ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 14, 1997 TAG: 9704140100
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LOWE THE ROANOKE TIMES
The station is restructuring the way it gathers and reports news as well as its overall relationship to viewers.
The oldest TV station in town is taking on a new name.
Well, as far as the Federal Communications Commission is concerned, it's still WSLS-TV (Channel 10).
But - as of today - the name its viewers are going to be hearing and seeing is "Newschannel 10."
Behind the new look is what news director Bill Foy calls a "recommitment to the local community ... the backbone of news."
That is at the heart of the station's restructuring of not only the way it gathers and reports news, but its overall relationship to viewers, says General Manager and Vice President Randy Smith.
The strategy is a long-term one, Smith said, whose goal is to enhance viewer perceptions of the station. Although a ratings sweeps period begins at the end of this month - and ratings are "always the bottom line" - Smith says the goal is not so much to influence the next ratings book or two, but to steadily improve the station's image with viewers in its 25-county coverage area.
For years, Channel 10 has trailed WDBJ (Channel 7) overall in ratings and total number of viewers. That has been particularly dramatic at 6 p.m. weekdays, the prestige spot of local television production when stations tend to air their most comprehensive - and most heavily viewed - local news programs.
At a gala introduction of a whole package of changes for employees Friday night, "that other station" was only rarely mentioned amid the hoopla celebrating Channel 10's new direction.
It was clear, however, that finally mounting a serious challenge to the dominance of the Channel 7 news programming is the goal of the seven teams of employees who redesigned the station's look and its mission.
When employee talk ran to what has been holding the station back from the market's top spot, however, the key obstacle wasn't described as Channel 7, but the old owner - Roy H. Park.
Employees Friday happily said goodbye to Park's reputation for putting little of his profits back into his stations, consequently leaving them with resources inferior to their competitors'.
"We no longer have a Park attitude," Smith told his cheering employees. No longer is Smith "pushing our corporate owners for change - they are pushing us for change."
The new owner - Richmond-based Media General - has spent $2million on the Roanoke station since it took over early in January, Smith said.
A truck equipped to transmit remote broadcasts via satellite is already on order and should arrive in May. All the studio lighting has been replaced; audience research has been conducted; new computers and other capital equipment have been bought; and the station has already - twice - broken its record for spending on single new syndicated programs. It will air "Friends" at 7 p.m. when it becomes available in the fall of 1998, and this fall the station will take over "Rosie O'Donnell" for its 4 to 5 p.m. slot.
Media General spent $710million in January to buy the television and newspaper interests formerly owned by Park. Those had been held by a group known as Park Acquisitions since 1994, after Park's death.
Media General owns nine daily newspapers in Virginia - including the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Lynchburg News & Advance. It also owns dailies in North Carolina and Florida, and about 100 weeklies and other periodicals. The company additionally holds 14 television stations in 10 Southeastern states and two cable television companies in Northern Virginia.
The corporation's "focus is on news," said Bill Diaz, a Media General officer in Roanoke last week to help kick off the changes. The company's mission is to be "a key provider of news" in all of its markets, which range throughout the Southeast.
Diaz said the research conducted here showed, as it has in other Media General markets, that TV news viewers "want us to provide solutions, and not just echo the problems."
Consequently, the news operation at Channel 10 has begun what is scheduled to be a weekly series of community forums in which viewers will be asked about the stories they want covered. The first meeting last week in a Roanoke neighborhood generated five story ideas that the station will begin reporting on this week, Smith said.
Much of the station's new look and game plan was borrowed from sister station "Newschannel 8" (WFLA) in Tampa, Fla. The logo, the designation of the weather department as the "Storm Team," and the community forum idea, for instance, all have been tried in that market.
The new look becomes official today with the 5 p.m. newscast.
"We're headed in a new direction," said Greg Roberts, a member of the station's management team and the station's sports anchor.
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines ILLUSTRATION: GRAPHIC: The new WSLS-TV logo. color.by CNB