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| REINVENTING
THE NEWSCAST |
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We all know what a television newscast looks like because most of them look
so much alike. There’s an A block with tonight’s lead
story, a B block of “other news,” a sports segment and
a weather segment, followed by a kicker of no apparent value or
local significance. Sometimes it seems that every producer in town
is using the same rundown. The result is that local television news
has become predictable, and to some viewers, irrelevant.
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At a recent Lab Days workshop, we took on the task of
reinventing a late newscast (10 p.m.) in a large market. Take the
journey with us, and see if there are lessons here you might apply.
If you decide to try any of these ideas in a newscast, we'd be delighted
if you would send us a tape!
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| Setting a Goal |
It’s a question that is rarely asked of a newscast
producer: "What is your goal?" A newscast should have a
goal, a purpose, a reason for being on the air. Consider how different
two late newscasts could be if they had these very different goals:
1) Find an audience, give them the news of the day and fill 30
minutes.
2) Offer context and examine consequences of today’s news,
and prepare viewers for what they will face tomorrow.
Begin reinventing your newscast by taking these steps:
- Set a goal for the newscast.
- Set a goal for specific newscast elements.
- Communicate these goals to everyone involved.
- Evaluate stories and segments with the goal in mind.
- Reconsider the rundown by thinking of the newscast as a story
with a beginning, middle and end. Does it have strong characters?
Surprises?
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| Adding New Elements |
One reason newscasts are so predictable is that most
stories are told pretty much the same way, using the same basic
elements: track, bite, nat sound, standup. To break that cycle,
consider alternative ways of telling stories on your late newscast.
(We’ve provided links to some examples.)
- Sound of the Night—a nat-sound-only version of a news-of-the-day
story, developed into a regular nightly feature by KRON-TV, San
Francisco.
- Pop-up news—consider
using fact stripes or bubbles instead of track to add substance
to nat-sound stories.
- Bringing News Home—pioneered by KDNL-TV, St. Louis, where
an anchor visits people at home to talk about issues and concerns
in their communities.
- Everybody
Has A Story—a feature developed by Steve Hartman of
CBS, who finds a story every other week by talking to people chosen
at random from the phone book.
- Site of the night—in a wired community, provide a tour
of a Web site with a young, hip narrator.
- Reporter whip-arounds—quick, back-to-back pieces from
day-side reporters looking ahead to tomorrow’s developments
on continuing stories, or consequences expected from today’s
developments.
- Ordinary conversations
between ordinary people about today’s news, in the style
of photographer Ray
Farkas.
- Tomorrow's traffic—a commuter survival guide.
- Business forecast—possibly in partnership with Bloomberg
or CNBC.
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| Other Options |
A newscast is more than the sum of its parts. Consider
what else goes into making your newscast different from others.
If the answer is “nothing,” consider changes that will
enhance the value and distinctiveness of your newscast.
Increase anchor involvement
- Field anchor from locations connected to the news of the day.
This elevates the importance of a story, so use it sparingly and
wisely.
- Add anchor "explainers"-live with graphics–to
make sense of complicated stories.
- Rotate co-anchors as solo anchors, week to week, so one can
report.
- Involve anchor in writing the top of the show, not just the
bottom.
- Mix in on-set interviews with contributors, analysts, to add
context to stories. (WBBM’s 10 p.m. newscast with Carol
Marin made this a regular feature.)
Create more time
- Drop the tease to break. Or at a minimum, eliminate the canned
music theme along with the tease, which signals viewers they can
tune out.
- Share a "rundown" of upcoming stories instead of
teasing just one (KMSP-TV in Minneapolis uses this approach).
- Eliminate a break to make room for long form stories (in the
1990’s, Meredith stations tried this approach and found
that reducing ad inventory in the newscast increased ratings.
They changed from a seamless newscast out of prime with four internal
breaks, to a spot before the newscast and three internals, one
of which was only 60 seconds.)
- Use the bottom of the newscast for a “must see”
enterprise story that people will stay around for after weather.
Don’t waste that time on a throwaway kicker.
- Break the format when the news demands it, and explain to viewers
what you are doing and why.
Other ideas for reinventing your newscast can be found here.
Instead of being predictable, a redesigned newscast would be reliable—a
place for viewers to get the information they need, with enough
variety to keep them interested. And that variety could also serve
to energize everyone who works on the newscast.
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