Are there any good outsourced or freelance news reporters that will collect, write and produce news segments? A 1-2 minute news segment a few times per day. We don't have a dedicated news staff and only cover the biggest local news. We would like to do more local/regional news. How do other small market stations do local/regional news?
Randy, here's how we do it here.
First of all, small operation. Three satellite-fed stations on six signals in two markets. I'm the owner, I have a full-time office mgr and a part-time sales person. I do mornings live 6-9 on my Country station. That's for perspective :-)
I do subscribe to AP wire services. While a lot of stations don't spend the money anymore, I've kept and used them for years, because it's easier than doing a newspaper re-write my self every morning. I don't pay a newsman, so the money's well spent for my operation.
Using the wire copy, I'll rip & read THREE :60 second newscasts when I get off the air at 9a. I'll do three more around 4p or 5p, before I go home.
Those then rotate hourly, in the :18 break, on all three stations. By cutting three newscasts, that means a three-hour rotation, cutting down on story repetition, and they stay fresh. It gives me a local newscast every hour, 24-7. I started off just doing weekdays, then added weekends later.
You have several issues to consider...
1.) Source... AP always gives me something to fall back on. If I have local stories, I use them. If not, AP fills it out.
2.) Who produces it?... Do it yourself, like I do. Or pay someone to come in for an hour a morning and voice them. Do you have staff in house already that can handle this? I have a girl who works at the bank... she comes in for an hour or so on Monday and Thursday evenings... I have her cut & produce PSA's, sometimes she voices ads, and I always have her voice a news story, usually AP, that I can use the next day..."KKTY's Kaile Williams has the story..."
3.) When does it run? ... because we're a small operation, I want to do a little work and get a lot of mileage out of it. So I want those newscasts to run often, not just once. Three to rotate keeps the repetition factor down. Also, I run news a lot. Every hour, on all three formats, I've got the network at the top of the hour... then a local :60 at :18... and the :60 network update in the :40 break... and NBC Sports in the :50 break. They're :60's, the length of a spot, and they're local, non-spot content to fill out the breaks. If I'm oversold, I can kill a newscast & play the spots... but I'd rather run a local newscast than a :60 National PSA.
Long answer, but I think that hew we handle news is VERY important to setting us apart from the competition, and to help us make our satellite-fed product much more local. Hope this helps, or at least tweaks an idea or two :-)
Dennis Switzer
KKTY/KKTS
Douglas/Casper, WY
Yahoo sports does a local 2 min segment called the "Sportsflash" very local, sounds great, you just send them links for your info, and they do the rest (1 Minute barter inside the sportscast). For local news try Jim Miller jim561@hotmail.com former KMOX announcer, now doing local news for stations. For weather do a barter deal with your TV station.
Hi Dennis,
Thanks for the ideas, it definitely gets me to thinking of ways to help us connect with the community to have local news. "Oversold?" ... what a problem to deal with! ... ha ha!
Thanks
Damon, I'm looking around Yahoo Sports now and don't see how to go about it. Do you have a link to more info. Having a 2 min professional, Local sports broadcast would be great.
Randy, It is only available to AM/FM terrestrial stations.
I see. Okay, thanks for the quick response, Damon. I'll stop looking now:-) If you find anything like this for pure play stations or for Local news, weather and traffic, would love to hear about it.
