The creative services directors at KARK, the NBC affiliate in Little Rock, Ark., and WJTV, the CBS affiliate in Jackson, Miss., sent me some links to their stations’ work during and after tornados struck their areas. Fifteen people were killed in the April 27 tornado near Little Rock that destroyed hundreds of homes. Seven people […]
The creative services directors at KARK, the NBC affiliate in Little Rock, Ark., and WJTV, the CBS affiliate in Jackson, Miss., sent me some links to their stations’ work during and after tornados struck their areas. Fifteen people were killed in the April 27 tornado near Little Rock that destroyed hundreds of homes. Seven people died statewide in Mississippi.
It’s at times like this that TV stations serve their local communities as if their lives depend on it. Here’s a story I wrote last week about just such an incident.
Allan Snyder, director of marketing and promotions at KARK, recounts his station’s recent experience: “During the storm on April 27, we had five meteorologists in studio tracking the storm, keeping an eye on social media, talking with storm spotters, etc. We think this gives us a distinct advantage to keep our information fresh and current, because we simply have more meteorologists working.”
Here is a montage of the KARK’s coverage of the storm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XBY75fJXx0&feature=youtu.be
Snyder continued: “We wanted our marketing to become another way for our entire community to share in this experience while gently reminding them that our stations were the place to go for continuing coverage of the storm damage and recovery. Promo producer Danielle Ray produced a series of spots showing emotional moments captured by our news photographers and reporters. The spots cover the range of emotion that our viewers are experiencing — fear, loss, faith, community, relief and hope.”
“The storm happened on Sunday evening,” Snyder said. “On Monday morning we decided to try to quickly put together a telethon to raise money for the relief and recovery effort. I contacted a representative from the Salvation Army, and they were very excited to work with us on the project. They put out a call for volunteers for telephone operators, and had no problem staffing the entire day. We began the telethon during our 5 a.m. news on KARK, and continued throughout the day on both KARK and FOX16 (KLRT, featuring the telethon in every newscast: 5 a.m. (KARK), 7 a.m. (KLRT), noon (KARK), 4-6:30 p.m. (simulcast on both), 9 p.m. (KLRT), 10 p.m. (KARK).
“The response was honestly way beyond what I or the representatives from the Salvation Army expected. More than 1,500 viewers called in, donating a total of $197,360; that’s an average gift of $131.57, which is an incredible average for the citizens of Arkansas. Viewers were also given the option to donate via text. We don’t have those totals in yet, but we fully expect that after those donations are added in, our total will be well over $200,000. Here is our “thank you” spot that aired the day after the telethon.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSdbqbitlb4&feature=youtu.be
Finally, one last story from KARK.
WJTV’s creative services director, Brett Kenyon, shared some examples of his station’s coverage.
“I rebuilt the open to our 10 p.m. newscast and essentially turned it into a :30 promo for our storm coverage.”
“During the storms (since we couldn’t record live topicals), we used our morning meteorologist’s storm chase footage from that day as a tease.”
“We produced a POB that began airing as the storms left the area, thanking our viewers and first responders.”
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