"The Early Bird Gets the Worm"
I'm not a big fan of worms, but I am a news junkie and local news outlets are realizing that more and more of us are waking up early. I just read an article in TVSpy (A fave among those in broadcast journalism) about several news outlets expanding their morning news to 4:30am starts. One station moved up its start time to 4:25. Here in Denver, KUSA 9News recently expanded their morning block to a 4:30am start.
As a bit of history, it wasn't long ago that local stations just programmed "cut-ins" at 25 minutes past the hour during shows like Today. A headline or two and weather. It used to be enough. Not anymore.
We're a society that is getting up, and going to bed earlier. For those in the business of news, it's the the morning broadcast that's the career destination of first choice. Here in Denver, the focus in the 4:30 half-hour is headlines but really on business, weather and traffic. The target demographic is obvious. Professionals looking for what's new before heading out to a work-out or early start to the business day. There's also a chunk of the population who are shift workers, and the 4:30am broadcast is their version of the 5pm news.
Having been a morning show Executive Producer, the hours for those producing early news are killer. My lead producer showed up for work at 11pm the night before to get the "hand-off" from the late news team. Writers and associate producers showed up about 1:30am with me coming in around 2:30. Yes, the news anchors play an active role in the production of the newscast. They arrive plenty early and contribute to the writing and editing.
Many local news outlets are producing as much as 50-55 hours a week of news along with their station websites and social media pages. All these pipelines are voracious for content which is good news for those of us in the PR Business. It still has to be meaningful content, but if you want placement for a client, morning news is where you make your pitch.
Morning news is fueled by coffee and comfortable anchor chairs. (And frequent scheduled trips to the bathroom) Sitting on the set for as long as four hours is hard work.
Regardless of what time we watch, as for me, I'm also going online for news via iPad or laptop. Sometimes I have the TV on split screen. There are lots of pipelines, and local news is embracing them and competing for the eyeballs that use them. Regardless of time.
Brian Olson
Conversation Starters Public Relations
"We start the conversation about you"
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