Pretend You Are In Charge of KWTV

[drumsncode]

I think it would be fun to hear everyone's opinion on this. Pretend you are in charge of KWTV and your goal is to get the ratings win back from KFOR.

If you think it's a "talent" issue, then state who you'd hire and how you'd use them at the station. It can be anyone from the competition or someone from the outside who is not currently in the business.

If you think it's a content issue, how would you revamp the format, and remember the idea is to win the ratings in as many time periods as possible.

[metro]

Get rd of the whole crew and build a new set.

[RadicalModerate]

Too Harsh, Amigo . . .
How about . . .
All AdZ All The Time.
(Interrupted by NooZnWeatherStuf)

Oh. Wait . . . SOSddPHD . . .

So . . . How About . . .
A Smack-Down Challenge to The Weather Croo to OutDew the other Krew . . .
By jumping into The Oklahoma River as soon as The First Snowflake after the Sleet appears.

Nah . . . Probably not.

[Dustin]

Get rd of the whole crew and build a new set.

Uhh... KWTV has one of the nicest sets in the country.

[RadicalModerate]

Fer Shure.
But (apparently) we be talkin' 4D Peeps(les) here . . . =)

No OverHyping BSWeatherCoverage.
(Remember. . . The PeterNDWuffParble . . . ? =)

Actual . . . Up to the minute onscreen maps of traffic paths blocks by weather (flooding)
AXE-T-YALL: Don't drive North on Penn . . . It's Flooded at Memorial and Penn . . . Again . .

At every commecial break, there should be
A Ten-Second Historical Homage to The Pioneers of Broadcasing.
(Like on PBS)

You know . . . Like Bob and Ray . . . or Walter Cronkite . . . =)

[Double Edge]

Content, on all the locals. Every second story is animal or child abuse, or was the last time I tuned in, which is infrequent as a result.

[mugofbeer]

Or Human Interest or health news we've all heard 5 times before. How about some actual news? I guess it's the same everywhere though. IT was the same in Dallas and it's the same here in Denver. Just be lucky you all don't have to be subjected to Tim Tebow everywhere you look. Have to admit, he's done some amazing things, though, and is seeming to be an incredible role model.

[MDot]

^^I feel for you my man.

[RadicalModerate]

KWTV should be the first to announce to the [potential customers] that "TEBOW" has decided to usurp the results of the Iowa Caucases and pledged to move forward to reclaim the Originial Caususes over there south of the Ukraine (near wherever, get a GPS, but out around there where Taras Bulba used to rule . . .).

(BTW: What--or Woo?--The "Fk" is K4? . . . a recently unearthed fossil?)

Sorry . . . I digressed . . .
1) Prettier People
2) Less Annoying Ads
3) "Edgier"--(tee hee hee)

[SoonerDave]

I would roll the dice on an unheard of concept that NO ONE is doing anymore.

Hard news. Investigative journalism.

Sell it unapologetically. "KWTV - Oklahoma City's Only Hard News Choice"

You could create multiple subordinate tag lines:

"No Frills. Real Journalism."

"No chit-chat. Hard News."

"Danger: Fluff-free zone. Hard news ahead."

You get the idea.

[Jersey Boss]

^ Great concept. Hard news instead of the 2 penny ante now wasting the time. Another concept-increase the time for the sports coverage by yanking Ogle's musings on what is flying around in his head.

[SoonerDave]

I think you'd market this just as aggressively as the meringue they put out there today, but in a 180-degree opposite fashion. Stark advertisements with black backgrounds. Newsteam in foreground in a series of one-shots, with each member looking past - not at - the camera. Heavy voice over, with phrases like "KWTV, featuring Oklahoma City's ONLY hard news team. Promising to bring you what's been gone too long and what no other station in the market will dare: Hard news. Every day. Because you demand it." Don't pander to the pretty, cater to the ones who want it.

[kevinpate]

Fluff, heart tugs and flag waving stories prevail simply, and solely, because that's what best keeps masses from touching the remote until the next sales pitch opportunity washes over them. If they could train the masses to watch only ads there would be no programming except ads.

[oneforone]

Stop covering stories that make the general public look like idiots. EX: A Harvard study reports sticking your tongue in a powered light socket will kill you. If the story is common sense, don't cover it.

Focus on telling the whole story and tell the truth. Being the first to report a story that is full of inaccurate information is just as bad as being the last to report about it.

[TaoMaas]

Investigative news is very expensive to do. It takes lots of time to develop and investigate the story...usually tying up a reporter, photog, and perhaps a producer for several weeks at a time. And even when the story is completed, what do you have? How much time can you actually fill? Just for the sake of argument, let's say that a station goes heavily into investigative journalism and takes the #1 spot in the market. All that really means is that they get to charge a couple hundred bucks more per commercial. However, as I pointed out before, it's expensive to do that sort of reporting...so even though the station is earning more, they're also spending more so it's kind of a wash. Then you have the problem that sometimes the very people the station is investigating is the car dealers, restaurants, and other businesses who would be buying commercials on the station. So they're often kinda biting the hand that feeds them.

[MDot]

...A Harvard study reports sticking your tongue in a powered light socket will kill you...

I LOL'd.

[SoonerDave]

Investigative news is very expensive to do. It takes lots of time to develop and investigate the story...usually tying up a reporter, photog, and perhaps a producer for several weeks at a time. And even when the story is completed, what do you have? How much time can you actually fill? Just for the sake of argument, let's say that a station goes heavily into investigative journalism and takes the #1 spot in the market. All that really means is that they get to charge a couple hundred bucks more per commercial. However, as I pointed out before, it's expensive to do that sort of reporting...so even though the station is earning more, they're also spending more so it's kind of a wash. Then you have the problem that sometimes the very people the station is investigating is the car dealers, restaurants, and other businesses who would be buying commercials on the station. So they're often kinda biting the hand that feeds them.

I think a hard news station bolstered by an underlying investigative news team would be worth trying. You don't have to have, nor really should you endeavor, to have an investigative story every night, or even every week. The idea of having the investigative resources around that starts to make your newsgathering organization the "water cooler talk" of the day is the kind of advertising you can't buy.

Some here may remember, but back in the day (and I'm talking about the 80's) Ch 5 had a darned good investigative news team. Terri Watkins was the lynchpin, and they broke a ton of stories back in the day. As I recall, they broke a statewide county commissioners scandal, the DHS scandal back when Lloyd Rader was in charge, and unless I'm just recalling incorrectly, they broke a story about how the Gaylords and a group called the Oklahoma Industries Authority improperly promised property tax breaks as an incentive to lure GM to build its plant here back in the day.

The point is that a hard investigative newsteam isn't just an asset for the sake of a TV asset, it has an intangible local value in being a check and balance around city and state government. I would LOVE for Terri Watkins et al to have done a piece exploring (exposing?) any of what might be termed the "smoke filled room" decisions behind the assembly, execution, and subsequent implementation of the MAPS projects, particularly and especially the most recent iteration. I think lots of city folks would be concerned if such a reporting entity existed, and the absence of one is why so many such officials have what I think could be termed a cavalier attitude when it comes to the public trust...but that's an entirely different issue.

Point is I think there are folks who still appreciate the civic value of an investigative media element. May be naive, but if a station is losing viewers and ratings, what do they have to lose? They might shock the world.

[drumsncode]

NEWS 9 currently has its Oklahoma Impact team which is supposed to be bringing us this kind of blockbuster journalism. I haven't caught enough NEWS 9 lately to know how many stories they've been airing since they lost Amy Lester. The things are already in place for some quality content at NEWS 9. I just wonder if some of it has been pushed to the back burner.

I echo many sentiments I've read above. I get tired of house fires and car wrecks and stuff like that. It makes good drama for 1 minute or 2, but if you think about it, it only affects the tiniest fraction of the population. By the time the sun rises, most of that news has no lasting value. And don't even get me started on putting a reporter standing in front of the county jail or a government building in the dead of night to report on something that happened hours earlier, just for the sake of a live shot. That is SO stupid to me.

[drumsncode]

Here's something wonderfully ironic. All our local reports/anchors go absolutely hog-wild over the content on Rock Center (Monday, 9pm, NBC). They all rave about that being their dream job, so they really want to do that kind of work here in Oklahoma, they're just prevented from doing it. So I guess they hate doing house fires and car wrecks too.

[SoonerDave]

And don't even get me started on putting a reporter standing in front of the county jail or a government building in the dead of night to report on something that happened hours earlier, just for the sake of a live shot. That is SO stupid to me.

Ohhhhhh, man, drums, you just hit a nerve with me. Obviously some consultant out there has convinced the newsies that a "live shot" creates the perception of more relevance or timeliness, or perhaps more urgency in the vein of rubbernecking around a car wreck, but I *LOATHE* that practice. Every flipping day we have a "live update" on a "breaking news story" from two, three, or ten days earlier that amounts to nothing more than someone standing in front of a stop sign somewhere to read fifty words of stale copy. ABSOLUTELY INFURIATING.

Yes, Ch 9 does have that "impact team," and they deserve credit for it, but it hasn't approached what I'd call the really hard, investigative level. We're talking mostly about the kinds of things you see during sweeps weeks - someone finds out that a legislative member paid $500 for a chair when they could have bought it for $450, the kinds of things that are seemingly out there all the time. I'm really not sure I'm ready to escalate that to the level of hard investigation and expository newsgathering. But, like I said, its better. A little.

For me, there's still waaaay too much posturing and composition, eg framing reporter one-shots so they can make dramatic-looking faces at a non-existent interview target so an editor can put together the footage and create the illusion its all spontaneous. I realize that, at least in part, is a necessary evil in TV, but over the last few years, it seems the raison d'etre for ANY such kind of journalism that desires to pass itself off as "serious."

[TaoMaas]

I think a hard news station bolstered by an underlying investigative news team would be worth trying.

For what it's worth, I agree with what you posted...and that's very close to what I told the owner of the station I used to work for when we disbanded our investigative team. What I posted is pretty much what he told me, in return. I could understand where he was coming from, but my feeling was that our news operations have an obligation to the community to shine a light on those areas where there's shady dealings going on. I told him, "How can you expect viewers to be loyal to you when you're not willing to look out for them?" Btw, I remember when Terri Watkins was doing great investigative stuff. My wife and I used to watch KOCO's newscasts even though I worked at a competing station. (Edited to add) And we watched KOCO specifically BECAUSE of Terri's stories.

[Jim Kyle]

For what it's worth, I agree with what you posted...and that's very close to what I told the owner of the station I used to work for when we disbanded our investigative team. What I posted is pretty much what he told me, in return. I could understand where he was coming from, but my feeling was that our news operations have an obligation to the community to shine a light on those areas where there's shady dealings going on. I told him, "How can you expect viewers to be loyal to you when you're not willing to look out for them?" Btw, I remember when Terri Watkins was doing great investigative stuff. My wife and I used to watch KOCO's newscasts even though I worked at a competing station. And we watched KOCO specifically BECAUSE of Terri's stories.

I think the problems are at the management level: too many MBAs and not enough up-through-the-ranks reporters making the policy decisions.

If I were running things, I'd get rid of the "news director" they brought in from Wichita and go looking for another Frank McGee or Ernie Schultz to do the job. Then I'd take hard looks at all the on-air talent to determine how well they were adapting (if at all) to the new emphasis on hard news, and get rid of those who couldn't handle the demands of actual reporting. Talking heads who never hit the field have been popular for years, and they can still do the job if supported by good reporters behind the scenes, but they really need to love digging out the "story behind the story" to communicate that enthusiasm to the viewers and thus improve the ratings.

Fires and traffic accidents have been a mainstay since the days of B&W TV; when I was a stringer for Channel 4 during my off hours from The Oklahoman, they were my bread and butter and always good for several seconds of air time. The journalistic rule "if it bleeds, it leads" still holds true and won't go away until humans lose their morbid curiosity. However "breaking news" is patently ridiculous, unless you actually have a camera in place to capture an event as it happens. Ditto for the "live shot" fakery that adds nothing but wastes air time.

I don't expect things to change, though, until top management is replaced. Running a grocery empire is no qualification to lead a journalistic enterprise.

[SoonerDave]

For what it's worth, I agree with what you posted...and that's very close to what I told the owner of the station I used to work for when we disbanded our investigative team. What I posted is pretty much what he told me, in return. I could understand where he was coming from, but my feeling was that our news operations have an obligation to the community to shine a light on those areas where there's shady dealings going on. I told him, "How can you expect viewers to be loyal to you when you're not willing to look out for them?" Btw, I remember when Terri Watkins was doing great investigative stuff. My wife and I used to watch KOCO's newscasts even though I worked at a competing station. (Edited to add) And we watched KOCO specifically BECAUSE of Terri's stories.

Absolutely!

I think what's overlooked is that long-term value that no amount of ad dollars can buy - just look - we're sitting here talking about difference-making reporting quality even down to the *reporter* from two or three *decades* ago, and using that to benchmark how bad local news has become in the midst of what seems to be ever-declining ratings for local news outlets. It is astonishing to me that the MBA mentality is so thoroughly entrenched and myopic that the "value proposition" (as so many MBA's are likely peddle it) of long-term notoriety in the marketplace isn't a sufficient "product differentiator" to motivate some station to give it a try. Local stations are in a death spiral with the circular MBA logic of "we won't try it because we can't make money doing it even though what we're doing now is costing us viewers and losing us money..."

From one side of the aisle, I hear that local news is dying, but MBA attitudes are the very ones unwilling to take their own foot off its neck. Someone is going to have to get bold, take the risk, and see what happens.

[OKCisOK4me]

Man, the answer to this is pretty easy. Pay whatever it takes to get Joleen Chaney out of her contract with KFOR and make her the next Jennifer Reynolds! DONE!!

[Tydude]

and get rid of Gary England and move Jeff George to news 9