Posted: Apr 22, 2010 11:52 AM
Updated: Apr 22, 2010 11:59 AM
This article was originally posted at TVNewsCheck.com.
RTNDA@NAB
Yes, There's A Future For Broadcast News
By Andrew Krukowski
TVNewsCheck, Apr 13 2010, 11:44 AM ET
Even with reduced newsrooms, dwindling ratings and lessening ad dollars, broadcast news executives from differing backgrounds, including the business, online and newsroom arenas, are bullish about the future of broadcast news, a future that involves past fundamentals.
Speaking at an RTNDA@NAB 2010 panel entitled "The Future of Broadcast News: Different Paths, Different Demands," Brian Bracco, VP of news, Hearst Television, emphatically said that local broadcast journalism is strong, relevant and going to be around for "a long, long time."
The major change, he said, is the immediacy that is placed on news, as evolving viewers demand more and more of their local news.
"Right now, our broadcast deadline is right now," Bracco said.
Panelists, including Jerry Gumbert, CEO, Audience Research & Development, agreed with Bracco's sentiments.
Gumbert said despite feeling positive about the future of broadcast news, the consumer is way ahead of news organizations, and broadcast news will need a couple of years to try to catch up to reach them completely.
That catch-up game has resource-strapped newsrooms trying different things to produce as much tailored content as they can to capture a diverse audience.
Raycom CEO Paul McTear said the future of broadcast news is going to be in a hyperlocal online presence, as newspaper beat reporters fall by the wayside, touting Raycom's upcoming neighborhood-focused news websites.
Citizen journalists who report on happenings in their neighborhoods were also discussed, but a general fear crept through the panel of how unrefined and unchecked user footage could damage a broadcast brand through faulty reporting.
YouTube head of news and politics Steve Grove said his company isn't in the business of vetting the millions of hours of footage that are uploaded to the site. But, he said, the online community does a fair job of policing itself, along with providing news organizations tools to wade through the clips.
Bob Horner, president, NBC News Channel, said he worries that broadcast news is going to drown in a sea of information, adding that technology isn't helping viewers find what the news means to them.
Horner said newsrooms have bottomed out with their budgeting and said he believes it's time to reinvest slowly in content that isn't going to be found anywhere else on the air.
"We can't slip anymore than we have in the world of content," he said.
Panelists, like CBS News Radio VP Harvey Nagler, agreed. Content, Nagler said, is going to be the saving grace that will preserve broadcast news.
Content, the panel suggested, could go as far as to grab the ever-elusive young broadcast news viewer, be it online or over the air.
Gumbert said people will actively seek out great content, making content the most important thing for a news organization to consider.
He said the 6 o'clock news is no longer sacred in the information it provides, as breaking news is automatically posted and distributed over the Internet and airwaves as soon as it happens. This, he said, will force news programs to reinvent themselves in order to stay alive.
He added that the time is right to dig in to deeper, in-depth journalism to bolster a news organization's brand into something that can't be obtained anywhere else.
Horner said the uncertainty of the broadcast news space is putting journalists on the verge of "the golden age of the journalism entrepreneur."
Comparing it to broadcasters figuring out how new media will work with their product, "it feels like a bunch of caveman around a fire trying to figure it out," Grove said.
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