Multimedia Minutes: What the Most Successful News Operations have in Common
“What do stations propelling their ratings have in common?” The head of a group of TV stations recently asked me that question.
Although markets and challenges are different, one of the things they have in common is clear goals. In going through my files, I pulled the example below of clear goals that I helped one station develop based on the research.
HOW CLEAR ARE YOUR GOALS?
Our experience shows, the best approach is to:
– Focus on what’s most important to driving your ratings based on what you know about your viewers.
– Keep the list to half a dozen calls to make it practical.
– Contrast the old and new way.
– Outline the “success path” to achieve the goals because they won’t happen on their own.
– Identify the obstacles, which usually include “Don’t have enough time.” Provide practical solutions.
Here’s the example of the goals, which I recommend you review and adapt based on your action plan.
You’ll notice the reference to “Watch any of our newscasts, and you’ll see…” That’s because consistency is so important. You can’t tell viewers “You watched the wrong newscast!”
This entry was posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 11:26 am and is filed under broadcast journalism, Multimedia Journalism, Power Tools for TV Journalists, TV news training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.