Tampa Fox affiliate WTVT-Ch. 13 is the latest TV station to feel an economic pinch, laying off six workers on Thursday including four staffers from its newsroom.

Skeptics predicted that job reductions might follow the start of a new Local News Service allowing WTVT to team with rivals WFTS-Ch. 28 and WTSP-Ch. 10 to gather footage of routine news events.

But WTVT general manager Bill Schneider insisted the job reductions and the LNS were not connected, citing the station's success Saturday in securing the last TV interview with infomercial king Billy Mays before his death as evidence their newsroom continues to move along.

"The decision to make changes in the building is an ongoing process which has lasted a year," he added.

WTVT also plans to debut high-definition newscasts at 5 p.m. Tuesday, making the Fox station the last Tampa broadcaster with a news department to go HD. (WFTS-Ch.28, WTSP-Ch. 10 and WFLA-Ch. 8 were all broadcasting newscasts in HD by January 2008.)

"When you do nine hours of news a day, it's a huge undertaking," said Schneider, noting recent figures from Nielsen Media Research indicated about 41 percent of the market can now watch high-definition programming.

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