A great proportion of any show open tease will usually be dedicated to the lead story. Focusing on the stories of the day is admirable, but often times the lead story may not be your most promotable component. Do your best to provide unique and unexpected coverage of the big story of the day. However, if your lead story content is not unexpected, look for other stories to promote.
You always want to tease the best components of a show. Regardless of its location in the newscast, find the story that best wets the viewer’s appetite. Often times, that story may not be the lead. Great video, interesting VOs, consumer, and feature stories will sometimes be stronger, more promotable content. Many times, these very interesting stories are banished to the teases later in the show. A viewer watching the show open may never know these great story exist.
During my teasing workshops, producers will often tell me that their lead story isn’t really that interesting, but it is a noteworthy news event that requires teasing. They tell me it is "important but not really that interesting." When I suggest leaving it out of the tease, they tell me that viewers will just have to tough it out, because the story is "important real news."
The most common examples of these are on-going trials and investigations. The story’s noteworthy events have long since ended, and the story has settled into a stale rhythm. A few years ago, the governor of Louisiana was on trial. The story dragged on and on, featuring two full years of news stories. Each day the local news would tease "the latest in the Governor’s trial." Night after night of crying wolf quickly taught viewers to actively avoid this story. Nothing really happened in court most days, but the story was deemed "important," and therefore, must be the lead, and teased appropriately.
It is this kind of thinking that drove PBS programming to the staggeringly dismal ratings they enjoyed in the 80’s. The network was rife with shows that dealt with very important issues – shows that were absolutely unwatchable. Imagine if the major networks promoted entertainment shows this way. "I know this comedy isn’t funny, but I think it’s important that you watch it anyway." Remote controls have ended the days when we could hold an audience hostage, so we could give them a dull story that is "good for them." We are now judged moment by moment. If you wander into dull content, you will be zapped into oblivion. With trust in the media now hovering at 44% approval ratings, viewers make up their own minds about what is important. This kind of thinking is just plain old arrogant. There are lots of choices for news and anyone who tries to force feed content will lose.
If there truly is nothing teasable or interesting about a story, now is the time to ask yourself, "Why is this my lead story?" Do you need to move another story up to the first position? If you can’t find one teasable coverage point in the entire story, you have hit upon the quintessential definition of a story that is not news.
Graeme Newell is a broadcast and web marketing specialist. His teasing seminars immediately increase audience retention. He guarantees you will get an immediate ratings increase or his workshop is free. Find out more here.
