The new, live daily syndicated show the station group is shopping at NATPE this week is being offered on a cash-and-barter basis. The show will air live whenever a station airs it. That means Bold really has to be ongoing for about 12 or more hours a day.
Tegna Media is positioning its new daily syndicated show, Bold — which will consist of several live feeds a day to affiliates in all four U.S. time zones — as a “revolutionary” concept.
“For syndication, live has never been done before, so that in itself is revolutionary,” said Bob Sullivan, Tegna’s SVP of programming.
Tegna announced the new venture on Monday. Ever since, Sullivan and other company execs have been promoting it at NATPE in Miami Beach, meeting with representatives of other station groups to drum up interest in the show, which Tegna hopes will debut next fall.
Whether that happens depends on how much interest, or even clearances, they can generate this week at NATPE, Sullivan said in an interview with TVNewsCheck in the Tegna suite at NATPE. Distribution of Bold is being handled by MGM Television and Scott Carlin, long-time syndication executive and a consultant helping in the Bold sales effort.
Carlin and Sullivan, along with Lisa Kridos, executive producer/development for Tegna, provided details of the Bold concept. The show will originate from a studio being built by Tegna in Denver, where the company owns KUSA.
Stations are being offered the show on a cash-and-barter basis, Carlin said. Each Bold episode (the titled stands for “Broadcast On Line Daily”) will be a half-hour. Stations have the option to buy two of them and run them consecutively.
Sullivan said no decision has been made yet on how many “live” feeds of Bold will go out each day. That will depend on the clearance picture, as it relates to time periods, he said. With sales just now getting under way, the clearance picture is not in focus yet.
Carlin said he expects about 70% of the clearances will be “pre-1 p.m.” The other 30% will be in early fringe or access, he said. Ideally, he said, the show will work best in “news-adjacent” timeslots.
On Bold, the emphasis will be on hot topics trending on social media. The show will air live whenever a station airs it. That means the “show” really has to be ongoing for about 12 or more hours a day. This will be accomplished by arranging the show’s staff in two shifts a day starting in early morning, Sullivan said, who added that staffing will be the largest area of expense for this Bold venture.
The show will be live-streamed online all day, Kridos noted.
To read all of TVNewsCheck’s NATPE 2017 coverage, click here.
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Comments (4)
Monica Kirkland says:
January 18, 2017 at 4:12 pm
How is this “revolutionary” to be live in syndication when “Live” with Regis etc has been live seemingly forever
Ieva M. Augstums & Tim Paradis says:
January 18, 2017 at 4:31 pm
We’ve clarified that in the story’s first sentence — it’s live in all four U.S. time zones.
Maria Laing says:
January 18, 2017 at 6:56 pm
Didn’t Scripps try a similar concept for national inserts into local newscasts, done live and across multiple time zones. It was called “The Now” and it also originated from Denver at Scripps’ KMGH. It was a stink burger, full of pseudo-hip jargon and “Takle a look at this…” stuff. Within a year or so the national segments were pulled and the team behind The Now was disbanded. Only the name remains at 4 p.m. in Denver.
Kristina Veltri says:
January 18, 2017 at 11:14 pm
They did, and it failed in every market, including WXYZ; now it’s just the ‘wire junk’ closet full of wire service stories and other corporate-mandated junk to keep away from the 5pm and 6pm. WTMJ was forced to take the title after Scripps got Journal, but basically has it configured as a ‘while you were out’ after-work newscast with little wire stuff.
This show meanwhile, sounds like “HuffPost Live”, which failed to catch on at all online. If this show fails, expect 1am-3am ‘live windows’, because it’ll go to the graveyard quickly.