Modern News Promos?

[Eric Wotila]

Well, I'm in charge of a new news program on our local access station. (I just finished the website--channel2news.org.)

We've gotten the funding to air some promos on CNN (locally only, of course), but I'm at a loss for the campaign. Being up here in northern Michigan, the only news station with any halfway decent promos is the news leader (9&10), but all their promos do are brag about their huge news team (which, of course, doesn't work for us).

I'm looking for a place online where I could view local news promos from different markets--I've found some sites with old (i.e. 70s and 80s) promos, but does anyone know of a site with more modern promos?

Thanks for any advice! One last thing--if anyone has an idea for a promo campaign that they're willing to share, I'd appreciate it! (FYI--we're on Channel 2 via cable, and are the area's only 4:00 news program. Also, we're the only high school students running a news program. Check out the piece we have online--http://www.channel2news.org/videovi...heon-062405.mov. I did the open, and Evan did the report.)

[Peter Wiley]

Your link is not working and cutting and pasting the address won't work because of the . . . in the middle.

[Eric Wotila]

Originally Posted by Peter Wiley

Your link is not working and cutting and pasting the address won't work because of the . . . in the middle.

Sorry about that!

Try visiting http://www.channel2news.org/videovie...eon-062405.mov

[Peter Wiley]

I think your piece was great, good work.

As to your promo, I would think about two themes:

1) You are providing "community news", that is, important news that the local commerical station won't provide because they are too busy focusing on what is commercial. Maybe you can tkae more time with certain kinds of stories thay the commerical guys can.

2) Along the same line, you can say that you are providing news from the point of view of area youth and this is a unique and under represented point of view.

You can't go toe-to-toe with the commercial stations so why try? Think about what is (or could be) special about your broadcasts and news coverage.

[Eric Wotila]

Originally Posted by Peter Wiley

I think your piece was great, good work.

As to your promo, I would think about two themes:

1) You are providing "community news", that is, important news that the local commerical station won't provide because they are too busy focusing on what is commercial. Maybe you can tkae more time with certain kinds of stories thay the commerical guys can.

2) Along the same line, you can say that you are providing news from the point of view of area youth and this is a unique and under represented point of view.

You can't go toe-to-toe with the commercial stations so why try? Think about what is (or could be) special about your broadcasts and news coverage.

Great minds think alike!

The campaign I came up with is focuses on the fact that we're average high school students, members of the community, putting together news about the community.

"News by the Cadillac community, for the Cadillac community."

That also works well because we air on CCTV--Cadillac Community Television, so it all ties in with the station.

I'll try to post the finished promos here soon!

[Eric Wotila]

Here's the promos we shot... we may shoot another, as well.

We showed the promos to a few people around town, and they seemed to think they were good. (And DEFINATELY a lot better than most local ads that run over Charter!)

Obviously, the "Sponsor tag" at the end will be replaced with a "Channel 2 News is brought to you by..." message.

http://www.channel2news.org/media/evanpromo.mov
http://www.channel2news.org/media/ericpromo.mov

[Brian Handler]

Ironic, I am operations manager for a station out of Kent Oh called Tv2.

I have some tv2 news promos I could try and get uploaded for you sometime, I think we have them web archived.

We have all our news shows streamed and archived online but it would kinda suck to watch our entire news broadcast just to see the one or two promos we have during the show.

Our production team is somewhat crappy, but with their operations budget I can't complain. I think I spend too much of our money on mics that people keep stealing...god don't get me started.

Anyways heres a link to the show archives if you're so inclined to see what were doing. It is a similar market and we have county-wide reach but we're starting to get penetration in the Cleveland market...which is over saturated by sensationalism and poor journalism...so we are making some leeway.

http://www.tv2.kent.edu/asp/tv2_archive_page.asp

I recommend watching a 6:30 as they are the veteran cast that gets live air play. (5:30 gets on campus live with a 2 hour delay on cable)

[Eric Wotila]

Originally Posted by Brian Handler

Ironic, I am operations manager for a station out of Kent Oh called Tv2.

I have some tv2 news promos I could try and get uploaded for you sometime, I think we have them web archived.

We have all our news shows streamed and archived online but it would kinda suck to watch our entire news broadcast just to see the one or two promos we have during the show.

Our production team is somewhat crappy, but with their operations budget I can't complain. I think I spend too much of our money on mics that people keep stealing...god don't get me started.

Anyways heres a link to the show archives if you're so inclined to see what were doing. It is a similar market and we have county-wide reach but we're starting to get penetration in the Cleveland market...which is over saturated by sensationalism and poor journalism...so we are making some leeway.

http://www.tv2.kent.edu/asp/tv2_archive_page.asp

I recommend watching a 6:30 as they are the veteran cast that gets live air play. (5:30 gets on campus live with a 2 hour delay on cable)

Excellent newscast! Keep up the good work!

I take it that this newscast is done by college students? They do an excellent job! I'll keep an eye on your site.

[Brian Handler]

Yeah it's all out of Kent State University.

I must admit their daily is pretty good, but I see all the dumb stuff that goes on. I know it can be much better but we run a low budget and our field reporters barely know how to use a camera since all they have on their mind is being an anchor. I appreciate the compliments though, our current GM has definitely worked her butt off to bring the level of professionalism up.

Once we move into our new all digital HD studio (omg it is sweet) I think the difference in production quality will really help us expand our market.

We do win awards from NAB and BEA every year so we must be doing something right.

[Eric Wotila]

Originally Posted by Brian Handler

Yeah it's all out of Kent State University.

I must admit their daily is pretty good, but I see all the dumb stuff that goes on. I know it can be much better but we run a low budget and our field reporters barely know how to use a camera since all they have on their mind is being an anchor. I appreciate the compliments though, our current GM has definitely worked her butt off to bring the level of professionalism up.

Once we move into our new all digital HD studio (omg it is sweet) I think the difference in production quality will really help us expand our market.

We do win awards from NAB and BEA every year so we must be doing something right.

Wait a second--you're a college and have an HD studio!?!

Our news leader (9&10 News, the CBS affiliate) doesn't even have local HD capabilities!

What market are you in? How'd you pull off the HD setup?

I'll be watching your site! Keep up the good work, and I'd love to hear how this whole HD setup came about! Are you going to do HD ENG? HD newscasts?

Once again--amazing! Good job! Keep up the good work!

[Brian Handler]

We've been using the same studio since 1954...and the last time we upgraded our master control or switching station was at least 20 years ago.

They gave us a new building, renovated it hardcore, and put in this state of the art studio. It costs the school something like 20 million, most of which was secured from state budgeting.

The digital studio has been designed over about 20 times. Before we were going to get two full sized studio and a half studio random crap. Now were down to the big studio (which should be enough for 1.5 news sets, an interview set, a real wide greenscreen, and at least one rotating stage set) and the a smaller one with just chroma green walls.

All of cleveland is broadcasting in HD from what I know. We used a designer from our NBC affiliate to assist in the design of the new studio. (They just built one of the most amazing up-to-date studios in the nation) I think he was the one who pushed HD. It's smart for us to do, acedmia needs to stay in touch with the real world.

I must reassure you though, my information sources are somewhat limited so the final techinical aspects won't be done until they invite me back as an alumni to see the sweet stuff I never got to play with.

Chances are that our cameras will be prosumer HD field cameras on studio mounts. It's fine for us. At least our students will learn how fun it is to light and makeup an HD set hahahaha. I hope they have fun with that. I think our big money went into a state of the art switcher, a realtime video server and all new studio monitors.

I have a feeling come 2006 we won't be all the way ready for HD broadcasts but we'll have a really good base.

Our news will likely be the only thing that ever gets put on the air in HD. Everything else is live to tape or just recorded and cut on a FCP5 machine. WE don't have enough programming to fill the hours nor would we want too. Pretty much we'll have students come up with show ideas, film them, cut them in HD or SD on FCP5 then have playback from the server (in theory could play HD) or just SD DVC PRO (much more likely)

Currently I work in our SD Master Control, I think when we move it's going to continue to be operated by a senior faculty member and student engineers. We have the entire engineering crew (all faculty) getting training over the next year on how HD is going to change their jobs. Plus were getting some new fibre that can handle HD bandwidth.

Overall it seems like a giant project that I'll never get to appreciate. I'm half considering going to grad school there just because for the moment we'll be pretty state of the art.