain she wanted more of a leadership role in a news department.
Until that point, most of her career had been as newscast producer, coordinating newscasts.
“There’s a point where you make a decision that you want to be the person making some decisions in a broader realm not just for the six o’clock news or the noon show or the weekend news,” she says. “That’s when I decided I wanted to get in news management.”
She became an executive producer, and then a managing editor, and then oversaw the whole news operation as news director.
It was in the early ’90s when she decided that ultimately, she wanted to run a station.
Full Plate
In her last few years as a news director, she interacted more with the promotions and sales departments and saw them as a team.
“I liked that smorgasbord, and I said, ‘You know what, I want to run a station where I can be involved in making decisions for the whole station, not just the news department.'”
With Chicago’s ABC station at the time, Schwartz was in line for a general manager position. At that point, in 1998, she got a call from a former colleague, Larry Wert.
Wert had just been hired as the president and general manager at Chicago’s NBC affiliate. He wanted Schwartz to join him as the station’s vice president. He offered her a position that placed her in charge of news content and creative services.
He promised her a collaborative relationship and his support to forward her career at NBC.
The idea of running the news department and also running the department that promoted and positioned the news department was very appealing.
“It was an interesting time to do both,” she said. Schwartz also thought she could learn from Wert’s sales approach.
“She’s high energy and high passion toward the job,” says Wert, who still runs the NBC’s Chicago station. “She was continually watching our programs and watching competitors’ programs she hates losing. She has a pretty strong entrepreneurial spirit and sense of creativity. It’s very difficult to find all those qualities in one person.”
At Wert’s station, Schwartz honed her skills. When KNSD’s general manager slot opened in San Diego in 1999, she was hired.
Change For The Better
On her first day in San Diego, in December 1999, Schwartz met with her new boss, Jay Ireland, president of the NBC television stations. Ireland happened to be touring the network-owned studios. The two agreed something had to be done about the decades-old KNSD site in Kearny Mesa.
Along with getting reacquainted with San Diego, she had another objective from day one , deciding whether to remodel the current building or move Downtown. After considering all the angles, the decision was made to move to the Home Savings Tower off of Broadway Avenue.
“That was a defining moment for me, as a person who runs the place, and also for the station because we’re making a decision to tie ourselves to what is the future of San Diego County and position ourselves in a different way,” Schwartz says.
Although she’s pleased with her staff and the job the station is doing, moving is the next step in her station’s evolution, she says.
With the daily Downtown activity and new digital technology, it will be a better learning and working environment for employees, she says.
Schwartz also expects the move to keep KNSD connected with viewers, even in the simple acts of buying a magazine or getting coffee.
“You get stuck up here in Kearny Mesa, though you get out to cover news, but as a group I think we’re going to get to interface with people who are watching us,” she said.
“It’s going to invigorate us and get us back to figuring out who are those people that are watching and why should they watch us,” Schwartz says.
“This is a very competitive market right now. There isn’t a station in this market that doesn’t have some good programming, that doesn’t do some good newscast, that doesn’t have some good on-air people so how do you develop a niche for yourself?”
Competitive Spirit
Between network newscasters like Tom Brokaw and Katie Couric and highly rated programming such as hospital drama “ER,” Schwartz isn’t too worried about her station’s appeal.
She’s confident that KNSD can continue to build on those draws.
Schwartz’s self-described “fiercely competitive” approach to her work is constant motivation to continually sharpen KNSD’s approach to viewers and advertisers.
In February, NBC-mandated cuts had the station lay off 10 percent of its staff, which was close to a dozen people.
Schwartz says she handled the layoffs the way she deals with any negative situation.
“What I find to be most successful is to have the communication be really good,” she says. “People will tell you they know where I stand. I’m very direct. People will know how I feel about them, how I feel about issues, and I think that helps my credibility in general.”
As a result, when she has to go through tough situations, she tries to make the communication appropriate, respectful and honest. She also tries to act quickly, before rumors of layoffs or other problems start to spread.
When Schwartz’ workday is over, her off-time is spent with her husband and their two young children, ages 5 and 9.
“A bunch of years ago, my husband and I had a family meeting, and he agreed that he would stay at home with the children,” she said. “If it were not for that, would I still have this job? Maybe, but I would be a lot more stressed out and not as productive and successful.”
Barring important events and meetings, Schwartz is protective of her evenings and weekends.
“Every minute I’m not working, I’m at home,” she says.
In the years he’s known her, Wert’s watched Schwartz keep her life balanced at home and at work.
“I think she’s evolved to the level of being able to manage people and their efforts,” he says. “She’s grown to be a leader as well as a manager.”
