dma 10

Sneak Peek At KIAH's Anchor-Less News

According to people who have seen the pilot of the NewsFix format produced at Tribune's WPIX New York under the directon of Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams, it casts off the familiar anchor-reporter paradigm and replaces it with a lot of animated graphics and man-on-the-street sound bites.
By
TVNewsCheck,

Those looking for a truly different spin on local TV news will apparently not be disappointed by Tribune Broadcasting's experiment in KIAH Houston later this year.

According to people who have seen the pilot of the NewsFix format produced at Tribune's WPIX New York under the directon of Chief Innovation Officer Lee Abrams, it casts off the familiar anchor-reporter paradigm and replaces it with a lot of animated graphics and man-on-the-street sound bites.

Story continues after the ad

In one story, the narrator refers to terrorists as "bozos."  In another, a clip of fictional boxer Ivan Drago from Rocky IV is mixed into a story about the West getting tough with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. There are even clips from cartoon shows like Ren and Stimpy and animations from the JibJab website.

The pilot starts with a map of the Houston area with scattered icons representing the news stories to come. As the narrator introduces a story, an icon animates to reveal a series of clips with natural sound and sound bites to tell it. The video then squeezes back to a graphic screen, the narrator introduces the next clip and another icon comes to life.

Weather is handled with a split screen. One half shows dripping water; the other displays text, while a soothing voice delivers the forecast. Sports receive a similar split-screen treatment, with scores side-by-side with game highlights.

"It will be a fast-paced news product and we will be breaking with local news conventions," KIAH General Manager Roger Bare explained in a memo to employees. Bare, who briefly outlined the format for TVNewsCheck last week, could not be reached for further comment. Abrams has declined to be interviewed.

Even though Houston is the nation's 10th-largest TV market, Tribune appears to have little to lose by going with this radical approach. The CW affiliate's newscasts are buried in last place.

Still, a station employee calls the new format edict from headquarters "a punch in the gut," noting that both ratings and morale have been improving lately.

The timing of the launch of a no-anchor news show is also proving to be a curiosity.  According to employees, KIAH has just invested in a news set, HD cameras and switcher, and a video server system. The station now has three live trucks for a show that may not have any live reports. 

Its main female anchor, Mia Gradney, has been the focus of a high-profile billboard advertising campaign along Houston freeways with the tagline "Watch me at 9." There has been no official announcement about whether Gradney will be the voice of the narrator for NewsFix, but she is reportedly under contract with the station for at least another year.

The employees say Tribune initially planned to launch the experiment at its Dallas station, KDAF, but was rebuffed by management there. KIAH was a likely alternative since it is currently without a news director. KyAnn Lewis left last May for a job on Acme Communications' Daily Buzz.

The station recently launched a search for a "imaginator" to spearhead the effort. The job listing itself has generated a lot of buzz in Houston media circles.

It seeks a person who "knows that most local TV news sucks," "has well honed B.S. radar," and "can survive and prosper in a modern high brilliance standards rock n roll culture." It also explains, "Experience in running a TV newsroom is not necessary and might actually be detrimental."

Tribune is far from the only station shaking up its newsrooms in search of ratings in an increasingly fragmented media landscape. But unlike those at many other stations, the KIAH shakeup may not involve any layoffs.

In session with staffers this past Friday, according to people in the room, Bare explained that the new method of delivering news means the station will need more writers than it has now, and that no firings are planned.

But anchors and reporters are being invited to "reinvent themselves" and take part in producing regular feature packages, since the day-to-day news will be handled largely by one-man-band photojournalists, the employees said.

Some in the audience had misgivings about the execution of the show. "The anchors are often the safety net when something goes wrong," said one employee. If a piece of equipment fails, it is the anchor -- the public face of most TV stations -- who tosses to a commercial break with a reassuring, "We'll be right back after this," said one source.

Moreover, there are concerns about covering breaking news in a market where a TV newsroom's public reputation can be made or destroyed by its performance during hurricanes and other emergencies.

Based on the pilot shown to KIAH staff, some technical employees believe the station may give up the whole concept of live news and produce the news ahead of its 9 p.m. air time, the employee said.

Continued on page 2…
Edit Article

Comments (7) -

David Sams posted a year ago
|
What's the big deal? Broadcasting is a business. These guys were nearly getting hash marks in the ratings...and that was on a good day. Bottom line to all losing news operations out there...get your act together or you're history. This is the big leagues...not some cable access operation. I, personally, am tired of the cry babies out there who can't handle the truth. Put up or shut up.
Gerald Jensen posted a year ago
|
Might be interesting ... if they are already dead last and doing chicken-tracks, what other way is there to go but up?
AlSchneidhorst Nickname posted a year ago
|
Amen to David and Gerald. And its no wonder the station is dead last when it's news staffers are capable of comments like these: "anchors are often the safety net when something goes wrong," said one employee. If a piece of equipment fails, it is the anchor — who tosses to a commercial break with a reassuring, "We'll be right back after this". And; "... bid a respectful good-bye to its current news product by signing off 39 News at Nine entirely for a few months while the new format is developed in-house." Viewers have not respected the existing show enough to watch it, but lets treat it like its a temple or something. What a brilliant idea. Waiting to try something that just might work! Give me a break.
Thomas Scanlan posted a year ago
|
Good luck with that. Although when you're sucking crumbs from the bottom of the barrel, nothing wrong with trying a radical approach, then closing up if it doesn't work. There seems to be plenty of flash-bang-swoosh out there....just look (and listen) to Fox Morning and that incessant drumbeat under the news headlines, and almost as many audio effects as on Fox's NFL broadcast. Now CNN's 'American Morning' is very subtly adding a drumbeat when they do headlines in the AM, although it is potted down and out after the first few seconds. Looks like this experiment just puts all this enhancement crap on steroids, sans anchors!!
BennyJets Nickname posted a year ago
|
WOW! Awful harsh David. Yes, it is a business, and for a really long time, a great business to be in…and yes, changing times dictate changing tactics. Yet, let us not forget it was and has always been the truly creative and dedicated that have built this business. The idea of pre-fab newscasts may be unique and imaginative, but eventually would be as lend itself to be robotic and “webbish.” emotionless as the common news carrying web page. It’s a cookie cutter approach to something that needs personality, creativity and ingenuity. And like the movie industry found out, cookie cutter product may be cost effective, but it eventually fades and fails, becoming undesirable and irreverent. I think all the centralization and consolidation, while saving corporations money, is contributing to, not resisting and thwarting, the downfall of broadcast TV. Why would I watch TV if I can see the same concept from a website? We’ve got to hold on to a little of our humanity in the industry or one day people are going to look back and say, “How did we loose our local station?”
Ted Langdell posted a year ago
|
What seems to be going on is the "Foxifying" of local news—entertainment and glitz over substance—and the loss of journalistic integrity. "In one story, the narrator refers to terrorists as "bozos." In another, a clip of fictional boxer Ivan Drago from Rocky IV is mixed into a story about the West getting tough with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. There are even clips from cartoon shows like Ren and Stimpy and animations from the JibJab website." Appears to be a lot of eye candy, attempts at inserting opinion and/or "humor" into a news story, and other add-ons that seem to be attempts at making the news "cute." In the process, the news becomes the "news". It may attract an audience, but will the audience watching—and the community of license—be well-served by the content? Will they be served up the a well rounded news diet, including coverage of multiple sides of stories that have them? Unfortunately, I think there's a slope down which KIAH is aimed, and it appears to have been well greased. Ted
BennyJets Nickname posted a year ago
|
Why would you indemnify FOX? That's just wrong, Ted.

Today's Top Stories

Classifieds

The Market

Symbol Last Change (%)
Nasdaq 2847.21 +68.42 (+2.46%)
NYSE 7542.98 +115.24 (+1.55%)
S&P 500 1315.99 +20.77 (+1.60%)
Updated 05/22 8:04a ET Quotes delayed at least 20 mins.
Source: Financial Content

Ratings

Overnights, adults 18-49 for May 20, 2012
  • 1.
    2.4/7
  • 2.
    1.9/6
  • 3.
    1.6/5
  • 4.
    1.3/4
  • 5.
    1.0/3
  • 6.
    0.4/1
Source: Nielsen
Reviews
Opinions
Features
  • David Wiegand

    Fans of Sex and the City have finally gotten their wish: Their beloved sex-focused sitcom is back on the air ... sort of. The four women have become four men, of course, and the writing isn't as good. Oh, and the laugh track so annoying, it's offensive. And did I mention that the costumes would be considered fashionable if you were holding a yard sale? Men at Work on TBS is almost quaint, it's so old fashioned. If it had any meat on its bones, you'd be tempted to say it's the sadly ignoble epitome of TV's long-festering emasculated-men syndrome. But it's so much of a big, forgettable, innocuous shrug, it's not even worth any actual vitriol.

  • Mike Hale

    The USA Network's motto is "Characters Welcome." Apparently they're especially welcome if they resemble Oscar Madison and Felix Unger. Already stocked with Odd Couple knockoffs in Psych and White Collar, USA adds to its inventory Common Law, another comic crime-fighting show about mismatched partners. But this latest entry exhibits very little of that kind of spark as it tries to wring laughs from the juxtaposition of counseling and police work. It looks too flat and schematically plotted to succeed as the type of lightweight summer fun we’ve come to expect from USA.

  • Joanne Ostrow

    Johnny Carson: Fantastic entertainer, miserable human being. That's the lasting message of Johnny Carson: King of Late Night, the new PBS American Masters film, a rich history of a rare product of television who dominated the small screen for decades. Unprecedented access to personal archives plus all existing episodes of The Tonight Show (1962-92), distinguishes this film by Peter Jones. Telling interviews with family and colleagues, including second wife Joanne Carson, former Tonight Show executive producer Peter Lassally and a number of biographers sharpen the picture. The clips are carefully selected to illustrate specific personality traits, the performance highlights are given context and meaning beyond funny lines and memorable moments.

  • Hank Stuever

    AMC's The Pitch is a sharply-made if slightly off-putting reality series that follows different advertising agencies each week as they compete for new accounts. The inspiration for the show — made clear by its own ad campaign — is to harness some of the verve generated by the network's acclaimed Mad Men. The Pitch has a way of making the ad world seem like a real downer — a repugnant exercise in egotism laced with depressing bouts of creative compromise.

  • Tim Goodman

    HBO's Veep stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus as former Sen. Selina Meyer, who accepts the vice presidential duty and regrets it almost immediately: She has no real power and gets muscled by the Senate, Congress and the (so-far-unseen) president, who delegates all the truly crappy jobs to her. Louis-Dreyfus has found perhaps her best post-Seinfeld role and takes to it with such fervor — the constant swearing, the barely veiled desire to become president, the unhappy give-and-take with other politicians and a delightful disdain for average citizens — that you can't help but applaud what is clearly an Emmy-worthy effort. Her work alone makes Veep a gem, but there's even more to like.

This advertisement will close automatically in  second(s). You will see this ad no more than once a day. Skip ad