M:M No rehash

By Richard Thompson
Mediaverse: Memphis
(revised)

At 2701 Union Extended, old news is just that: old.

That’s the mantra at ABC24/CW30, where rehashing doesn’t make the old new – unless what you knew yesterday has somehow, someway become fresher this morning and then (and only then) is it worth mentioning.

Yet, some rehash is appropriate in order to mention how Eyewitness News Everywhere This Morning, the twin station’s new newscast, represents another move forward in the Clear Channel building.

Return to 1995, the year WPTY (Channel 24) switched affiliation from FOX to ABC and launched its first-ever newscast, one built from scratch. Then fast forward to 2002, by which time that newscast had become the perennial cellar dweller among the city’s four broadcast news operations. It was in need of wholesale changes.

That year, Jim Turpin returned home after 14 years of building solid news operations with high ratings elsewhere. Hired as news director with a mandate to make the news operation functional and then successful, Turpin promptly cleaned house at WPTY and its twin, WLMT (then UPN30, now CW30).

In 2003, on the cusp of Super Bowl XXXVII, Turpin told a newspaper media critic: "It's not just that people don't like us. They hate us. We've told people we're going to be really good and we haven't been." He was focused on revolution, not evolution. Change was effectively set in motion on the same evening that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Oakland Raiders 48-21 in the Super Bowl; the twin stations launched Eyewitness News Everywhere featuring new anchors, Cameron Harper and Dee Griffin.

Eyewitness News Everywhere has been growing ever since; though still fourth among local newscasts, it’s functional – and people notice. Last year, the Tennessee Associated Press Broadcasters named Eyewitness News the state’s best news operation.

Enter Eyewitness News Everywhere This Morning, built from scratch and has had little to no promotion so far – and that’s OK. All things come in time. This is more evidence of evolution within Turpin’s revolution at 2701.

“They’ve been saying we were going to get a morning show for some time,” said Bonny Kinney, 29, who co-anchors the Eyewitness News Everywhere This Morning with Terrance Bates, 33. Both are experienced reporter/anchors who were hired in 2003 with the understanding of having roles on a morning newscast. “I was surprised when we actually got it.”

The timing

“It didn’t take that long to develop the newscast. I submitted a plan for it to the company in late 2003,” said Turpin in an E-mail interview, explaining that in corporate environments things happen when it’s right for the company – in this case, Clear Channel Communications Inc.

The newscast aired on Oct. 16, 2006.

Coincidentally, that was just over two weeks after Turpin was named director of news and content for all of Clear Channel’s TV stations nationally. Also, a month after the show started, Clear Channel announced it was being acquired for $26.7 billion and separately planned to divest its entire Television Group, including the twin stations. Yet, these are just footnotes; for now, neither event is expected to affect news operations in Memphis or elsewhere. The Clear Channel station in Tulsa, OK launched a morning (and noon) newscast in 2006 too.

With newscasts at 11 a.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. on ABC24 and 9 p.m. on CW30, why add another that runs from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m. on ABC24 then switches without skipping a beat to CW30 where it ends at 8 a.m.? Business is good, that’s why.

According to Turpin and other industry observers, more viewers apparently are choosing to watch morning news instead of reading it in the newspaper. Though the competition is fierce, producing a morning newscast is cheaper than syndicated programming and the gains from local advertising make it cost effective. Turpin declined to say how much Clear Channel is investing in Eyewitness News Everywhere This Morning, but morning news is the twin stations’ “biggest area of potential for future growth.”

And the growth might have been tapped sooner if not for some technical glitches that delayed the newscast’s launch a couple of months.

Eyewitness News Everywhere This Morning utilizes a virtual set. It’s all chroma-key, computer-generated graphics and automation, except for the talent, the news desk and the weather center where the meteorologist sometimes takes a cue. There are cameras but no human operators. There’s only a floor director—the position rotates among the newscast’s three directors—to remind Bates, Kinney, meteorologist Mark Walden and traffic reporter Joey Hadley where to direct their gazes among other responsibilities.

Without saying, automation creates its own share of challenges. “Basically, [the cameras] are robots and sometimes, the robots would rebel,” said Kinney. Not to mention, as one local media observer notes, the chroma-key background can look “low budget,” not necessarily flattering at times to Kinney or Bates.

Technical adjustments are ongoing. The control room, for instance, is being remodeled.

“As soon as we get the technical product as clean as we'd like, we'll start promoting [the show],” said Turpin. “We certainly have the right people involved.”



The team

Of the newscast’s key figures, Walden, 32, has the longest tenure at the station; he joined in 1999. (Walden was on vacation when Mediaverse:Memphis visited on Jan 3; Henry Rothenberg filled in.) At 55, Hadley is the oldest; the former professional boxer and longtime Memphis traffic reporter basically came off a 2 ½ year hiatus from TV to work for the morning newscast. He brought his eccentric shirts too. (“I’m just happy to be on TV,” Hadley said.) Reporters Bryan Heap and Tennika Smith joined the station in 2006.

Combined, they all share a deep sense of history about the morning newscast’s prospects.

“There are so many people associated with the newscast,” Walden said. “Yet I can't remember working in a more functional setting. I believe that comes from a common goal to provide a quality newscast every newscast.”

“It’s a great opportunity, not just for Bonny and me, but the entire morning staff,” said Bates, 33, who is anchoring a morning newscast full-time for the first time like Kinney. “We get to make an identity that the show is going to be known for. It’s a huge responsibility. You’re often judged by first impressions so we have to be on our game everyday.”

First impression: Bates and Kinney seem like an odd pairing.

He’s ACC (a University of Maryland grad); she’s SEC (University of Kentucky grad.) He’s Chicago-born but grew up in Germany; his parents moved there as part of the Department of Defense school system. He grew up near military bases. Kinney grew up in Park Hills, Ky., a suburb south of Cincinnati. Both have different styles, which again—on first impression—Bates appears to be the more confrontational of the two.

He’s the big body behind Eyewitness News’s Renters’ Rights segments, where he often has to stand his ground between angry landlords and upset tenants. He is also the man that Memphis Mayor Willie Herenton, speaking into a gaggle of microphones, said he doesn’t respect as a journalist. Granted, that was a year ago, but even the station can’t pass up that kind of notoriety, splicing that slight into its own newscast promos.

When reminded of this, Bates becomes philosophical. “I don’t think people could ever say that I’ve ever been disrespectful, but I do ask questions,” he said. For context, Herenton’s name surfaced in a federal corruption investigation of former Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell; Bates asked Herenton if he had ever accepted money in exchange for his influence and that led to the mayor’s response.

“That’s my job: I ask questions. And if I’m doing my job well, then I’m asking questions that anyone in the public would ask. I’m the people’s champ,” he says, jokingly, but quickly recomposing himself. “I’m just a regular joe who tries to stay informed.”



Kinney added about her co-anchor: “I think Terrance is confrontational in a good way. As different as we may be, we have a good chemistry together and we can respect each other’s style.”

Her style is meticulous. For instance, she starts prepping for 5 a.m. newscast at noon the day before. That’s when Kinney, married to Fox13’s Curtis Jay, goes home walks their dogs—a Siberian Husky, named Samson, and a Pitbull mix, named Polly—before settling down for a nearly two hour nap. Then she sets everything out: pre-made coffee, lunch, her underwear – every detail. She’s in bed by 8 p.m. sharp.

“When you wake up at 2 in the morning, you can’t think,” she laughs. “Besides, my husband is still asleep.”

Chemistry

At 3 a.m., a sense of humor is like warm coffee. The laughs keep you going, even if they solicit a call from your mother during a commercial break. That’s what happened to Rothenberg, who is single but involved, after Bates mentioned on air that the 24-year-old had a “new friend;” Mom wanted to know who she was. Rothenberg took it in stride: “There’s no way you can be serious for three hours.”

Another moment of fun: Kinney is reading a weather tease in which the graphic features a computer-generated blond girl in a pink coat and jeans that supposed to be a “mini-me” as Kinney calls it. (Bates has a “mini-me” too.)

After Kinney finished reading, Bates, a snappy dresser himself, wondered aloud about that mini-me’s fashion sense: “Are those Jordache?”
“I think so,” Kinney replied, adding a bit of flair. “I’m stylish.”
They shared a laugh and moved on.

It’s the kind of shtick that the two were able to hone over months of anchoring the weekend newscasts before Eyewitness News Everywhere This Morning began. That’s when their chemistry became apparent, Turpin said.

“They are also both very accomplished professionals with a lot of experience, and I thought we needed experience on the morning news set,” he added.



The newscast

To Turpin, experience is just one component of the morning news cast.

“Morning news should be about what’s happened overnight, what’s happening right now, and what’s going to happen that day. It’s not about what’s already over and done with,” said Turpin. “Many other stations around the country and in Memphis simply regurgitate old news in the morning and at midday. We don’t do that, and we’ve put an extra reporter/photographer crew on the streets in the morning to ensure we’re reporting on what’s new. After all, it’s called ‘news’ and not ‘olds’ for a reason.”

Adds Walden: “What distinguishes The Morning Team from other morning shows is the way that we hustle after and report ‘new’ stories each morning.”

That’s their calling card: no rehash. The process begins two hours before the 5 a.m. newscast. While Bates and Kinney write/read scripts and make cop checks, the producers and reporters huddle to discuss new angles on stories that the public will want to know about that day. They scour the Internet and news wires for the updated news, the offbeat and international stories.

“Part of the challenge is coming up with things that are different,” said Tonya J. Powers, the midday producer who often helps out the morning team. “These are the stories that you missed when you were sleep. It’s also what are people still talking about.”

And it’s not all hard news. “I really believe that in the morning people really don’t want to be hit with the hard stuff,” said Hadley. “They kind of want it to be light. They kind of want to be entertained to a point.”

Hadley adds a bit of entertainment with his shirt collection. “I go to different stores around town and I look for the absolutely wildest, loudest and in some cases, the ugliest shirts that I can find. Something that will just catch people’s attention and wake them up in the morning,” said Hadley, wearing white shirt with atrocious tan, brown and orange circles on it. “And it’s just kind of fun.”



Watch the newscast long enough and the subtle differences come to light as the morning progresses from hour to hour.

“At 5 and 6, they (the viewers) are really just listening,” said producer Tolleah Price, adding that the newscast is the background music that parents, for instance, hear as they get the kids ready for school.

By 7 a.m., Price said, the kids are off and parents have more time to watch, which means the live shots are longer.

And by that time, the newscast has also made an effortless switch from ABC to CW. “It’s like talking to people for the first time again,” said Kinney, adding that there is very little crossover between the viewers of ABC24 and CW30.

The numbers

People are watching, not as many compared to WREG’s News Channel 3 Daybreak or Fox13’s Good Morning Memphis, but there are enough to make Turpin happy.

“We’re already doing a ‘two’ household rating which, for a new program, is not too shabby. We expect it to be competitive, ratings-wise, in a couple of years,” said Turpin earlier this month. The household rating represents the percentage of all available persons in the Memphis market watching TV at any given time period.

Memphis is the nation’s 44th largest TV market with 664,380 TV households.

Turpin added: “Memphis is the most habit-driven viewing market in America, and it takes people a long time to try something new even if it’s more creative, better, and more interesting. Memphians know what they’re comfortable with and it takes a long time to get them to try new things. We think we have the best reporters, anchors, and producers in the market, and we’re confident that, when we start telling people we’re there, they’ll start watching.”