What if you could build a local television news operation from scratch? How closely would it resemble the typical newsroom of today — say the places where you’ve worked or work now? And how would it be different?
Cater Lee and Scott Warren, both veterans of the Los Angeles local TV news scene, got the chance to meet that challenge. “We had this once in a lifetime career opportunity to try something new with a blank canvas here at Spectrum,” said Lee. “And it’s been incredibly exciting.”
Cater Lee and Scott Warren.
The mandate from their bosses at Charter Communications: build a 24/7 hyper-local news operation that would be exclusive to Spectrum cable customers — an incentive to stay subscribed rather than cut the cord. “Hopefully we become that thing that makes you decide that your cable subscription every month is really a great value,” said Lee, who serves as VP of News and Content for the new venture, “because you get this local news that you don’t get anywhere else.”
Easier said than done. Los Angeles-area consumers are known for their relatively low news viewing, but that doesn’t mean they are under-served. Quite the opposite. There are multiple stations offering local news in English and Spanish, with long-standing reputations and well-known personalities. CBS’s KCBS/KCAL duopoly even started a 24/7 OTT streaming service recently, CBSN Los Angeles.
