THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 23, 1997 TAG: 9702220061
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: 112 lines
I BET YOU'VE heard the woman say it a million times.
``I want my LNC!''
In the last few weeks, she's popped up on Cox cable all hours of the day. Always, it's the same.
``I want my LNC!''
Come Monday, you will have your LNC, my dear.
Click on Channel 4 if you live in Norfolk, Portsmouth or Virginia Beach, Channel 8 if you're a subscriber in Chesapeake, Channel 25 if you're watching Cox cable in Newport News.
You want your LNC?
You got it, lady.
Local TV news around the clock arrives Monday.
Local News on Cable (LNC), a partnership that involves The Virginian-Pilot, WVEC and Cox Communications, signs on 5:30 a.m. Monday with a simulcast of Channel 13's news at daybreak. At 10 p.m. Monday night comes the premiere of ``Pilot 13 News,'' a five-nights-a-week telecast during which the newsrooms of WVEC and The Pilot will work as one.
The LNC brass promise it will not be a warmed-over version of WVEC's 6 p.m. newscast nor merely a dress rehearsal for the ABC affiliate's ``13 News at 11.''
They say ``Pilot News 13'' will be, well, different.
``It will be newsy, fast-paced, hot,'' said LNC's general manager, Ed Power.
``It will be very watchable, very hot,'' said WVEC's news director Keith Connors.
LNC's 10 p.m. telecast will sign on with sponsors, which is good news for the three investors who are gambling about $1 million that this, the 40th largest TV market in the United States, wants local news 24 hours a day. Welcome aboard, CI Travel. Hello, Mega Mazda.
Sales have been better than expected, said Power, who leaves the Pilot newsroom, where he has been a deputy managing editor, to run LNC. He's been in the Cox promos as often as the lady who wants her LNC. And the dude who says it's time for local news on his time.
It remains to be seen how different the content of ``Pilot 13 News'' will be from other local newscasts, but here's a twist: a third anchor person.
LaSalle Blanks, newly arrived from Rochester, N.Y., will sit among the reporters and editors in the Pilot newsroom while Barbara Ciara and Mike Lewis, who have a combined 25 1/2 years in TV news here, will anchor from the Channel 13 studios. Both will continue as co-anchors of ``13 News at 5.''
Blanks, a baby-face who is so new to Hampton Roads that he is still asking directions, says he was inspired to be a broadcaster by Bryant Gumbel, late of NBC's ``Today.'' As Blanks the youngster watched Gumbel smoothly and glibly hosting ``Today,'' he said to himself, ``I think I can do that.''
Ciara, who is also the newscast's managing editor, suggests you think of ``Pilot 13 News'' as a sneak preview of the next morning's Pilot. Blanks in the Pilot newsroom will bring the newspaper's reporters and editors into the newscast to talk about stories they are working on.
Ciara is also promising at least one story a night that is exclusive to ``Pilot 13 News.'' And she's won the hearts of the newspaper's photographers by scheduling at the end of the newscast a parade of still pictures from the day's photo assignments.
The LNC bosses also expect a fresh, fast-moving 10 p.m. newscast to appeal to viewers who rise early, which is a considerable number in blue-collar Hampton Roads. (There's competition at that hour from WTKR, which produces a 10 p.m. newscast for WGNT).
Who would have believed it? A coming together of print and electronic journalists who until now arm-wrestled each other for stories. ``What had been a huge rivalry has evolved into an unusual marriage,'' said Lewis when schmoozing with Cox Communications' Irvine B. Hill on ``Hampton Roads Speaks Out.''
Weekend newscasts starting at 8 a.m. are scheduled to begin March 15 with Bonita Billingsley in the anchor chair. When LNC isn't doing ``Pilot 13 News'' live five nights a week, ``Pilot 13 News'' live on the weekends or simulcasts of WVEC's newscasts, what then?
Repeats.
WVEC's ``13 News at Noon'' will run over and over from noon to 5 p.m. weekdays. From 6 until 10 p.m., you'll see ``13 News at 6'' eight times. Overnight, it will be encores of ``Pilot 13 News'' and ``13 News at 11.''
Local news on demand, the LNC brass calls it. It's local news when you want it. ``See what you want to see and then move on,'' said Connors. ``This service is unique. There's been nothing like it in this market.''
Consider this: From 5 p.m. through 5 a.m., you'll be able to see Jeff Lawson report on the weather 24 times, hear Ciara sign off with, ``Thanks for the company,'' 14 times. Ain't cable great?
At LNC, they expect viewers to spend 22 to 29 minutes whenever they tune in - about what they spend with CNN's Headline News.
Power and Connors see LNC as a companion channel to WVEC much as MSNBC and NBC work together on a national scale. If local news is breaking, and WVEC's bosses choose not to interrupt ABC programming to cover it, LNC will be there at the press conferences, reporting on periods of bad weather or whatever.
``We'll be covering news in ways never conceived of before this,'' said Connors. Connors also said there's no comparing the partnership of the Pilot and WVEC newsrooms to the WAVY-Daily Press link-up, which took place months ago.
LNC will be bigger and better, said Connors. Pilot reporters will be all over LNC. Daily Press writers are seldom if ever seen on Channel 10.
``Our partnership will be stronger. WAVY and the Daily Dress don't have the horses we have.''
Among the horses in the LNC barn are reporters and columnists you've read for years in the Pilot - the Mal Vincents, Larry Maddrys, Bob Molinaros. They have been invited but not ordered to participate in LNC.
Wouldn't you like to see ``Mal's Movie Minute'' from movie critic Vincent? ``Craig's Corner'' from music critic Craig Shapiro? Molinaro on LNC tossing out one-liners from his Friday note column?
In a pep talk, Connors told the ``print folks,'' as Ciara calls us, that we shouldn't be intimidated by the camera in the newsroom, and that looking good on television isn't about being beautiful.
``It's about being knowledgeable. It's about knowing what you're talking about.''
Is that all the man expects of us? No. He wants more. ``I ask that you comb your hair.''
Pass the hairspray. Mal's ready for his close-up.