Posted by chicagomedia.org on May 25, 2008 at 14:54:42:
Local news something TV execs can use
Phil Rosenthal | Media
May 23, 2008
For "Good Day Chicago," it looks as though the day soon will get longer.
Sources say Fox-owned WFLD-Ch. 32 will soon annex a third hour for its morning newscast. The "Good Day" expansion into the 9 a.m. hour, penciled in for midsummer, is expected to bump Fox's syndicated "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet" to 10 a.m.
A spokeswoman for the station could not be reached for comment.
Dennis Swanson, the former WLS-Ch. 7 boss who is president of station operations for News Corp.'s Fox Television Stations Group, and Channel 32 chief Pat Mullen have long seen local news programming as a critical component to both a station's broadcast identity and its online presence.
That's why Mullen introduced a weeknight 35-minute 10 p.m. newscast at WFLD a little more than a year ago, in addition to its 9 p.m., midday, morning, early morning and oh-God-it's-early morning news programs.
"If we're not there [with local news] in multiple dayparts, I think the station becomes less relevant to viewers over time," Mullen, the former president of Tribune Co.'s broadcast division, said in 2007 when he announced the addition of the 10 p.m. show.
"So to be more relevant, we're going to go to more time periods, and I hope this is just the first step to what could be further expansion down the road."
The increasingly common thinking within the industry is that, in a new media environment, distinctive local content such as news becomes an exponentially more valuable commodity for any and all platforms.
What's more, once you have a news operation in place, it tends to be economically efficient to produce and broadcast more of it.
In New York, NBC, home of the now-four-hour "Today" show, is looking to experiment with an all-news channel on one of the digital subchannels of flagship WNBC-TV. If successful, it stands to be a model for other NBC-owned stations, including Chicago's WMAQ-Ch. 5.
Tribune Co., parent of the Chicago Tribune, already has a 15-year-old round-the-clock Chicago cable news channel in CLTV, but its flagship WGN-Ch. 9 has for some time been seriously weighing the addition of a late afternoon/early evening newscast to its morning, noon and 9 p.m. offerings.
And just this week, only days into his new job as production manager at the parent of Chicago's WCIU-Ch. 26, WWME-Ch. 23, WMEU-Ch. 48, longtime TV exec and producer Randy King was talking about how he and incoming executive producer of program development Harvey Moshman will be looking to create local content in new and different formats, possibly including news.
Current events provide a steady supply of drama—as well as comedy, occasionally—and it can be far more lucrative than buying the rights to a sitcom rerun, talk show or court show.
Little wonder, as they say on CBS Radio's local headline service WBBM-AM 780, the news never stops.
Sweepy time: The May TV ratings period used to help set local ad rates at TV stations has ended and, in short, Channel 7's 10 p.m. news still is the one to beat in town in households, although Channel 5 made an impressive showing in the 25-54 demographic that pays the bills. Channel 2 touted its audience growth.
Channel 9's morning news defeated all comers both in households and the demo and, despite complaints from Tribune Co. management about the weak prime-time lead-ins from The CW Network, its weeknight news increased its audience to take No. 1 among 9 p.m. newscasts in both households and demos. Channel 32, meanwhile, could claim an increase in households at 9 p.m. and 10 p.m.