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
