A comment from the last post struck me:
Hal - You always complain about Wichita TV news and say certain people are over-the-top. Everyone is doing it and frankly Wichita could stand to do more of it. Get away from your 50's-60's news thinking and get with Today.
Hey buddy, last I checked, stations across the nation are LOSING viewers to the internet and other viewing options. I don't know what exactly you are referring to, but I base this on my previous posts. You may argue that TV stations today cannot stand doing stuff of decades ago because of the internet, but I don't think just being louder and more annoying will prevent the inevitable, the death of local TV news.
On a separate note I see KSN has some new IDs, web logo and all. I guess they used the Olympics to premere it. I wonder if they are doing any other special things for the Olympics. With a big audience sampling them, this Olympics is big for a #3 station. I think they need to promote the stories they do and forget, as past posts have suggested, strategies from the past where they only promote weather and on-air talent viewers don't like. Maybe if they promoted some of their reporters and the stories they do it would go over better, than seeing them promote and expose their biggest problems like weather and a weak main anchor. -Hal
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28 comments:
NBC has had the Olympics since the 2000 Sydney games and it's not helped KSN's ratings except for the duration. Nothing will change now. But at least they're trying.
Trying in what ways? I'd like to know besides revealing what appears to be a new image campaign and logo, what are they trying?
I like the new logo and campaign. It's really refreshing.
Hal - you do realize the internet has a 30% penetration rate, don't you? There are a lot of reasons viewership is down... the internet's impact is minimal.
I saw a banner logo on at the top of the hour last night during the Olympics. It was the station ID thing and had all of the new logos for each KSN station on it.
It was in B&W though and as such reminded me of a logo I would have seen in the 1970's.
They need to add color to it to make it look modern.
Anon 12:16 you do realize %30 is almost a third right? Now explain to me how that does not have any impact. Minimal my big toe! You think it is just random blind chance that ALL the stations in this market have ramped up their internet coverage year after year?
But from those 30%, how many can you say are getting their news from the internet instead of television? It would not be 100% of the populations, so that 30% drops. The internet isn't the media powerhouse.... yet.
They may have revamped their website, but no one sells their site more than their channel.
Take your big toe out of your mouth.
I have to say I was recently in Denver and was watching the 10 PM news there.
I will say the newscasts I saw up there were a lot more enjoyable to watch. Not sure why, the sets weren't always as fancy as what we have here, but it was interesting.
Same thing goes for WGN out of Chicago. I watched their news the other night and it had my attention also.
The real question here then is why do these other cities newscasts seem more effective than our own? Maybe because it was different.
Newspapers are going out of business, TV stations are losing more viewers every year, and radio is flat.
Meanwhile, newspaper web sites are reporting solid double digit INCREASES in hits every year. TV station web sites, from a low base, are also growing double digits every year.
People log on, get the headlines in real time and click on what interests them. If you don't understand this impacts traditional TV, traditional newspapers, and traditional radio...you simply can NOT be in any of these industries and/or are just completely naive.
KSN has had some nice specials during Olympics, so they are trying. You can't fault them for that. As for the image campaign, we'll see where it goes. Probably the route of most "image" campaigns.
4:52.. for every market that is better than Wichita (you'd expect Denver and Chicago to be) there are a dozen that are worse.
The fact that you are comparing two top 20 markets, one of which is a top five to Wichita (69). Of course things seem better there.
Anon 657 mentioned KSN having some nice specials during the Olympics, but once again who would know about them. Instead KSN is promoting a, "Chime In" campaign. I will say it is snappy and well edited, but for a station promo I think it points you more to the web site and to comment online, rather than WATCHING the station. They need to promote the specials they are doing during the Olympics such as Tonight's by Anthony Powell about teaching job skills to soldiers finished with their military commitments and back in the area. When the Olympics do not end until at least 11:30 or later, most people will turn off their TVs before the news even begins, so KSN must give people (many of them might not be normal KSN viewers) a specific reason to watch each night (like a special). People banging water jugs and blowing in bottles to the 3 NBC notes doesn't remind me to stay tuned for the news or remind me other times throughout the day what will me coming up or later in the week. Don't get me wrong it does have some positives, but maximizing the Olympics viewers carry-over isn't one of those. Watching some of the stories this week I think KSN is giving people a reason to watch, but no one knows about it, besides "Chiming In."
Promotions is a problem at the station. Just tease a story people. It doesn't have to be flashy.
For those who live outside of the area and want to see what this "Chime In" thing people have been commenting on is all about, you can go to the front page of KSN.com and on the right side, click a white box that says, "Chime In." Its a little different than the version I have seen on TV, but the idea is the same. -Hal
It doesn't matter whether Wichita is number 20 or number 69. We have the talent right now to make all three newscasts better. It is the management that lacks the creative powers to make them better.
What happened on KSN at 6PM tonight. It sounded like they had major problems with their automatic directing thing like they had in the past. It even sounded like the F-Word went on the air.
My a** they don't sell their website more than their channel!!!! Are you kidding me? Why do you think all three stations pimp their website every other story? Why do you think they ave the anchors writing blogs? Why do you think they have streaming newscast??? IT IS NOT BECAUSE ANY OF THAT IS FUN I assure you.
When I was at KSN the GM (Big Al) knew that the web was the future and was making plans to cash in on it. Everything he wanted to do was geared towards being more active on the web and that my friend is cause the web IS the future of news....like it or not! And if you are too dumb to see that then maybe you should seek life elsewhere cause this biz is not for you.
I think M.F.T.S needs to learn to read. The internet is the future, but it is not sold as hard as the channel... YET. Yet being the operative word here.
Of course if you worked at KSN, I see where you ignorance comes from.
They did an upgrade to the ignite and installed all new computers.
KSN gets knocked because of Dave and Anita. Let's not dance around the issue. Until those two are gone, much might not change.
BUT they do very good stories, have the market's best and most innovative graphics and promotions departments and have some very talented reporters, sports guys and secondary meteorologists.
They are a player in this market, and god help the day Wichita ever gets metered because I think that'll be the day you start to REALLY see the ratings.
Everyone makes good points here about the Web and TV. And BTW, did you hear McClatchy just ordered pay freezes EVERYWHERE (including the Eagle)?
Consider this: Imagine there was NO media today, just present technology, but no media outlets.
You would have the Internet, Radio, Television....but the idea of a "newspaper"--something you spent a fortune on to PRINT AND DISTRIBUTE---would be laughed at. Expensive printing, expensive paper and paying some one to manually distribute 10 hour old news would be pretty funny.
TV would definitely exist, but it is simply the temporary limitations of bandwith that would preclude its full integration with the Internet. The Internet and Television are soon to be one. Thats the way it WOULD be if we started from scratch.
Its just a matter of time--and not much at that---before your TV screen and your Computer screen are the very same thing. We've made baby steps there--but the future is obvious.
Those that market the Web AND TV hand-in-glove, ALL the time, will become THE information source.
And, sorry, but the newspaper is the buggy whip. Its just a matter of time.
They do promote the web more than the station and I cited clear examples. I think you are the one not only with the reading problem but the comprehension problem as well. Stop sniffing glue while typing and maybe you would get a clear understanding of what people are saying.
Half the promos are or web related things, almost every story in a newscast refers to the web as the place to go for more info. All the newscasts are streamed on the net....put all that together and YES they promote more for the web then anything else.
Oh man,
Okay MFTS, let me explain the difference between a promo and a paid advertisement. A promo is something that a tv station does to highlight, or "promote" their own station. Okay, here is where it gets tough... an advertisement is when a business or company pays money for their "ad" to be seen on that station.
There is a difference between "promoting" and "selling." Go back to my original post, and I said they don't "sell" the internet more than the channel.
I hope this wasn't too much too soon for you. If you need help with you high school journalism, don't be afraid to ask.
Good little back-in-forth we have going about the internet. But lets face it, no station's web offerings are near where they will or need to be in the distant future. And as much as stations want to steer people to the internet, all they are sending people to now is a repackaging of TV. If you watch the TV casts, little is gained by clicking on their sites, outside of looking up archives, contact info and toy recall info. As I think I have written in the past posts, stations need to adapt to an outside-the-box way of thinking and treat the web as its own entity or media platform and not merely as a step-brother to TV. The two do need to compliment each other, but let the web product have some of its own content draws, instead of just the draws that the technology of the internet naturally gives it. -Hal
TV stations are TV stations first and foremost. A web can be a close second but no entity is a web station.
As I have said before, I am no longer in media, I am a teacher.
We were informed this week that the Newspapers in Education program with the Eagle (where classrooms are given newspapers) is dead as we know it.
Classroom teachers may now sign up to get the same newspaper on an internet edition. So for those classrooms that do have Internet connections, you can have a newspaper, those that don't... well too bad, the Eagle is cutting costs!
I am sad to hear the Newspapers in Education program as I had known it growing up has been stopped. It probably help develop me into the news addict I am Today. -Hal
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