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radio vs. TV news

B

bobdavcav

Question, why can't radio run the in-depth coverage that TV does? Seems as if you should be able to fit in sports and money into a schedule with that kind of coverage. Here's a typical hour on KOMO,
Top and bottom of the hour, ABC news. On weekends and overnights after 9 at the top of the hour, they run the full 4 minute report, otherwise just the first half. Then they run local news. During the day, they run 2 or 3 stories, then a trafic and weather report, then more news. Weekends they just go from ABC to traffic and weather then news. At 9 and 39 it's a commercial break for a minute then sports at 10 and 40, then another commercial break, then a summary of what they covered 10 minutes ago, another trafic and weather report, another commercial break, then it could be any one of a number of types of stories, sometimes political analysis, sometimes a water cooler story, then money at 20 and 50, another break, then another water cooler story, another trafic and weather report, another break, then either entertainment news, a consumer tip, or a commentary to round out the schedule, after which comes yet another commercial break before the schedule repeats. Sometimes the stories seem really repetative, but I don't ever notice this with TV. Why can't radio do this?
 
All-News radio owned by CBS, Cumulus and Hubbard are headline services. All-news radio is designed for people who are stuck in Traffic who want quick Local updates and traffic. Look at WINS-AM in NYC they have the slogan "You give us 22 Minutes we give you the World" thats the gold standard that every all-news radio with local content follow by. Although ARNN pushes a political agenda in its news content.

If you want investigative reporting on radio listen to your NPR affiliate. If your area does not have NPR listen to NPR via KQED-FM website.
 
So another question, is NPR trying to target the same audience as the TV newscasts? I've never been a huge fan of NPR, but I do like the way the local TV stations do news coverage.
 
What "TV news" are you talking about? Local TV news, or the cable news channels? Because I don't see a lot of "in depth" reporting on local TV news. If it bleeds, it leads.
 
TheBigA said:
What "TV news" are you talking about? Local TV news, or the cable news channels? Because I don't see a lot of "in depth" reporting on local TV news. If it bleeds, it leads.
Click to expand...

OK Cable News Channels is basically you must knee-jerk to fit a political agenda. For local TV news that varies by market. But if its PBS News Hour or BBC News then you get more objective reporting.
 
bobdavcav said:
So another question, is NPR trying to target the same audience as the TV newscasts? I've never been a huge fan of NPR, but I do like the way the local TV stations do news coverage.
Click to expand...

What don't you like about local news? The segments are too short?
 
Lucha Libre AAA said:
bobdavcav said:
So another question, is NPR trying to target the same audience as the TV newscasts? I've never been a huge fan of NPR, but I do like the way the local TV stations do news coverage.
Click to expand...

What don't you like about local news? The segments are too short?
Click to expand...
You got it. My parents were watching the local news one night, and they were talking about the first storm of the fall, and they had a reporter in the field that they went to for about the average length of a story on TV. Not only did the sister all-news radio station not use the report from the TV side, but aside from the weather reports every 10 minutes with trafic, no mention was made of the weather at all.
 
By and large, radio is a passive medium. In other words, you're listening to the radio while your doing something else. So radio news is designed to be brief and to the point. It's also far more immediate, which is its biggest strength.

NPR is the exception because its audience expects more in-depth and longer reports. In fact, NPR encourages longer material and the use of bigger words.

But if you're doing a newscast on a Talk station that gives you 2:30 for top-of-the hour news (gotta have a commercial or two and traffic + weather), you need to keep the reports brief so you can have more than one or two stories in the newscast. Similarly, if you're an All-News station, most of your listeners are listening on their way to or from work. They want the headlines and the quick weather and traffic. 22 minutes is about right. By then you've lost some listeners who are now at work, and gained a few more that just got in the car and haven't heard the radio yet. There's no point to long-form stories on weekdays, at least. weekends - maybe.

TV is an active medium. You sit down to watch the TV and pay attention to it for the most part. Having pictures helps keep people's attention, so you can have longer stories. But even then, a "long" story on a local TV newscast would be anywhere from 1:30 - 2:00 minutes. Any longer and you probably bore the audience.

Re
 
Thanks Buster, interesting explanation! One more question, I understand the 22 minutes concept, and I can see that in KOMO. However, why not repeat the same stories at the top and bottom of the hour to account for the audience turnover? If I tune into KOMO at 20 past the hour, I will generally listen until 20 past the next hour because I don't feel like I'm completely up to date until I hear the entire hour. I also don't quite understand the promo they run saying "check in 4, 5, 6 times today." At least in my opinion, even if I do only listen for half an hour at a shot, I find the coverage gets really repetative after a while.
 
It depends on the news of the day. For example, Hurricane Sandy was the clear lead story on October 29th, and remains so as I write this on Oct. 30th. Newscasts would lead with it unless something as big or much larger (ie, a devastating plane crash, or death of a major figure) occurred; and even then the leads might alternate. Otherwise, listeners will find it very odd that you're not leading with the obvious story (unless, say... the Pope just abdicated 5 minutes ago, and then that would be the lead). You get the idea...

On days when there is no obvious lead, it makes sense to change things up, if you can.

Stations like the one you mentioned ask you to come back a few times a day mostly to build their ratings. All-News stations (as opposed to Talk or music) tend to have low Time Spent Listening, but a high Cume. Asking an audience that only listens for 10-25 minutes at a time to come back every few hours to see what new events have transpired during the day, helps build their ratings because it raises the number of people listening at any give time. Sales people love high Cume. Time Spent Listening can be sold effectively, too....
 
I learned the hard way during an extended power outage that here in Pittsburgh there
basically is NO radio news.

At least not after dinner time. The local All-News station sends the staff home at 6 and
runs syndicated talk and Old Tyme Radio shows all evening. Only KDKA has a brief
top-of-the-hour local newsbreak during evening hours, and then only till 11PM.

If something big is going down locally and it is later than that you're on your own.
 
Very common these days. For the bean-counters who run things anymore, it doesn't make sense to pay for a staffed newsroom after PM drive ends. So few people listen to talk radio after 7 PM, and that's true most everywhere except perhaps in the top 5 markets.
 
buster2 said:
For the bean-counters who run things anymore, it doesn't make sense to pay for a staffed newsroom after PM drive ends.
Click to expand...

Has nothing to do with bean counters. When I was at a non-commercial station, we only did news in drive time. That's the only time it really matters.

The all-news stations in the Top 5 markets you mentioned are run by bean counters.
 
If you want indepth news daily, two choices: On radio: NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. On TV: PBS News Hour.
 
http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/cnn-nonfiction-programming-changes/

Wasn't CNN Headline News before 2005-2006 supposed to be the national equivalent of old all-News 980 KFWB and 1010 WINS they followed the "You give us 22 Minutes we give you the World". I remember HLN used to follow the Group W format of All-news but in their case on Cable TV Screens. I know in 2005-2006 Nancy Grace and Glenn Beck were hired to do talk shows there. I know once Glenn Beck moved to do the conspiracy show on Fox News. KCAL9 News LA anchor Jane Velez-Mitchell took his place.

Once Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell came into play it became TMZ on TV.
 
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