branding

From testing new ways of producing newscasts to branding, CBS has been in a state of transformation across all divisions. The changes, at least on the branding side, began to appear in the fall of 2020 with the launch of the “deconstructed eye” brand strategy developed by agency Gretel. The look has now formally arrived at the local level with the debut on KPIX San Francisco, part of the CBS Television Stations Group, following a rollout on national properties including CBS Mornings, Face the Nation and the CBS Evening News.

Nexstar put news operations of two of its stations together at one location in the nation’s capital and branded it as DC News Now. Now, 100 days into the expansion, it has begun a branding campaign that outlines the central points of its news coverage philosophy.

Tegna’s KING Seattle and Nexstar’s KXAN Austin, Texas, are using investigative journalism to differentiate themselves from their competitors. How do they make the station’s intermittent investigations into a reason to watch their news all the time? And is it successful?

CBS apparently really wants you to know it’s a “morning” network. Earlier this week the network announced that it’s renaming its third place CBS This Morning as simply CBS Mornings in an effort to align it better with the show’s venerable CBS News Sunday Morning. Semantics aside, ultimately what’s going to cement the marriage of “morning”-titled shows on CBS is the use of the Sunday Morning sun icon and theme music, both of which are highly recognizable.

CBS wants to pivot from telling people it’s the nation’s most-watched TV network to making them more aware of the programs it distributes across many different screens. “We want to help people understand our brand means more. It’s not just a linear television network,” says Michael Benson, CBS’s chief marketing officer.

After a company-wide competition, the winning design was submitted by Cox Media Group employee Kim Colombero, art director for CMG-TV in Jacksonville, Fla.

Rick Haskins now has oversight of the CW’s branding and marketing efforts and the network’s streaming strategy, programming, distribution and operations. (Photo: Jsquared Photography)

It’s also rolling out its own audience measurement and new blacklist policy.

Branding is a tool that has been used to promote and market everything from soft drinks and automobiles to political campaigns and sports. It has been an essential part of television news for decades, growing in importance as both technology and viewing options have exploded.

Most people who work in local TV marketing come to the position by happenstance. A new program at the NBC/Telemundo owned stations fast tracks candidates with the right stuff to step right into a position at their stations. “We really should be growing our own,” said Dianne Hannes, creative services director at WMAQ, NBC’s Chicago O&O.

Executives from Viacom, Sling TV, Discovery and Group Nine said Wednesday at CES that holding on to audiences in a fragmented video ecosystem comes down to leveraging quality brands and embracing the platform agnosticism that their audiences already follow.