Once upon a time, a local TV station wanted more people to watch their morning news. So they hired a new news director. He brought discipline, accountability and organization that turned chaos into control. He hired a noble lady to bring magic to the show. Got creative services involved in the daily process. In time, […]
Once upon a time, a local TV station wanted more people to watch their morning news. So they hired a new news director. He brought discipline, accountability and organization that turned chaos into control. He hired a noble lady to bring magic to the show. Got creative services involved in the daily process.
In time, the villagers were hearing the good news–they could watch content they cared about from people they liked–and more and more began to watch. And everyone was happy. The end.
Who doesn’t like a good fairy tale with a happy ending? Especially when it’s true.
WXIX, the Fox affiliate in Cincinnati, grew their morning news share 40% from 5-9 a.m. in adults 25-54. And the station’s 6 a.m. is up 92% in adults 18-49 in February 2014 from last year, according to promotion manager Jim Farinacci.
“We launched a new morning news image spot in the Super Bowl and ran it heavily through February,” said Farinacci.
“We featured our new morning anchor, Jacki Jing. She brings a ton of energy, and we wanted to put her front and center. She had immediate chemistry with the team, and they all look and sound great together.”
WXIX’s news director, Kevin Roach, joined the station in March of 2013.
“I believe people want to see content with substance, content that matters to people, not low hanging fruit like car crashes and shootings in bad neighborhoods,” said Roach.
Roach got Farinacci and his creative services team to become more a part of the editorial process, suggesting angles to stories at meetings.
“We had good contact with news prior to this,” said Farinacci, “but this made it much easier to sell the news in our daily topical promotion.”
See, news and marketing helping each other doesn’t have to be just the stuff of fairy tales.
NOTE: Question for creative services directors: How much time are you (not your team … just you) spending in news editorial meetings and when you are in there, what are you contributing?
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