South Florida Sun Sentinel from Fort Lauderdale, Florida • Page 46

In The Keius "We had to do something not to wither into the woodwork." Joel Cheatwood, news director WSYN: You can't with success argue S. Florida broadcast station has become the envy of others, most of whom say they'd copy its economic style but not its sensationalism 17 XL CHANNELING SUCCESS -si-- csa I Affiliation: Fox Broadcasting By VICKI McCASH Business Writer If anyone had told Ed Ansin six years ago that his television station would be more successful without its NBC affiliation, he never would have believed them. NBC was on top in those days, with Cheers and L.A. Law at their peak. Fox Broadcasting was nothing.

Ansin never let on that he thought WSVN-Ch. 7 might falter as an independent or an affiliate of the fledgling Fox. Owner: Sunbeam Corp. Edmund Ansin, 58, president and chief executive officer. Channel 7 has been in Ansin's family since it began.

Format: Local news seven hours per day, talk shows and Fox programming, all aimed at people ages 25 to 54. History: On air July 29, 1 956, as an NBC affiliate. Original local programming included college programs such as University of Miami Roundtable, religious programming public affairs programs such as Florida Forum and a Saturday morning children's program. Canceled all local programming other than news by 1984. Lost NBC affiliation and picked up Fox in 1989.

Added news programming and revamped newscast, Moved from fourth to second in overall ratings for news programs. Shortly after he learned that Channel 7 would be losing NBC, he hired Joel Cheatwood as his news director and gave him one order: Make Channel 7 the place that South Florida turns to for news. "This station is absolutely a phenomenon," Ansin says today. "Our revenues are steadily increasing. We're more successful nnw than uro Avar woro uriffi NBC." Ansin Channel 7's formula was simple: Fill the day with local news aimed at younger audiences, the people advertisers want to reach.

The station remains No. 2 i' i lb in Miami in overall news ratings, but it draws the coveted 25- to 54-year-olds in higher numbers than any other station in the market. Channel 7 has become a model for other stations around the country that want to emulate the success, if not the style, of Channel 7. WSVN's reputation for sen: sationalism, however, is not something other stations want. "We're not going to model our newscasts after WSVN's," said Cheatwood David Whitaker, news director of WTVT, a Tampa television station that plans to emulate WSVN bv would take our newscast.

We prefer a more traditional approach," he said. What WTVT and other New World affiliates will do is copy WSVN's economic profile: Spend most of the budget on local news. Fill remaining hours with low-cost talk shows and a few off-the-air reruns. Gear the newscasts to a target audience aged 25 to 54, with attention to the younger end. Ansin says doing local news costs more, but the younger demographic profile means Channel 7 can charge more for its commercials.

"We are an advertiser-supported medium," he said. "We excel in the demographic group with younger adults. This is the group advertisers want. That's where they spend the bulk of their money." There are other ways to attract the young audience, of course. The West Palm Beach Fox affiliate, WFLX-Ch.

29, was just named Fox's affiliate of the year with no news organization. WFLX contracts with WPLG-Ch. 12 to do a 10 p.m. newscast. The rest of WFLX's budget is spent on syndicated programming such as Star Trek and Murphy Brown reruns.

It also programs much of the day for children. "This fits our market," said Murray Green, WFLX general manager. The station never had a major network affiliation and never established a news organization. "Starting from scratch would be very expensive. The other stations in the West Palm Beach market do a very competent job of covering the news.

There's no need for another 6 p.m. newscast or another 11 p.m. newscast." The New World stations that are modeling after Channel 7's economic profile already have extensive news organizations. "I can't argue with the success of WSVN's news," Green said. "But generally, I think you'll hear that a lot of the other stations will back off of copying them because of concerns about the sensitivity and violence." Even Ansin thinks his newscast is not for everybody, even if his idea of giving more news and targeting younger audiences is.

"The secret to what we're doing is to establish a strong local news franchise," he said. "The manner of presentation has to fit the market." Start photoTAIMY ALVAREZ Producers and reporters work behind the anchors in the Channel 7 Newsplex. For example, when O.J. Simpson led police on his chase through Los Angeles, much of South Florida watched Channel 7. The station earned the highest ratings of all Miami stations throughout the day.

"That just shows you how far we've come," Ansin said. "We will never be out-covered on a story." Channel 7 devotes seven hours a day to news more than any other local broadcast station in the country except WHDH, Ansin's other station. But the stations won't have that distinction for long. Fox has a deal to invest $500 million in 12 stations owned by New World Communications. Eight of them are CBS affiliates that will flip their affiliations to Fox.

When that happens, most of the stations plan to boost their news coverage and copy WSVN's success. Fox President Lucie Salhany recently called WSVN "the station of the future," and suggested that it should be the model for Fox news stations. "By this time next year, we'll have eight hours of news a day," said David Whitaker, news director of WTVT, the CBS affiliate in Tampa. WTVT is a New World station that will be shifting to Fox when the Fox investment is complete. "We're not the least bit concerned about the loss of CBSL" Whitaker said.

"This is our opportunity to become the primary source for news in our market." He said WTVT's 10 p.m. newscast will be flashier, geared to younger viewers. But it won't look like WSVN, he said. "WSVN presents a newscast that has a look, a feel, a signature to it. That would not be the direction we adding news hours and gearing toward younger viewers.

But WSVN defends its style of news. "We had to do something not to wither into the woodwork," said Cheatwood, who now is vice president for news and programming for both television stations owned by Ansin's Sunbeam WSVN and WHDH-Ch. 7 in Boston. "We had to be different. In this business, you can't just be as good as the competition.

You have to be different to stand out." So Cheatwood designed a newscast that would appeal to younger audiences, the audiences that watch Fox. Channel 7 began aggressively marketing itself as South Florida's News Station. It added reporters and newscasts. "We really cultivated an audience that didn't exist before," Cheatwood said. Most newscasts appeal most to people aged 50 or more.

A newscast for young viewers was risky. Being a news station without the backing of a national news organization was riskier still. Channel 7 has taken its lumps for being too sensational, too glitzy, too crime-oriented in its newscasts. But when big news happens, Channel 7 often wins. The style, it seems, works in Miami..