Sometimes, writing the promo for a special report your station is airing during sweeps is easy. You just let the story sell itself. Like in the case of this promo sent by James Bartone, the senior writer/producer at WPRI, the LIN-owned CBS affiliate in Providence, R.I. He chose not to labor over writing lines of announcer […]
Sometimes, writing the promo for a special report your station is airing during sweeps is easy. You just let the story sell itself. Like in the case of this promo sent by James Bartone, the senior writer/producer at WPRI, the LIN-owned CBS affiliate in Providence, R.I.
He chose not to labor over writing lines of announcer copy that promised the benefits of watching. He didn’t have to scroll through hours of news footage looking for b-roll and sound bites.
In the end, he has the sense to see all he needs to do to promote this 10-minute news story is to show the “got-cha” moment — when the reporter confronts the fire chief with undercover video that purportedly shows him repeatedly drinking, smoking pot and then driving a fire department vehicle.
The look on the fire chief’s face says it all.
Brilliant move, Mr. Bartone, brilliant move.
And check out this cleverly edited promo from Brandon Ridge at WFIE, Raycom’s NBC affiliate in Evansville, Ind., about the dangers of train wrecks. An interesting side note to this is the very day the special report was to air, there was a train derailment in Evansville where some corn spilled. Coincidence? Some promo folks can get carried away promoting the news.
We hate them, we love them; we quote them and question them. Sometimes, they make us happy; sometimes they make us cry. However, for those in the local TV news business, we can all agree they rule our lives. Happy November sweeps everybody.
This is the time your newsroom does special reports in your markets to heighten viewership. That means local TV creative services departments are busy writing and producing the promos for these reports. I thought it might be interesting to see what stories stations are promoting by sharing the promo examples from across the country in Market Share.
Here’s what I need — a YouTube or Vimeo link to any examples you want to share, along with a short explanation about it if you want.
And please include the link to the actual news story as well.
For competitive reasons, it might be best to submit only those promos that are already on your air.
My email and phone number are at the top of the column.
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