"Words for Local TV News to Live By "

From Shoptalk:

Words for Local TV News to Live By
By Paul Greeley

I've been wanting to write something encouraging about the local TV news business in light of these difficult economic times. No need for me to chronicle those troubles here; readers know all the facts all too well.

The first sign of encouragement was an article about how the 60 Minutes episode featuring Barak and Michelle Obama garnered huge viewer ship. In the article, Jeff Fager, the executive producer for the past 4 years at 60 Minutes, mentioned his conviction that ‘Americans want substance' in its news coverage and that good journalism can be good for business. It reminded of a similar statement made by CNN's Christiane Amanpour a few years ago that ‘good journalism can be good business'.

OK, not many local TV news operations can have sit-downs with President-Elects, but what can they do to keep viewers coming back?

As a long-time believer that quality local TV news, however one defines that, is the best and most successful policy, I was reassured by a recent endeavor from WABC Channel 7, as told in Richard Huff's article in Friday's edition (November 21) of the New York Daily News. In the article, Huff tells how Channel 7 has begun to offer half-hour specials at 5:30 on such topics as holiday shopping in tough times, jobs and the economy. On the surface, this may not seem like such a big deal, but if you read a little deeper, you might hear some words as to what local TV news operations can learn from this.

The first word is ‘focused'. Focus the news coverage on a specific subject. Many years ago while working at the NBC station in New Orleans, the station decided to focus its newscasts on the #1 problem facing the city at the time—crack cocaine. Focus your news coverage on the problem/challenge facing your viewers and as Huff says, give viewers a product they can learn from and depend on, and they will usually be satisfied.

If you weren't reading the article closely, you might have missed the next two words about what the WABC's specials did-- break format. Why is it that nearly all local TV newscasts follow the same format? Very few risk running any story longer than a minute, thirty seconds. I remember once that WWL in New Orleans led a newscast with a story that ran 7 minutes! And that was not uncommon there. Think any viewers watching these WABC specials missed the normal serving of news of the day?

The third element of WABC's formula for the specials was to spread the team to different parts of the city, placing anchors in out-of-the-studio locations. We all know how hard this is to do from a production standpoint, so give WABC its kudos for doing it.

Finally, the most important word Huff mentions is one we local TV news folks often toss around and ultimately strive for in our coverage and marketing-- relevance. And from here, Huff says it best.

"…the folks at Ch. 7 deserve credit for trying to keep viewers with information that is presented in an engaging way. More important, it's information that's relevant to the viewer, and it also says the viewer is relevant to the station."

The next time someone in your shop insists that local TV news is dead, hand them Richard Huff's piece from November 21 on WABC.

Editor's note: Paul Greeley is an experienced, 20 year marketing veteran, who has worked at local stations and on a corporate level.