While every TV market is unique in terms of how the stations’ news operation compare and match up against each other, there are similar challenges that most nearly every station faces at one time or another. For example, the introduction of a new news anchor to your team. How you market this is critical to […]
While every TV market is unique in terms of how the stations’ news operation compare and match up against each other, there are similar challenges that most nearly every station faces at one time or another.
For example, the introduction of a new news anchor to your team.
How you market this is critical to getting viewers to watch or sample the anchor from the beginning.
The biggest mistake stations make is what I call “anticipointment.” In marketing a new news anchor, they create a level of expectation that’s hard to deliver.
So much so that viewers’ anticipation turns into disappointment.
Early in my career, I was taught the importance of what was called ID/recognition. The name, the face, the place.
A “Q” score measures familiarity and appeal of, in this case, a news talent. I know him or her and I like him or her.
Knowing the new news anchor’s name is key from the very beginning. They can’t like you if they don’t know who you are.
WCNC, the NBC affiliate in Charlotte, N.C., owned by Tegna (formerly Gannett), had a new news anchor to introduce to the viewers whose name was a bit of a tongue-twister, Fred Shropshire.
Years ago, the thought might have been to change Fred’s last name to something easier to pronounce and remember. These days, not so much.
Here’s how KTVU, the Fox affiliate in San Francisco, used a talent’s unusual name to great advantage.
WCNC realized that Shropshire’s difficult-to-pronounce name might be an asset to getting people to remember the name.
“He has a unique and hard name to pronounce,” says Deborah Collura, WCNC’s general manager, “so we went out to see if people could pronounce his name.”
But WCNC wanted to do more than get his name out there.
“We wanted to show what kind of man he is,” says Luanne Stuart, WCNC’s outgoing creative services director, “and what he stands for.”
Stuart’s last day at WCNC was Friday, July 10. She’s going to Nashville to be the CSD at WSMV, the NBC affiliate there owned by Meredith.
“Who is Fred, and why should our viewers connect with him,” are the goals of the campaign, according to Collura.
“He’s from here … he’s a seasoned veteran journalist with a sensibility for connecting with people. So we wanted to try and capture that.”
Sitting your on-air talent down and just talking to them in an intimate setting can be an engaging and effective technique to allow them to be themselves, to be real, which is what you hope will ultimately be the reason viewers will want to watch them.
“Stripping away the veneer is a great way to say it,” says Collura. “I believe contemporary news anchors need to be real people.”
Comments (0)
Reader Interactions