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SOME NOISE IN EASTERN WA

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DaveNewton

Guest
A few months ago someone here observed, "Sure is quiet around here..."

OK...here's a little noise from Yakima.

Anybody notice? The Yakima-Tri-Cities TV stations are regionalizing us. It was a little covert until recently. Now the wraps are off, and they're even co-naming their big newscasts -- KAPP-KVEW - KNDO-KNDU - KIMA-...I can't think of the TC letters. Even the Fox local TV juke-machine does a full-bore 10PM newscast that looks impossible for Yakima -- smells like, maybe, the people are in, what, Spokane? Or are all these casts automated shuffles of "local" stories, lined up for each market and satellited from Spokane or Tri-Cities.

Maybe nobody cares...and maybe the "local" news product these fine folks tried to put out in Yakima was lame, but any place with more than 70,000 people makes some news, besides drive-bys, murders and fairs.

Yeah yeah, that's TV, so what?

Any radio people out there feel an itch? Here's my soapbox. First, radio guys, let's blow up the word "local". We have made it meaningless by assuming we were doing it. There's a hole in the Yakima market, and any other place served by licensed tower-distributed broadcasting technology. It's the truly loc....sorry, hometown broadcaster. The guy (or woman) who's unafraid to put on something--or somebody--that wouldn't play anyplace but here.

The one who can sell hometown merchants ads by producing traffic for their stores, by making his station a place everybody in town has to check in with every day. Can you name a station in Yakima that isn't so over-industrial-formatted or syndicated that it can create a truly hometown voice? If there is one, I haven't heard it.

Today, Clear Channel announced one of its big small-market spinoff deals with GAP Broadcasting, another bucket-o-stations accumulator, and they threw in their Yakima and Tri-Cities stations to, uh, sweeten the pot. Or snuck them in because they didn't have a good buyer. And so it goes. I bet the people working at those stations know how to do hometown radio...they live here. Well, those who aren't track-voices in Austin.

You may not think so, because nobody's done it lately, but I'm betting there are at least 50,000 people in Yakima who'd know and love a hometown radio station if they heard one.

What do you think?
 
It's REALLY far late from your original post, but some people on YouTube posted clips of the new newscasts online recently from the market.  I always though for the past couple years that KNDO/KNDU's newscasts we're already regionalized in Spokane, judging by the graphics, animation, voiceovers, and everything, which suspiciously looks from the get-go like KHQ's newscasts. 

Another one I saw on YouTube, was Fisher's KIMA/KEPR, which looks like they we're the more recent ones to be regionalized.  I don't really like how they annouce it, as it sounds like, "K-I-M-A---'Keeper' News", for KIMA/KEPR.  It just sounds weird and terrible announcing the first set of call letters by their letters, then pronouncing out the 2nd set of call letters as how they sound.   Even with the regionalizing, they should at least anounce it as announce it as "K-I-M-A---K-E-P-R  News" or "Kiima--Keeper news."  Whoever was in charge of putting together that voiceover, I don't know.  The logo for the newscast looks awlful too...

At least for Fisher's Eugene/Roseburg/Coos Bay market in Oregon (KVAL/KPIC/KCBY), they have a universal name for their regionalized newscast, as "Northwest News".  You'd think they'd have a better name for their Yakima/Tri-Cities regionalized newscast...
 
Too late for me to edit my last reply, but I have to correct myself..... The Fisher stations' newscast in the market are question is actualy called "K-I-M-A--'Keeper' Action news".  but the above should still apply.  It would sound alot better if they just called themselves just "Action News", or "K-I-M-A---K-E-P-R----Action News".  I do like their set though (The HDTV monitors behind the anchors), as it looks good for a small-market TV station.  But they need to work on their imaging a little bit more.  As for the anchors themselves and their delivery of the news........well, that's a small market station, and they are just starting out in their careers as well.   I'd expect the same from myself if I took journalisim in school and then went out to the smaller TV stations to start out my career...

One good exception would be Ted Dawson over at KIDK-TV 3 in Idaho Falls (another Fisher-owned station), who has an established on-air career all along the west coast, midwest, and at KABC-TV in Los Angeles.  He decided to move with his family to Idaho, and so he continuted his TV career up there at KIDK, although in a market that didn't have the pay or recognition he had in Los Angeles, but he still enjoys his job and doesn't care about the pay.  This is how broadcasting SHOULD be.  Not about the money, but about enjoying your job.
 
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