I get calls all the time from TV station marketing managers looking for writers, producers, editors, the so-called preditor. It’s one of the more important front-line positions in terms of recruiting news viewers. Of the more than 70 open positions in local TV marketing, promotion and production listed on a popular website, more than half […]
I get calls all the time from TV station marketing managers looking for writers, producers, editors, the so-called preditor. It’s one of the more important front-line positions in terms of recruiting news viewers. Of the more than 70 open positions in local TV marketing, promotion and production listed on a popular website, more than half were specifically for preditors.
So when a station is successful at finding and hiring a preditor, I want to know about it. Especially when that preditor has never worked in local TV news promotion before. Fresh eyes that might see some new ways to do the same thing.
“I was attracted to it because it asked about being an After Effects wizard and a creative story teller,” says Zach Thielen. Thielen, a Syracuse grad, has a background as an After Effects and Final Cut Pro editor. But he also has a degree in screenwriting and taught a course in it at a local community college.
I know what you’re thinking: Thielen’s a unicorn. Guys and gals with skills like that don’t exist.
They do, and if you’re a marketing manager openly salivating and wondering how Alex Shaw, WMAR Baltimore’s creative services director, found this diamond in the rough and how he’s going to turn him into the next Promax Gold Medallion winner, listen up.
Post the opening on non-traditional, local sites like Craigslist.
“You’re never going to find the right people on traditional sites like Monster,” says Shaw. Or if you do, you’ll get inundated with responses from people who are not remotely qualified. I once got a resume from a chef, who said he always wanted to work in television.
“Grow your own,” says Shaw; “consider potential over experience.”
Shaw gave Thielen links to WMAR stories, then asked him to write some 30-second topicals. Some of the stories were investigative and thus easy to tease; others were more of the run-of-the-mill type stories. Shaw was impressed.
As I’ve written before, there are essentially three talent pools. Technically skilled editors with an eye for design who have no news experience. Writers with some news experience but limited experience technically. Or candidates who have both but no news experience, and like Shaw says, they’re rare. But they do exist. They just don’t know about this side of the business.
Theilen says he had seen news promos before, but wasn’t aware there was a whole department creating them or a career path in it.
What’s Thielen like about the prospects of being a promo preditor? “Creative freedom. “I like building things from the ground up.”
So far, Thielen’s impressed with all the resources available at his fingertips — the equipment, the footage, the music, etc.
How does Shaw intend to indoctrinate Thielen to get him quickly up to speed?
It’s all in the promo bible, a reference resource Shaw has his staff compile listing everything one needs to know to get a spot on the air. File locations, export settings, important contacts, passwords, step-by-step instructions to get from point A to B.
And then lots of individual attention.
“I believe in over-communication,” says Shaw. “I’d rather see a staff member get annoyed than not talk to them enough.”
Thielen says Shaw has shown him lots of promos, too, both from WMAR and other stations. Thielen hesitates to give his thoughts but then says he thinks many say the same thing and look the same. He wants his work to be edgy and cool.
Cool. Now if he can just convince viewers, especially young viewers, that local news is cool, he might be on to something.
Three weeks in and he’s already got a spot airing on WMAR.
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