News And Spots Share Screen Time At KMGH

As a rule, TV stations don’t run news tickers through commercials as some cable networks routinely do, except when severe weather or other breaking news warrants it.

But Scripps’ KMGH Denver has been airing news tickers in spots during its early morning newscasts since 2011 and GM Byron Grandy and station consultant Chris Archer of SmithGeiger believe it’s a fine idea, a great way to keep viewers from clicking away from the ABC affiliate.

“Since people in the morning are not viewing at regular times, the idea is to make sure we could always get key content to folks when they need to know it,” Grandy says.

Despite a lot of conventional wisdom to the contrary, Archer says research shows the practice is a winner.

“Viewers consistently tell us that content running during commercial breaks, usually in the form of a crawl, is a reason to watch and perhaps more importantly, a reason not to change the channel,” Archer says.

That’s especially important during morning newscasts, he adds. “The audience in the morning has become so volatile that a three-and-a-half minute break is another reason for the viewer to say: ‘I’m going to stop paying attention to this newscast,’ ” Archer says.

KMGH’s morning newscast typically rates second in the market (DMA 17) behind KUSA, Gannett’s NBC affiliate.

Archer says he recommends other stations adopt the practice, too. “The key is building that win-win relationship with the advertiser,” he says. “Viewers are less likely to change the channel, ratings go up and more ads get eyeballs.”

Although running tickers is a rarity in broadcasting, it’s not unusual elsewhere in television. Syndicated Access Hollywood keeps the news coming during the breaks and CNBC never stops its stock ticker while the markets are open.

ESPN also runs the scores and other big news continually. In 2009, ESPN conducted a study to determine whether tickers during commercials hurt advertising and found that they do not, says a spokeswoman for the network. Viewers are “easily capable” of processing commercial content despite the crawl, the study said.

Rather than do harm, the study found, the tickers give consumers reason to stay tuned-in during the breaks.

Yet TV stations still are largely “hesitant” to embrace the idea, largely due to concerns that advertisers will oppose sharing their screen time, Archer says.

“Stations want to see evidence that it actually helps retain viewers before going in this direction and starting the conversation with advertisers,” he says. “That’s obviously a critical relationship.”

Mike Cavender, RTDNA’s executive director, says the idea is counter to some long-held tenets.  “In the good old days, advertisers wouldn’t pay for commercials if they were interrupted in any way with any other information.”

Valerie Hyman, a longtime broadcast journalist and Florida-based consultant, says the strategy also could create conflict between news stories and commercial messages. “It’s a little fraught.”

TV stations would be particularly vulnerable during times like election season, when political news could turn up under the wrong election ads, she says.  Reporting something like a car recall during an auto ad or running headlines about childhood obesity at the bottom of a soda commercial exemplify other potential problems, she says.

Hyman says the only way to make the concept work conflict-free is to have news staff monitor ad scheduling. But that’s a tough ask considering newsrooms “in many cases have been cut to the bone,” she says.

“There needs to be a good amount of thought and consideration and rules and guidelines,” she says. “If they don’t have enough people for that, it seems to be unlikely [news departments] could do this universally through every ad.”

Grandy says he hasn’t had any problems. He says he has gotten “no pushback” from either advertisers or viewers since launching the morning show ticker.

The one-line ticker runs at the bottom of the screen so it’s discrete, he says. “We made sure — obviously — that it didn’t interrupt the commercial in any way.”

Since November, Grandy has also been experimenting with taking the mixing of news and commercial content to a new level. “Super Screen 7” is a four-box graphic in which the largest box is reserved for the commercial and the smaller boxes, stacked along the right side of the screen, are used for traffic, weather and other news. Traffic drive-time estimates, the time of day and the current temperature appear along the bottom of the screen.

“It’s a tool to give viewers as much information as they need, and specific information when they need it, all the time,” he says. 

Bill Carroll, Katz Television Group’s VP and director of programming, says there could be an upside for advertisers with the simple news crawls. If broadcasters can show that they really hold audiences’ attention, then the concept “could become a trend,” he says.

The idea is likely more amenable to today’s TV watchers, who are used to focusing on more than one screen at a time, he says.  Computers and multi-faceted broadcasts of events like NFL games have led to that, he says.

Neither advertisers’ messages nor news headlines would be lost on them, Carroll says.  “They can take it in without having to concentrate on it,” he says.

Al Tompkins, Poynter’s senior faculty for broadcast, says his concern is that tickers will usurp dedicated news times.

“Let’s hope this kind of thing does not encourage stations to go to longer and longer commercial breaks because they are comfortable that there is still content flowing,” he says.

Archer says he’s convinced. Although the concept has to be weighed “market by market,” Archer says he believes providing news is a means of keeping viewers who have less patience than ever for time they considered wasted

“Two-and-a-half or three minutes without any other content in it is becoming more challenging,” he says. “For some people, 30 seconds is annoying.”

Read other Air Check columns here. You can send suggestions for future Air Checks to Diana Marszalek at [email protected].