KSBW, the Hearst-owned NBC affiliate in Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz, Calif., recorded a total-viewer win in every newscast according to the just completed February 2015 Nielsen ratings. To find out how KSBW has been so successful in attracting news viewers, not just in the past February ratings period, but over decades, we talked to KSBW’s management team […]
KSBW, the Hearst-owned NBC affiliate in Monterey-Salinas-Santa Cruz, Calif., recorded a total-viewer win in every newscast according to the just completed February 2015 Nielsen ratings.
To find out how KSBW has been so successful in attracting news viewers, not just in the past February ratings period, but over decades, we talked to KSBW’s management team to hear their thoughts.
KSBW’s management team consists of Joe Heston, the station’s general manager for the past 16 years.
Lawton Dodd has been KSBW’s news director for 17 years, and Ed Everest has returned to KSBW as the station’s creative services director, a position he held for 4 years until 2011.
In part 1, we heard the team cite several characteristics of their news operation that they believe is fundamental to their success.
You can read all of part 1 here.
First and foremost, according to the team, the station stands for quality journalism.
“By and large, content is king,” is how Everest sees it.
“We try to be substantive, engaging, and compelling,” says Heston. “We’re not stodgy. But it’s not breathless and worthless.”
Stability in front of the camera was also an essential ingredient in their news coverage.
“I think that’s the credit of our success,” says Dodd, “people who’ve been here for a long-time.”
Marketing consistency also plays a role, according to the team.
“My promotion always matches the product because the product is sound,” Everest says.
“I never have to over-hype or manipulate facts or describe us as being something more than we need to be.”
“The tonality of Ed’s marketing has to resonate with the product that news is producing,” says Heston. “News content and marketing has to all work together.”
An important distinction about how KSBW sees itself is in terms of investigative reporting.
“We don’t have an I-team here because I see our daily effort as good investigative-style journalism,” Everest says .
“We’ve always known that it should be daily investigative journalism, uncovering answers to news of the day, without having to label it as a special investigation.”
Being a real partner in the community is an important part of KSBW’s DNA, not just a marketing ploy, according to Everest.
“One-third of our energy is producing promotions that advocate and support nonprofits and other community efforts. We do these things because we believe it’s a big part of why we exist. And that’s to support the market we’re in.”
Perhaps the most important attribute to KSBW’s success, according to the team, is going beyond what’s expected, to trust their own instincts and experience about what’s important to the community.
“Some people think there’s a formula in a text book that tells you how to win,” Heston says.
“If we followed conventional wisdom, [who] knows where the station would be.”
The station points to a recent RTDNA study that indicates a big drop among many TV stations in coverage of politics and government, which is a mainstay at KSBW.
“In terms of substantive political coverage, we think that’s an important thing, and we continue to win with that year after year,” says Heston. “We think that’s an important fabric of why we’re here in a democracy.”
The station points to an incident about 10 years ago as an example of how it identifies opportunities to provide unique news coverage.
Salinas was about to close all its public libraries, the first city in the country that was going to have to do that, and it was making national news.
The issue was all coming to a head one night at 6 o’clock when the city leaders were going to hold a press conference to talk about what they were going to do.
The station decided to broadcast the entire press conference live.
“We took the whole thing live and told everybody in the community that we were going to do so a day or two ahead of time,” says Dodd.
“It happened to be in the ratings book,” says Heston, “and we opened the book and holy smoke, it was the highest rated newscast we’ve ever had.”
“These are decisions that have to be made on the ground in individual markets if you’re going to be a leading station.”
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