It's not everyday we get to hear from a Houston TV general manager in such an honest and refreshing way, but Director of Houston Community College's (HCC) TV Communications, Todd Duplantis, got the scoop out of abc13 KTRK president and general manager Wendy Granato.
UPDATE
KTRK GM Wendy Granato tests positive for COVID-19
Duplantis knows TV well after working as a reporter for FOX 26 KRIV and, I have to throw this in there because my wife and I watched him on channel 5 in Houston, as a host on Hit Video USA.
One thing I learned about Duplantis in the interview was that he and Granato both worked at KNWS 51, Houston's own 24-hour news channel which aired from 1993 to 1996 or so.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Positive COVID-19 case at KTRK - How the station handled the positive COVID-19 test of anchor Chauncy Glover. Granato says she talks to Glover almost everyday and has to keep him from hurrying up and returning to work too soon.
- "What's old is new again" - Granato discusses how TV is being forced to return to ways it was decades ago when one person was doing it all - from being on camera to capturing the video all by yourself and everything in between. I would go a step further and say TV was starting to do this even before COVID-19 as you see news departments shrink thanks to technology and more MMJs hired (a person who runs the camera, appears on camera, edits the story...etc. all by themselves). When I have interviewed Dave Ward, his stories of KTRK in the 1960s involve a far smaller news department where reporters filmed/edited everything themselves.
"Even the most high tech, live television, we are in many ways going back to the way it all began," Granato added.
If you read the TV trades and social media chatter, many TV staffers think the changes being made now because of the coronavirus, might not return to the way TV station have traditionally done things, even after the virus goes away.
- Houston media working together at press conferences - Granato talks about how the TV stations and the Houston Chronicle now work together to cover press conferences to comply with social distancing. One station (or the Chron) is responsible for asking officials questions for a week. Then the next week comes and a new station covers all pressers for that week.
- "TV is seeing a huge resurgence" - Over the last decade, many TV stations have seen sharp ratings declines. But the pandemic, with its stay at home orders, is getting people to turn on TV newscasts again. The New York Times even wrote an article headlined "The Evening News Is Back."
"We just got off a research presentation, where we're seeing television is the number one, dominant source for local news right now for all ages - especially you younger viewers out there," Granato said. "We thought we'd lost the 20-something year olds, we thought we lost them to social media, we haven't. The younger viewers now realize, they do want to tune into television to get those very important updates."
But Granato says the station has pivoted to "go all in" on Facebook to show press conferences and values all the various social media platforms. She says the station's mantra is, "You won't be number one at anything, unless you're number one at everything."
Unfortunately for TEGNA employees who are being furloughed, sudden surging television ratings don't matter much as advertisers are pulling commercials.
"On one hand, we're experiencing large increases in ratings and traffic across all our platforms," Dave Lougee, president and CEO of TEGNA recently told employees in an email. "But on the other hand, and for obvious reasons, many businesses have decreased or in some cases pulled their current advertising and marketing campaigns because of COVID-19. In anticipation of this possibility, we made operational decisions in early March to keep costs down, including eliminating all non-essential expenses."
Radio companies are also making sacrifices.
RELATED - OTHER HOUSTON TV MANAGERS IN THE NEWS
- KPRC A Disaster Expert, But Pandemic’s Different
- Hey COVID-19 — Meet Harvey ‘17!
CONTACT: Leave me a Houston or Texas media news tip |
COMMENT: Click to leave your thoughts on this post here
KTRK GM Wendy Granato tests positive for COVID-19
Duplantis knows TV well after working as a reporter for FOX 26 KRIV and, I have to throw this in there because my wife and I watched him on channel 5 in Houston, as a host on Hit Video USA.
One thing I learned about Duplantis in the interview was that he and Granato both worked at KNWS 51, Houston's own 24-hour news channel which aired from 1993 to 1996 or so.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Positive COVID-19 case at KTRK - How the station handled the positive COVID-19 test of anchor Chauncy Glover. Granato says she talks to Glover almost everyday and has to keep him from hurrying up and returning to work too soon.
- "What's old is new again" - Granato discusses how TV is being forced to return to ways it was decades ago when one person was doing it all - from being on camera to capturing the video all by yourself and everything in between. I would go a step further and say TV was starting to do this even before COVID-19 as you see news departments shrink thanks to technology and more MMJs hired (a person who runs the camera, appears on camera, edits the story...etc. all by themselves). When I have interviewed Dave Ward, his stories of KTRK in the 1960s involve a far smaller news department where reporters filmed/edited everything themselves.
"Even the most high tech, live television, we are in many ways going back to the way it all began," Granato added.
If you read the TV trades and social media chatter, many TV staffers think the changes being made now because of the coronavirus, might not return to the way TV station have traditionally done things, even after the virus goes away.
- Houston media working together at press conferences - Granato talks about how the TV stations and the Houston Chronicle now work together to cover press conferences to comply with social distancing. One station (or the Chron) is responsible for asking officials questions for a week. Then the next week comes and a new station covers all pressers for that week.
- "TV is seeing a huge resurgence" - Over the last decade, many TV stations have seen sharp ratings declines. But the pandemic, with its stay at home orders, is getting people to turn on TV newscasts again. The New York Times even wrote an article headlined "The Evening News Is Back."
"We just got off a research presentation, where we're seeing television is the number one, dominant source for local news right now for all ages - especially you younger viewers out there," Granato said. "We thought we'd lost the 20-something year olds, we thought we lost them to social media, we haven't. The younger viewers now realize, they do want to tune into television to get those very important updates."
But Granato says the station has pivoted to "go all in" on Facebook to show press conferences and values all the various social media platforms. She says the station's mantra is, "You won't be number one at anything, unless you're number one at everything."
Unfortunately for TEGNA employees who are being furloughed, sudden surging television ratings don't matter much as advertisers are pulling commercials.
"On one hand, we're experiencing large increases in ratings and traffic across all our platforms," Dave Lougee, president and CEO of TEGNA recently told employees in an email. "But on the other hand, and for obvious reasons, many businesses have decreased or in some cases pulled their current advertising and marketing campaigns because of COVID-19. In anticipation of this possibility, we made operational decisions in early March to keep costs down, including eliminating all non-essential expenses."
Radio companies are also making sacrifices.
RELATED - OTHER HOUSTON TV MANAGERS IN THE NEWS
- KPRC A Disaster Expert, But Pandemic’s Different
- Hey COVID-19 — Meet Harvey ‘17!
