TV News Fails
Television News can learn from newspapers. Decades ago there were cracks in Newspaper’s dominance fueled by Cable TV and the web. Instead of acting on those cracks, they were in denial assuming their greatness could never be diminished. Fast forwarding to the 21st Century, there’s panic and massive change all at once due in failure to address the problems early on. TV News potentially shares the same scenario. Many will likely be sitting around in 2030 wishing they had addressed the issues aggressively instead of hoping that “tweaks, new furniture and another research project” thinking will solve the issues facing TV news in 2020. The solutions are not difficult but are undermined by a denial focused life within the walled-in TV World instead of looking at the big media picture and is aggressively pointed to the new future. What an opportunity. The entire TV Industry seems to be on creative autopilot opting for a new set, a new anchor or some triple Doppler radar as their answer. That isn’t it. And don’t blame the web. TV’s are in literally every home, and devices in every hand with sound and picture quality improving every year and the opportunity to stimulate eyes, ears and minds has never had more potential. We’re living in an era of epic, and TV News is stuck in some mid 80’s focus group time warp.
However—-If a news presentation is number one and making a lot of money, then of course radical change is probably a bit dangerous—If not, the answers are in having the courage and intellect to make some dramatic changes in thinking, content culture, M.O and actions—that of course defines…something legacy media doesn’t get—if they DID, you’d be seeing radical evolution in the content, not only in the digital delivery systems.
The solutions are deep, though there are a few key areas that, if addressed and executed on, can lead to a positive revolution in News that will change the game. Just a top level and over simplified look at some of those regions of change:
-Modern story telling. Most TV news is one dimensional. Anchors handing it over to reporters standing in front of a scene cluttered with hyperbole and hype.. Imagine using every imaginable resource to tell a story: Raw footage, Retro, viral, natural sound, music, UGC, cerebral writing—It would be a tour de force of video/audio magic.
-Inspiration. There’s more inspired content on YouTube than legacy media could even dream of. Stop looking at Tue current state of TV from a content/creative viewpoint. If you want to to aggressively re-invent, reference to old media is toxic.
-Save it for the web. Too often brilliant content ends up on the stations website instead of the core channel. . Noticed this in print—tons of innovation on websites, but to innovate on the print side was messing with something sacred. Same applies to TV.
-THE BS factor. Maybe it worked in the 80’s, but Best, First, On It, Off it, We Believe in you is just not going to cut through. People’s BS radar is set on high to try to slogan your way out of trouble. Ya just slogan your way deeper into the bullshit
-The Sameness. Is there an FCC Law that states every station needs a desk…a standard weatherperson, a cadence, a style that EVERY station uses? It’s material for parody. The entire “rulebook” is dated, tired and keeps stations anchored to the past ( see below for examples )
-Over production. Usually pompous, slick and reeking of some New York agency than the streets of the community. An anywhere USA packaged feel
-Celebrating fake. Weather it’s fake syrupy sincerity, a fake skyline behind the set, a bad toupee or whatever, the fakeness and plasticity is self defeating
-The Barbie & Ken factor. Mattel has introduced a Barbie News Reporter. OK—cuteness is fine and can be effective, but it’s way over rated, as are big booming voices. Very 80’s. When some watch Fox because the girls are hotter…ya gotta think that while effective for them, it ain’t the future.
-Screen clutter. A reporter standing in front of a 7/11 that was robbed 12 hours earlier. Even Beautiful photography is framed by TV “stuff” – TV’s present photos better than your computer, yet photography is hidden by anchors, text, graphics, screaming experts or just about anything that clutters what’s really important: The picture.
-TV Sound. News themes that electronically mimic a percussive teletype or Bruce Lee swooshes between every photo.
-TV ization. A disease where every idea goes through the TV Production filter and ends up more of the same
-Balance. The structure of TV Newsrooms hasn’t changed in decades, but the world has. News operations need to be re thought for 2020 and that includes liberating creatives instead of keeping them tied to the tired TV News playbook
-Celebrating shallowness. Dumbing down by design. I always felt that on one hand newspapers believed in this holy Religion of elite journalism while TV operated on the other side of the spectrum. The middle ground is a zone of mass appeal intelligence that TV sorely misses the target on.
-Story selection. In the era of social, the story selection criteria is dated. The blind leading the blind. Nothing is more important than the TOPICS and they’re often out of sync with the buzz of the community they serve.
-Ball-less. Fox at least has the balls to speak their mind
-Wording:
*The “tell”—Don’t forget…Be sure to…Don’t miss…Do you think ANYone takes that 50’s rooted hype seriously?
*The “duh” factor—We’ll be right back…The 10pm news in ON….Back to you Bob… Oh! I thought you were signing off!
*Brutal murderers and heinous crimes…Better than good murders and nice crimes I suppose.
and of course Head bobbing is A high art on camera
-Tricks– The insane conference room excuse thinking that Ratings are down because of:
Promo placement
The weather runs too early on the clock
Slow news day
…heard them all, but in most cases its because the news program itself is stuck in 1985.
-Intellectual scale. If 1 is Jerry Springer and 10 is PBS, where are you? There’s no right answer other than defining and living to that point on the scale.
-Some Anchors that look like Angry executives. They’re the bad guys, why do so many presenters TRY to look out of sync with the pulse of America.
-Cliche buzzer. Build one. Three cliches and you’re fired. We did that at XM and eliminated hundreds of cliches from “10th Caller wins” to ‘Big puking voices telling you how hard we rocked”
…TV News makes radio look cliche free by comparison.
-Incremental change will not work. Gotta blow it up to get noticed. Tweaking or minor changes will not get noticed beyond the conference room.
Some of the cliches in Local News include:
*All the newscasters look the same.
Often Mature looking anchor with Female sidekick…jocky Sports guy…eccentric weather person….or “meteorologist” (we used to have ‘meteorologists’ on stations I consulted…of course they knew nothing about meteors or weather, but what the hell….)
*All the slogans are the same. Eyewitness, Action, Leader, etc…
*There sure are a lot of fires and shootings
*All the “intro music” is the same bombastic percussive audio nonsense
*The “format” of the newscasts is all the same.
*All their websites look the same. Color content, look and layout
*The banter is annoying and cloying and soooooo fake.
*The wording is Journalism 101—which becomes more dated by the day.
*All the sets look the same.
*They’re not quite looking at you (teleprompter). Its that Stevie Wonder look (in all due respect to the great Stevie)
*Everyone is too damn happy…OR syrupy sad
*Everyone is too damn clean cut and “TV” looking. A parody of itself.
*News people try SO hard to be “loose” that they come off uptight.
*The jokey back and forth ISN’T funny…it’s stupid.
*They tell you about a weather emergency then make you wait 20 minutes
*The weather emergency really is no big deal after all.
*…and of course it’s called “Stormtracker.”
*There is ONE point of view. Vanilla.
*There’s this standard timbre and style that everyone has.
*You can just smell the focus groups
*Everything is colored blue. Must “test” well.
*It’s so “formatted” it’s surreal.
*There’s an arms race with snappy hi-tech weather graphics.
Ok, rant over. My point is that we are in the new Information Age and it’s never more important than to embrace it—- As we are also in the emerging Innovation Age. Innovate Information.