Judge Judy And Other New Local TV Promos

When I was a CSD, I used to call them “beachheads.”

My philosophy was to drive viewers to the beachheads and then capture them and hold them for my newscast, whether it be in the afternoon or latenight.

The news lead-in is another name for these programs. In any event, I would make sure those programs got plenty of promotion during the day up to the show.

KIRO Seattle has a two-hour block of Judge Judy heading into its 5 o’clock newscast. That’s a lot of Judge Judy. So the Cox-owned CBS affiliae created these image spots that have Seattle written all over them.

NOTE: While VP of marketing for Nexstar, I wrote these generic image spots for our station in Evansville, Ind., which were produced there at WTVW.

WFXT, Cox’s Fox affiliate in Boston, launched this morning news promo a few weeks ago. The talent look terrific, talking about what to expect on their show, six hours of local news, traffic, weather, etc. However, one of the anchors mentions that WFXT has more reporters than any other station. If true, I would have made a promo on that fact alone. Positioned right, that might make a good reason to watch.

Your station earns an Edward R. Murrow Award for overall excellence. Should you promote that? I would in a Boston minute.

Here, CBS O&O WBZ Boston first thanks viewers for choosing them, then reinforces their smart decision be mentioning the ward. Love the woman announcer here. Why aren’t there more lady announcers doing local TV news image promos like this?

On Friday nights at 11:30, Cox’s ABC affil WSOC Charlotte, N.C., airs a high school football highlights show. Many stations do. This spot is a pretty creative approach to get the high school players to watch.

NOTE: At WINK in Ft. Myers, Fla., in the mid-1990s, we tried a similar approach.