WKPT Brings Its News Back From The Dead

On March 4, WKPT Tri-Cities, Tenn.-Va., hosted a party for more than 200 locals, including members of the Chamber of Commerce of Kingsport, Tenn., treating them to barbeque and wine.

The cause for celebration: The newsroom at the locally-owned ABC affiliate was back in business. After closing up shop more than a decade ago, it resumed  producing that evening 30-minute newscasts at 6 and 11 p.m. for a market (DMA 96) that comprises Kingsport as well as  Johnson City, Tenn. and Bristol, Va.

“It was a bigger celebration than we had when we signed on in ’69,” says GM George DeVault.

WKPT had produced news for 30-plus years, but stopped in 2002 when management decided to outsource the news to rival WJHL, Media General’s CBS affiliate. That arrangement ended in 2009 — in the thick of the recession. Although WKPT had hoped to rebuild a full-blown news department at that time, the economy was so tough that it could only afford to produce five-minute newscasts, which aired at 6:25 p.m. and 11 p.m.

DeVault says WKPT just needed the right moment to once again produce entire newscasts. “It’s always been our goal.”

The revival has been propelled by a $250,000 investment (thanks largely to last year’s political money) and 13 new hires.

But the TV news business has changed significantly in the 11 years since WKPT’s newsroom went dark and restoring it is more akin to building a news operation from scratch than taking the cameras out of storage and dusting off the set.

“I walked into absolute desolation,” says News Director Jim Bailey, a 40-year TV news veteran who was so intrigued by the prospect of rebuilding WKPT’s news department that he postponed retirement. The few remnants of the WKPT news department’s former life include an old Ford Explorer with 170,000 or so miles on it and a video library conspicuously devoid of clips from the last decade.

“Everything that is new … is completely foreign to what we had here,” Bailey says.

Which makes perfect sense. In 2002, the technology was different. Stations like WKPT produced standard-definition newscasts, and filing from the field required relatively cumbersome video cameras and production and satellite trucks.

The Internet was up and running, as were TV station websites, but the 24-hour news cycle fueled by streaming video and newscasts was not. Web content, basically, was an afterthought.

Facebook — the use of which is now a requirement for many reporters — would not be launched for another two years. iPhones, today’s go-to tool for quickly churning out content, would not hit the market for another three years after that.

Reporters were just that — reporters, not the one-man-bands that populate many stations. Photographers were the people behind the cameras.

DeVault and Bailey are approaching the restoration incrementally. Operating software and control room systems were put on the back burner until WKPT bought desks, painted the walls and installed telephone lines for a newsroom “that literally was converted to storage,” Bailey says.

Once that was done, Bailey faced the challenge of building out a newsroom and studio that would produce two HD newscasts a day on a tight budget.

Some of that included making do with the few news-related assets WKPT had. For instance, the station spent about $12,000 to rehab its old set rather than far more on a new one.

Instead of buying a new HD-equipped satellite truck, Bailey is considering retrofitting an existing vehicle equipped for SD broadcasts that WKPT used to broadcast community events — parades and the like — while its newsroom was dark.

Or he may just forgo a satellite truck altogether in favor of the bonded cellular “backpack” systems currently being used as part of a test run.

Newscasts are being shot with seven newly purchased Sony cameras that Bailey describes as “small, portable and high business grade rather than broadcast grade.” Those cost about $5,000 each — or $6,500 when you throw in the costs of the tripods, lights, microphones and other accessories, he says.

Some content is created using iPhones fitted with external microphones, Bailey says. Editing can be done on “a host of desktop and laptop computers and iPads” using Adobe Pro.

The station’s website is slated for a major upgrade, which will ultimately enable video streaming. The news department also bought four Kia SUV’s to shuttle around staffers and their stuff.

Bailey says he expects the entire build out to take a year to 18 months, a plan that enables WKPT to test equipment before investing more in it.

WKPT made a deliberate decision to hire a crew wholly comprised of locals. Most of the 13 new staffers come from Eastn Tennessee State University in Johnson City. Others were former employees of other stations in the market.

The fact that they are all locals goes far in promoting WKPT as being Kingsport’s hometown station, something particularly important in the Tri-Cities market where loyalties run deep.

WKPT’s stiffest competition will be WCYB, Bonten Media’s NBC affiliate, which also runs Esteem Broadcasting’s Fox-affiliated WEMT, DeVault says. In addition, WKPT is not yet producing a morning newscast, an increasingly important component of a station’s overall success. That may start next year.

The station also faces the inherent challenges that come with serving a market composed of three separate municipalities,each populated by a mix of longtime loyalists and newcomers known as “halfbackers” – northeasterners who relocated to Florida, only to return just halfway north after the housing boom there went bust.

On the other hand, the region is relatively stable economically, Bailey says, complete with hard-working types who take pride in Kingsport having a TV – and now a news team – of its own (WCYB is based in Bristol, Va.; WJHL in Johnson City).

And the folks at WKPT know what they are up against.

Both DeVault and Bailey started in broadcasting as teenagers. DeVault has been with WKPT since the station signed on in 1969; Bailey has spent the last 10 years at WJHL, the market’s CBS affiliate, as the station’s managing editor and lead anchor.

But, as Bailey says, weathering changes in a newsroom over time is a far different experience than reawakening one. “Here we are looking at painting the pavement with no lines, which, on one hand, is a good position to be in and, on the other hand, gives us no frame of reference to deal with.”

Jerry Gumbert, president-CEO of AR&D, a local media consultancy, says it will not be easy for WKPT. “Today’s local TV news consumers … live in a multiple news stream world that delivers, moment-by-moment up-to-date news, weather and important information,” he says. “The Law of Scarcity is no longer in effect for local TV newscasts, which has significantly impacted their value equation with consumers.

“It will be a tough, rough road for any new entrant in local news.”

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