If I were to put all of the TV station creative services directors in a room and asked this question, I’m pretty sure there’d be only one response in the affirmative. Does your TV station air a sketch comedy show that is locally produced? That’s Rick Swanson’s hand in the air, KING’s director of marketing […]
If I were to put all of the TV station creative services directors in a room and asked this question, I’m pretty sure there’d be only one response in the affirmative.
Does your TV station air a sketch comedy show that is locally produced?
That’s Rick Swanson’s hand in the air, KING’s director of marketing and programming.
“The [206] follows a rich tradition of non-news local programming on KING,” Swanson says.
The [206], named after Seattle’s area code, is a half-hour comedy show that airs after Saturday Night Live on KING, the NBC affiliate in Seattle. KING provides the time slot, but everything else is done by the show producers — they write and perform the jokes and sketches, they fund it, they produce and post-produce it, sell the ads, manage the 500-person studio audience (there’s a 1,000 people on the waiting list) and even do the promos. The presenting sponsor is PEMCO, a local insurance company dedicated to Northwest residents.
“It’s comedy club meets TV,” says Chris Cashman, one of the hosts and producers of The [206], “like a big tailgate party.”
Cashman says the show is “50% general comedy and the other 80% is inside jokes and local references about Seattle.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hPRjCOzh2Y&list=PLwAt0mpbBQNB9JEG3vCdK9SOaC6m63tNo
Swanson says The [206] adds to KING’s brand as the station that does non-news local programming in Seattle. KING has been producing and airing Evening, a life-style type magazine, for more than 25 years. And KING launched a weekday talk show called New Day Northwest in 2010.
“KING is always taking risks when it comes to non-news programming,” Swanson says. “It gives our advertisers’ opportunities that other stations can’t compete with.”
Cashman says he knows how “rare it is to have a local station air a locally-produced show, let alone a comedy one. Experiment-wise, we’re glad KING did it instead of infomercials.”
The two other hosts/producers of The [206] are Cashman’s dad, Pat, and John Keister.
To read more about The [206]’s success, click here.
Comments (0)
Reader Interactions