Mixed Reviews in Cleveland
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FTVLive was the FIRST to tell you that Tegna’s WKYC (Cleveland) was blowing up their newscasts, giving them stupid names and changing their graphics.
The local paper finally got around to covering the changes and talked to WKYC GM Micki Byrnes, who admits that the new plan from Tegna was a bit head scratching.
“I have to be honest. When we first started talking about the new names of our shows, I was like whoa,” said Byrnes in a phone interview. “We knew we had to do something to keep pace with the changing media landscape. Broadcasting still has a swath of the audience — we are still impactful and the audience trusts us. A challenge for producers of shows like ‘Go!’ (new name for 4 a.m. show) is they must keep it moving. It can’t be boring. When it’s ‘What Matters Most,’ the new name for the 6 p.m. broadcast, are you going to cover a warehouse fire where no one’s hurt? No. You want to fill that hole with something more important.”
It sounds like Byrnes had to drink a bit more kool-aid on this plan.
“People love weather. We hear it all time. We’re giving it to them throughout our shows,” says Adam Miller, director of content and a recent hire from the ‘Today Show,’ in a phone interview. We want to distinguish ourselves. One way will be with our look and feel. And the other is through content and messaging to the audience. ‘Go!,’ I think, tees up the ‘Today Show’ perfectly.”
Although this new venture is still fresh, there’s been mixed reactions among viewers. Some have complained about not being able to read parts of what’s on the screen.
“The frosting is all the new graphics you’re seeing. We need the cake to be better as far as our content goes. We are going to make mistakes, and it will take time to get it right,” says Byrnes.
It is here that I will point out that CBS’s highly rated 60 Minutes has no flying graphics, no comedian anchoring the news and no fancy music and it is still a ratings juggernaut.
It does this by doing top-notch Journalism with stories that matter and are interesting.
Maybe, Tegna should try that some time.
Just a thought.
