Nexstar Gives Memphis A Complete Overhaul

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Television station consolidations and sales dominate the headlines these days. As one person put it, “it’s gobble or get gobbled.” But after all these mergers, sales and acquisitions fade from the headlines, what can the people who work at the TV stations involved expect to happen when the new owners come to town?

Consider Memphis.

Circumstances have to be pretty dire for a television station to change its call letters.

“A complete overhaul was the only way to give ourselves a chance,” says Ardyth “Ardy” Diercks, the vice president and general manager of the ABC affiliate in Memphis, Tenn. (DMA 49) — WPTY. Diercks came on board in mid-January, 2013. By June 1, the station had new call letters (WATN), a new name, a new brand, a new building, a new news set, new graphics and new news music.

Welcome to WATN, Local 24 News

“We had to resurrect an entire TV station with an aggressive time line,” Diercks says. The ‘we’ she references includes Nexstar Broadcasting, which took over the station as part of its 10 station acquisition in December of 2012 from Newport Television.

(In the interest of full disclosure, it should be noted that I was VP of marketing and promotion at Nexstar from January 2003 until the position was eliminated at the end of 2007.)

Diercks says she knew coming in that this was a revitalization project, but when she arrived found “significant resource challenges in equipment and technology.”

WATN: Local 24 News, Your Stories are Our Stories

“The good news is that the employees had so much passion for their purpose, for the city and for the news. They just wanted an opportunity to compete, and with time, with Nexstar’s investment, they could,” Diercks says.

In remarks to the station’s staff just prior to moving into the new building, Diercks estimated Nexstar’s investment to make the station a “more competitive, contemporary and viable provider of local news” in the “many millions of dollars.”

The new set, barely used, was shipped over from another Nexstar station in Little Rock. The new graphics came from Hothaus Creative in Dallas and the new news music was from Stephen Arnold Music, also in Dallas.

The call letter change came about because Diercks discovered the station’s call letters at the time, WPTY, had “residual disrespect in the community.”

“We wanted to change it to WATN, Local 24 which stands for ‘ABC for Tennessee’. Our website became LocalMemphis.com. We had a new name with a new brand in a new building. We essentially had a brand new television station and we wanted to re-direct ourselves to a new purpose,” Diercks says.

Diercks has more than 30 years of experience in broadcasting, having been a general manager of stations in Austin, Texas (KVUE); St Louis (KSDK); Washington (WUSA); and Miami (WTVJ). She says she competed against a station that had a prominent “local” brand and always liked it.

“Local transcends geography and almost everything else. It makes all of our business and coverage decisions easier.”

So why take on such a formidable challenge like the one she faced in Memphis?

“I liked the idea of running three stations and that there was a lot to do.” In addition to the newly christened WATN, the ABC affiliate, Diercks oversees the Memphis CW, WLMT, and the Fox station serving Jackson, Tenn., WJKT.

“Plus, I liked Nexstar’s strategy, integrity and dedication to their local markets, and I’ve known Tim Busch for 20 years.” (Tim Busch is one of Nexstar’s EVPs and co-chief operating officers.)

To help market the changes, in addition to the launch promos, Diercks requested a custom song from Stephen Arnold Music.

WATN: Local 24 Music Image 1

WATN: Local 24 Music Image 2

“Music creates an emotional response and in this case, we felt it could create an emotional connection. It also celebrates our community and local,” Diercks emphasizes.

In addition to all the changes, Diercks had some staffing issues to address as well.

When she took over, she had no sales manager, no news director and no promotion manager. But she did have an acting interim news director, Lisa Lovell, who had been at the station since 2004. Diercks named Lovell the new news director.

“She’s a great leader who has a terrific journalistic mind,” Diercks says. When I pointed out that naming Lovell news director would also provide stability within the newsroom and be great for station morale, Diercks says it was a huge win in that regard.

“But more importantly, she was the best person for the job.”

Lovell says she was excited to be named news director because Diercks is the “GM of my dreams. I told her, where have you been all my life?”

Lovell had been through three owners since 2004. When she heard that Nexstar was taking over, she says she was both “very excited and anxious.”

“It’s stressful going through a sale,” Lovell adds. But she says she was instantly reassured and relieved when the corporate people came to the station. “They said a lot of things we were dying to hear for years.”

Like getting the station involved in the local community. Lovell says over the years, the anchors were always doing their own thing in the community, but the station did “nothing, zippo. With Nexstar, we feel like someone loves us and will take care of us,” Lovell says.

So how has the news changed under Nexstar? First, Lovell says, “we’ve added a morning news anchor.”

WATN: Local 24 Good Day

Lovell says the morning news always had three boxes up, one with the anchor, one displaying Doppler radar, and the other showing traffic cameras, which she has since eliminated.

“Now that Nexstar has invested in more trucks with better technology, we have more live shots.”

And citing the propensity in the market for covering crime as low-hanging fruit, Lovell says they’ve cut back in favor of more investigative, health, local issues and lifestyle stories.

“Viewers noticed our change in coverage. We still cover crime but not every single car crash or shooting.”

Lovell has hired at least 10 new people in the news department. Her No. 1 requirement for job candidates?

“To work here, you must love Memphis.”

Lovell says she’s been “crazy busy with all the changes, but it’s been so much fun. Now the playing field is level.”

Market Share by Paul Greeley is all about marketing and promotion at TV stations and appears every Monday. Read other Market Share columns here. If you have some ideas or stories you want to share, please let me know. You can reach Paul Greeley at [email protected] or at 817-578-6324.