RJI Blog

It's true anything can happen on live television. Of course sometimes anything can refer to an unwanted expletive from a college sports announcer, a streaker running across the tennis match, or maybe even something more profound like watching a revolution live in Egypt or mass amounts of Americans celebrating the death of a hated enemy. This all can happen and has happened on TV in the past year. But something that hasn't happened is molding all four of these random events into one conversation, and I'm not talking about one random conversation with a close friend.

I'm talking about creating a live interactive conversation about all four of these events and turning them around for a fully-involved look at you and today's news. That's essentially what U_News @4 is. A live, interactive conversation mixing television, social media, news, humor, sports, and entertainment.

This is by all accounts a very broad explanation but it does get to U_News' core. We're not looking to just broadcast a newscast now and tell you what today's news is. Talking at you isn't an option for U_News. The focus now is with you.

While more stations and newscasts across the country struggle with this concept, we take the concept and run with it. That doesn't mean it's working 100%, but we're still experimenting. We don't have an exact formula for success, but we're still trying. It's this trying that sets the show apart.

KOMU is one of the most unique newsrooms in the country. Largely run by students, this real-world laboratory allows us to experiment. And what better way than with U_News? We can experiment with how we use students, from monitoring and reporting on social media, to live shots from an iPhone or backpack. This newscast isn't typical because of the content, the concept, and the technology.

One of the biggest features is our use of Google+ Hangouts. This allows us to talk with anyone around the globe and get inside information on happenings anywhere, from a student's perspective on riots at Penn State to a Turkish journalist covering the devastating effects of a destructive earthquake. This technology gives us the opportunity to get exclusive interviews on live television that previously only networks had the resources to access. Plus, we can do it for free.

Hangouts also give us another look at our community from Mid-Missourians all over the viewing area. We can put Mid-Missourians on what we call our Cyber Couch (the daily Hangout) to talk about anything that's news to them or anything that's happening in their area.

The use of Hangouts alone makes U_News unique. But this along with the incorporation of social media in every block of news, online buzz segments, different feature segments, viral videos, and your traditional news staples make the show one of the most atypical on live TV right now. But, that's a good thing. We want to break the norm.

Including all these segments into one show and trying to make one newscast a continuous conversation makes my day interesting. I'm always looking for stories that will create flow from story to story and even block to block if possible. Some days that's easier than others.

The key to the show is interaction. I'm constantly looking for something that people are already talking about or a conversation that we can develop and drive. Throughout the day, I look for what we call "talkable topics." That can range from local to international, political to humorous, bizarre to nonsensical, and fluff to controversial.

When producing the show, I look at content that will please people across the board. It's too early to say exactly who our biggest target audience is. Because of that, we try to include news or segments that will cater to almost any viewer. This includes the latest national and international news, a daily viral video, a laid back sports segment, and online social media chatter. That makes the show interesting to produce. We'll have news from all different areas. Most shows have a target audience and know how to pinpoint that audience. We're still establishing that identity, another reason U_News is unique.

On a day to day basis, I go the KOMU's daily assignment meetings, talk with the reporters about what stories they're covering, and start putting the bare bones of the show together. I start building the show, but the skeleton outline of the show at 10:00 a.m. is nothing like what you would eventually see on air at 4:00. From there, I scour social media and other news sites, looking for talkable topics and buzz online.

The next couple hours of the day (usually mid-afternoon) I manage KOMU's Facebook page by posting topics and coordinating with our social media anchors which stories we'll cover and where. I then stack the show, finish writing, and head back to the booth for final preparations. Behind the scenes is always frantic when we get close to deadline. There's usually a lot of last minute tweaks to make sure the show looks the best possible and to make sure we have all the pieces in place.

On a bigger scale, one of the biggest focuses is reaching more people. Another thing different about this show is that we don't just want our viewers to tune in and watch. We urge them to join the conversation and contribute. In terms of long-term success, we want people to talk with us all day even after U_News @4. We want people to continue the conversation online as part of the continuous news. We want to post new information throughout the day that people can keep talking about.

Ideally, we want this show to become even more of a conversation and more interactive. More voices, more eyes, more co-hosts all across Mid-Missouri. The best way we can do that is to make it easier for people to interact and find stories that matter to them. We eventually want our viewers to drive the conversation. We want them to give us story ideas, talk about what matters to them, and further reduce the transparency and the separation between viewers and journalists. We truly want to make this a living, breathing conversation on live television.

Because remember folks, anything can happen on live television.

A Quick Update

You may have noticed my absence. As in my nearly two month absence from this blog. My excuse? I can't say I have any good ones, other than I'm still adjusting to the work flow and haven't been the most proactive about finding time to blog.

So, as of today, 11/11/11, I'm going to start building an hour into my week to find a quiet place in the newsroom, play some good music, and blog about U_News @4.

I'll be the first to admit it's really a shame I haven't been actively blogging about the progress, the development, and the changes. Luckily, I have a good memory so I'll briefly recount the last two months and the big developments.

#Technology Fail
We got our first major slap in the face during the development process 5 days before the show launch. We were hoping to use a new user-comment system called Never.No, but unfortunately our graphics system doesn't work with Never.No, a Norwegian product. Never.No would allow us to air viewers comments live. I, or someone else, would sit back in the control room and approve comments live from Facebook, Twitter, or KOMU's streaming page. Once we hit approve, the comment would pop up in a bubble on screen so people can read it.

The nice thing about this is it would really help with the flow of the show and really foster the news/conversation hybrid we're trying to create. Unfortunately, it didn't work, but we're still working to find a replacement. Instead we slow the show down a little bit at the end of blocks to air a Skycam with local music and local responses. It works well, but unfortunately if we're crunched for time, that's one of the first segments to go.

The Never.No fail was a slap in the face. I remember sitting in the meeting with Sarah, Stacey, the engineers, and a few others and it definitely felt like the show's biggest pre-launch setback. That being said, I knew well enough in advance so I built other ways to incorporate comments. Nearly two months in, I can say the comment system is working great. Still, getting Never.No will no doubt be a huge lift.

#9/12--The First Show
Butterflies, anxiety, nervousness, and adrenaline. Launch day was an absolute rush, mixed feelings all over the place from fear to joy, panic to tranquility, and restlessness to exhaustion. I didn't sleep well the night before. We worked at the station until nearly two in the morning on final run-through. I was back at the station in six hours after a restless night of tossing and turning.

As soon as I walked into the door, it was a rush. The nice thing about this job is I'll never complain and say, "Oh my gosh, it's only 2:00! I still have three hours until I get off work!" If anything, it's usually something like, "Uh-oh. It's 2:00. I still have a ton to do and not enough time until 4!"

The entire day was that way. Crazy. Hectic. Anxiety-filled. And I wasn't even on air! I can't imagine what Sarah felt being on camera in front of everybody. If something blew up or went wrong, I could always just curl into a ball and roll up. Nobody would ever know it was me piloting the sinking ship.

Of course, if you saw the first show, it was nothing like a sinking ship. Sarah's level-headedness, Lindsey's (the director) quick thinking, and my drive to make it a beautiful and successful show paid off. On air, we really had no major flub ups, our cyber couch was great, the content was stellar, and everyone worked together fantastically. In the booth it was tense. Nerves were high (at least on my end, I can't speak for Lindsey), but it was a major adrenaline rush. As soon as we finished with the first block, I realized this show is like any other show in the booth. The content and goal of the show is completely different, but once you put me in that producer chair, managing U_News @4 is like anything else I've ever done in the booth.

Celebrations and moods ran high once 5:00 hit. We were free from the burden sitting over our heads about how this would look, how it would play out, and how successful it would be. We had just proven to ourself that this show can work.

#Content
Let's speed things forward a little bit. Overall, the main structure of the show has stayed the same but we have added some segments and taken away others. Unfortunately, this isn't a meter market so it's hard to get immediate viewer feedback and know what segments work and what don't. At this point, Sarah and I meet with the higher ups (GM Marty Siddal, News Director Stacey Woelfel and a few others) every couple of weeks to talk about what's working and what's not. Largely, we're making calls off of gut instincts and some viewer feedback.

One of the coolest additions in my opinion is, as Sarah calls it, the Triple-D or Dave's Daily Drive. We knew we wanted to get our weather guy Dave Schmidt involved in the newscast more and let him step out of his role as just a weather-caster. We wanted him to interact more and get involved in the conversation. Dave is a huge car guy so we thought it'd be cool if Mid-Missouri viewers sent us photos of their cool rides so he could feature on a daily basis. The segment has worked really well, it's included Dave more, and the feedback has been great.

While this segment works, we tried a different segment with Dave from the beginning that ultimately failed. We wanted Dave to host his own hangout to talk with more viewers. He showed them on the monitor at his Weather Pod and occasionally mentioned them. Unfortunately, it just didn't work well with weather. We scrapped the idea because it looked jarring and possibly even confused viewers more.

Our other major shift in content comes from the social media desk. We have two anchors who each have two solo hits and then two hits with Sarah which is meant as a debrief and a conversation instead of a report. Total that up and we have six hits at the social media desk. Initially, we were posting six to eight topics everyday and talking about the six that are getting the most feedback. But when we did this, I noticed I really didn't give enough time to the social media anchors to develop the topic and fully flesh it out. The hits are only about a minute. It's hard for them to summarize the story and talk about viewer reactions in such a short amount of time.

The new aim is to still post six to eight topics, but we'll feature only three or four. We still have the same amount of hits but this way it allows the social media anchors to flesh out more of the story in a later hit. It also builds on one of our goals which is to create continuous news. We want to talk about the story, still, but in ways that would advance it or just focus on new content people are talking about during the show. For example, I've been pushing the social media anchors to ask follow up questions. Ideally, we want to keep the conversation going and have people keep coming back to the conversation. So, if we see a trend  in responses, we ask why everyone is taking that stance or re-direct the question to focus on a different aspect.

By focusing on just a few topics, I think we do a much better job of telling all sides to the story and capturing the online conversation. Plus, when we ask follow up questions, we're directing people back to our Facebook page to keep talking and interacting

#U_News @4 so far
It's hard to tell exactly how well the show is doing. Since launch day nearly two months ago, we are getting a lot more diversity in comments and people interacting. Before, it seems, there was a core group of people who interacted with us and talked online. I think that group has expanded dramatically. A lot more people are commenting online and we're getting more and more requests for people to join our online cyber couch.

We won't get the exact numbers until early next month, but so far, I'd call the show a success. A success in that it's innovative, it's new, and it's fresh. We don't repeat content. We interact and talk with our viewers. Plus, more and more people want to get involved which, I think, speaks to the success of the show (and let's be honest, to the charm of Sarah Hill. This show works so well because of her).

Unfortunately, my hour of blogging is up for the week. I still have a ton to fill in the gaps of the last two months but this is a good start. Coming up next week (and maybe this weekend if I get the chance), I'll write more about the latest developments, the progress, and my lightbulb moment from yesterday.

Until then, cheers amigos!
Nathan, U_News @4 Producer

Building the "Beast"

Week one is in the books. Now if you're reading this blog, you most likely know what this is all about. The blog, not the show, that is. The blog is simple, to the point. The show, U_News @4 with Sarah Hill, is a whole different beast. And that's a good thing.

Really, the blog's title perfectly sets up the blog's subject--just a personal record of creating a new, innovative, and interactive newscast. So to the common reader (or viewer) looking at this, think of this as a behind the scenes perspective of creating something that has never been done in the history of television.

Am I touting this up too much? I don't think so. When you see what we've done and what we've created on September 12th, you'll realize this isn't your mom and pop's newscast. Tradition? Throw it out the window. Two anchors just reading the day's news? Goodbye. A separation between the viewer and the news? So long, sayonara, adios, and see you later. 

U_News will break the traditional mold, and, using new technology and tools of the trade at our disposal, will allow viewers to be a part of the news. Literally if they wantt, viewers can go on live television as part of Sarah's daily Google+ Hangout and talk. Or they can tweet, post Facebook comments, or just call into the newsroom and we'll put their comments, their ideas, and their content on live television.

You'll hear me say this word often, but interaction is key. 

Viewers will drive content. They will now have a voice of what stories we put in the newscast and what stories we discuss on a daily basis. They can even give us story ideas on live television if they so choose. We will air their content and their videos. 

Building the beast

Now that you have a brief intro to what the show is about, let me tell you about building U_News from my perspective. When I say beast, I mean it in a good way. It's literally going to be a show with a mind of it's own, something that can be tamed and controlled, but also independent in it's own right. That's where the viewers and interaction are vital. They will give the show its collective mind. 

I returned to KOMU Monday for my first day. Sarah gave me a brief introduction to the show and the progress her, Stacey, and Jen made on the show while I was gone. They had a general rundown of the show filled in with some of the content and ideas they created. Sarah started going over some of the content and ideas with me, but to me, it was a whole new language. She started talking about UGC's, Never.No, delicious.com, touch screens, online bUzz, and extra-normal, etc. (Don't worry, I'll explain some of this later)

Now the TV business has its own set of lingo--VO/SOTs, packages, NATS, skycams, graphics, live, teases, etc.--but these new terms were completely new to me because, again, this isn't your traditional newscast. Sarah quickly caught me up with all the new content ideas and toys we could use.

My head was spinning from the information overload, but I couldn't be more excited. Unfortunately, I had to produce the 10 o'clock newscast that night so I had to refocus my attention back to the more immediate newscast. Occasionally, my mind and my mouse would drift back to the U-News @4 rundown, thinking about the hefty task ahead but the fun and excitement of creating something new that has never been done before. 

I spent most of the day Tuesday and Wednesday getting caught up on local news and tweaking the rundown. Most of it consisted of reformatting the iNews rundown to producer and director code. I worked on reformatting and reorganizing the show to make it more visual and interesting. 

While we have a rough template for the show, the exciting thing is that it will change daily. Typically if there's a templated format, the producer will fill in the blanks and tweak it as they see fit. U_News will have a general format, but it will change daily. One day we could lead with our social media buzz and the next day hard news. Largely, viewer input will help decide the news and the rundown of the day. 

Later that week as I adjusted to the flood of new emails, Google+ contacts, and workflow, Sarah, Lindsey Tyler the director, and I worked on camera blocking. Finally, we got to visualize the show.

We set the cameras in place and played with the set. What would work best with our new touch screen? How could we make the show flow visually and not look stagnant? We made good progress and on Thursday ran through a rough outline of the show.

Overall, the first week went pretty smooth for adjusting to a totally new concept in a familiar place with familiar faces and a completely different workflow. We finished most of the rundown tweaking and worked on how to engage our viewers—arguably the most important task on hand.

Our new toys

It’s amazing what happens when you leave a newsroom for seven weeks. I leave and the producer computers are old, rundown, and hardly usable considering how much they shut down. I come back and we have working computers, massive flat screens attached to our walls, and a shiny new studio with sleek equipment for our new show.

The new studio is pretty neat. It’s small but the camera shows a cool view of the social media anchors, Sarah, and the newsroom action. The set-up will be a great hangout place.

The biggest and probably coolest new toy we have is the enormous touch screen. A large portion of the show will take place with Sarah in the main studio in front of the touch screen. The touch screen is like a giant iPad. With it, Sarah can pull up pictures, videos, and anything online.

We can best use it for Google+ Hangouts. During the show, Sarah will open a Hangout and talk with nine other people. These nine people will go on live TV with Sarah and serve as her co-hosts.

The idea may seem crazy at first, but once you see it in practice, you realize how unique it is. Ten people who hardly know each other will go on live television to talk about the latest and greatest online buzz, news, sports, and weather.

Remember tradition? How’s that for tradition. Don’t forget, that’s gone. Who needs it anyway?

So now I'll throw another word out the window, or a series of them.

They. Their.  Viewers. Audience.

Viewers will no longer be a separate entity. Viewers are now part of what we do because this is our newscast.

This isn't my newscast or Sarah's newscast or even KOMU's newscast. It's everyone's newscast. The community's.

It's yours to talk about, to mold, and to change. You are now co-hosts.

Because readers? We're throwing tradition out the window.