Three major local TV stations have trimmed their staffs over the past year, becoming leaner operations in the face of declining advertising dollars and an evolving media landscape.

Viewers may not see the effects on screen, but job cuts at WDBJ (Channel 7), WSLS (Channel 10) and WSET (Channel 13) have touched on-air talent and production staff. Newsrooms are working with greater utility, reporters are covering more territory and videographers are becoming "one-man bands" who both shoot video and report.

The cutbacks -- the result of retirement incentives, attrition and layoffs -- fit national trends in an industry suffering the twin hits of a recession that has discouraged advertisers, especially big-spending auto dealers, and fickle audiences who have more options on the screens they watch.

In the Roanoke-Lynchburg market, television ad revenue for the local affiliates amounted to $52 million in 2008, according to numbers from the Michigan auditing firm Hungerford, Aldrin, Nichols & Carter. That was up 3.2 percent from the year before, an increase driven solely by political advertising. Without the political ads, revenue would have been down more than 5 percent.

And the outlook for 2009 is bleak, with executives predicting double-digit declines.

Recent changes to the business have also cost local stations, said Al Tompkins, a career TV newsman who now teaches broadcasting at Florida's Poynter Institute. Ratings for syndicated network shows are declining, and the majority of viewers are clicking to cable channels on a typical evening, he said.

Viewership for the local news is also drifting. The 6 o'clock news, long considered the premier newscast, has seen its share of viewers slip 1 percent a year on average for the past five years, according to the most recent Nielsen ratings.

Local affiliates now risk losing prime time material, too, The Wall Street Journal reported in February. Network directors are considering sending shows straight to cable, where they can reliably collect subscription fees when advertising is down.

In addition, the sizable compensation checks that networks once paid affiliates for carrying their programs have dried up in the past decade, Tompkins said. Some TV stations have started charging cable companies for carrying their signals in recent years, bringing in more dollars, but the payments are inconsistent.

The Internet is another challenge, said Brian Richardson, who heads the journalism and mass communications department at Washington and Lee University. As news moves to the Web, media outlets have been puzzled about how to cash in on their content. Stories and videos are often posted online for free, and advertisers have not made the switch to the Internet as quickly as audiences have.

These losses in revenue have put local TV in a difficult spot. "If one of the only places you can really save money is in people costs, you start eliminating jobs," Richardson said.

And that has been the story in the local market for the past 15 months.

WDBJ trimmed 10 percent of its work force through attrition, layoffs and buyouts since the beginning of 2008, according to Jeffrey Marks, the station's general manager. The Roanoke CBS affiliate now has about 106 employees, but is hiring for several positions, Marks said.

The station lost seven employees at the end of December through the buyout incentives, with an eighth employee to follow this year. The voluntary buyouts were discussed with 14 employees, Marks said. None of the on-air staff accepted the offer.

Alan Gleiner, who produced commercials at WDBJ for 26 years, took the incentive package and left at the end of December. He was satisfied with the deal, though it meant leaving several years before his anticipated retirement.

"I was expecting to be there until I was 66," the 62-year-old Gleiner said. "I thought it over and it just seemed like this was a good time to exit."

WDBJ is privately owned by Schurz Communications, an Indiana-based media company that also owns newspapers, radio stations and cable companies.

At WSLS, which is owned by the publicly traded Richmond company Media General, about 14 percent of the staff has been cut since the beginning of last year, said Warren Fiihr, the station's general manager. The Roanoke NBC affiliate currently has about 80 employees, he said.

Eleven employees were trimmed in two rounds of layoffs this winter, one in December and another at the end of January, Fiihr said.

Sandra Brogan, a weekend meteorologist for WSLS, lost her job at the end of January. "My stomach did sink, but I didn't take it personally," she said last month. "Media General eliminated my job because of the economy."

A partial hiring freeze has also reduced the work force. Several on-screen personalities left the station in 2008, including anchors John Carlin and Juliet Bickford, with existing staff filling their positions. The station has automated its studio, helping it function with fewer employees.

"We try our best to figure out how to minimize the on-air implications because that's our product," Fiihr said.

In February, Media General also announced that its employees would take 10 unpaid furlough days by the end of the year. Its companies, which include newspapers in Lynchburg and Richmond, are required to take four of those days by the end of March -- in the midst of a ratings period, when TV ad rates are set.

Other media companies have turned to furloughs in early 2009, including the Gannett newspaper chain, which publishes USA Today, and Landmark Media Enterprises, which owns The Roanoke Times.

In addition, both WDBJ and WSLS closed news bureaus around the state last year -- WDBJ in Richmond, WSLS in Lynchburg.

The ABC affiliate in the market is WSET, based in Lynchburg. At the end of January, the station cut seven employees from its newsroom, or about 6 percent of a total staff of about 100, according to Randy Smith, the general manager.

"We were a little overstaffed anyway," he said.

Smith said the station has no plans to close its Roanoke bureau, which is based in the city's civic center.

WSET is owned by Allbritton Communications, a private company in Washington that owns a number of ABC affiliates and the political newspaper Politico.

Having weathered a rough winter, what are the local stations expecting for the coming year?

"As the economy goes in 2009, so goes advertising," Smith said. In turn, so go the fortunes of the TV stations that rely on those ads.

News researcher Belinda Harris contributed to this report.