WJZY, Nexstar’s Fox affiliate in Charlotte, N.C., is undergoing a makeover. The station has “meandered as a bottom station for a long time,” says Lloyd Bucher, WJZY’s new GM, but Nexstar sees an opportunity to change that.
Ask anyone at WJZY what’s new, and they’re likely to say everything. New owners, new management team, new set, new graphics and a new identity.
WJZY, Nexstar’s Fox affiliate in Charlotte, N.C., is undergoing a makeover. It’s not a rebrand because station executives say the station had no brand, and what little brand it did have was tied to the Fox News national brand, which was limiting its ability to attract viewers.
Enter Nexstar, which took over the station in 2019.
“Nexstar sees opportunity,” says Lloyd Bucher, WJZY’s new GM as of last September.
Bucher says the station “meandered as a bottom station for a long time.”
Nexstar research revealed “there were news branding opportunities to gain traction in the marketplace because there was no dominant market leader,” Bucher says.
The research also found there was brand confusion for WJZY, branded as Fox 46, between it being a Fox affiliate and it being linked to cable’s Fox News Channel.
“We couldn’t get more than half the audience,” Bucher says. “The brand confusion hurt half and didn’t help the other half.”
Bucher joins Casey Clark, WJZY’s news director since last August, and Erik Candiani, the station’s newly hired creative services director who came on board in May of 2021, as the management team at the helm of the station’s makeover.
In January, WJZY changed the name of its news product to Queen City News and launched a branding campaign in support of the change. Charlotte, during the time of the city’s founding, was named in honor of the historical English queen.
“Queen City is very real in Charlotte,” Bucher says. “All the street signs actually have a crown on them.”
And the research showed that Queen City transcended geography. People who lived in both the metro and the suburbs wanted to be associated with it.
Candiani says he’s making sure that those in the outside communities know they are part of Queen City News, branding it Carolinas’ Own Queen City News.
The station transformation was done in baby steps.
“The identity crisis wasn’t going to be resolved with just a name change,” Bucher says. “I had been reluctant to change the brand until I felt the product was good enough.”
First, the station beefed up staffing significantly, Bucher says. Then it added a new news set and a new graphics look.
The station took inventory of itself, and realized that WJZY’s “eleven and a half hours of local news and a half hour sports show, (WJZY is the Carolina Panthers’ home station), was the most news done out of any TV station in either North or South Carolina,” Bucher says.
That was an aha moment for the station, which saw it as a golden opportunity.
“So we not only had the most local news in the Carolinas, we also had the most resources in South and North Carolina because of Nexstar’s footprint,” Bucher says.
In addition to WJZY in Charlotte, Nexstar has stations in Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C., and Spartanburg, Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Greenville in South Carolina.
“We had a positioning statement that was real and only we could claim that,” Bucher says. “Carolinas’ Own Queen City News started to roll off the tongue a lot easier in our four walls here.”
WJZY started to look more dominant than the ratings suggested.
“The improved product, the new set, the rebrand, the positioning statement, you put all that together, and you saw nothing but upside,” Bucher says.
Bucher says that even though the station hasn’t started any outside media marketing yet, the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive.
“When we made the switch and articulated the positioning statement, I think viewers connected with that. We have gotten a lot of positive feedback on e-mails and Facebook,” Bucher says.
Candiani says the transformation has been methodical and deliberate. “They wanted to get this right and I think Lloyd came in here and was able to give us the last oomph to get it done,” he says. “Patience is hard in this business, and they did it.”
Candiani says the station is launching its outside media campaign this week with ads running on “cable, radio, billboards, buses, digital, every format out there.”
Bucher says in the end, it’s WJZY’s news product “we are most proud of. These are people who genuinely care. Our branding actually lags a little behind the commitment that these people were already making and just salivating for a way to put it together.”
Sign up for Marketing Monday, and get the best of Market Share delivered FREE to your inbox. Marketing Monday premieres an original, exclusive story every Monday, plus features the best Market Share columns from the week before, all in one email. Articles about innovations, developments and successes in local TV marketing, especially news marketing. Sign up now for Marketing Monday by creating a Free Membership at TVNewsCheck.com, and choose the FREE option.
One more thing: I’m always looking for story ideas about great local TV news coverage, and local TV marketing, great sales ideas and commercial production, and station hires from your market. To suggest a story, please reach out to me at [email protected] or at 817-578-6324.
WDTN, Nexstar’s NBC affiliate in Dayton, Ohio, needs Weekend Evening Co-Anchor/MMJ, a Weekend Morning Co-Anchor/MMJ and a Weekend Evening Meteorologist/MMJ. The Dayton Region ranked within the top 10% in the nation in arts and culture. In a poll by American Style magazine, Dayton ranked #2 in the country among mid-size cities as an arts destination, ranking higher than larger cities such as Atlanta, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. There are 119 colleges within 100 miles of Dayton. Those who enjoy spending time outdoors will find nearly 20 different metro parks and more than 330 miles of paved biking trails. Several historic neighborhoods and districts, a bike-share program and about a dozen craft and microbreweries add to Dayton’s cultural jewels. Click here for more specifics and how to apply.
Comments (0)
Reader Interactions