By Michael DeLier
Just using network feed material in your television newscast can drive away viewers. If you have a news department, use those personnel to produce local news. That’s what you can sell, says DeLier Group President Mike DeLier ([email protected]) in this commentary for RBR+TVBR.
Network feeds, network feeds, and more network feeds. Each and every time a lazy news director needs to fill time they call for a network feed. You do realize that you are in the news business? You do realize that you have a staff, especially at the larger market stations.?
You do realize that your viewers are getting sick and tired of the same old stories, the same old delivery and in particular with FOX the same old file video, or should I say tape, maybe film; because some of it is so old it is hard to determine? Just watch FOX cable presentations. In many cases they are using the same old video from years ago.
When you pack your newscasts with this stuff you are driving away viewers. Simple, right? It should be, right? Just as the sales manager should require AE’s to go out and sell every day, news directors should require reporters to go out and find stories every day.
Take a national or international story and put a local spin on it. All of the best news people, regardless of what they tell their audience and each other, are not in New York. Far from it. If you like the field of journalism, became a journalist. That doesn’t just occur coming out of J school, nor with a job. It comes by hard work, effort, accountability. You decide who and what you want to be.
Far too many news directors anymore are just skating through the day trying to keep a job. Believe me, that attitude shows up in the newscasts.
Michael DeLier is president of The DeLier Group, a management consulting firm. Reach him at: [email protected].
