a`.+

a'.+-
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:*
IN QUICK SUCCESSION
he checks rwo laptop computers on his desk, rips through a dozen emails, snaps
through a sizable bank ofvideo feeds, screens the weather forecast and gives orders to the wo cameramen who
stand amid coils of cables that snake through the clutter
of the open newsroom.
In a moment, Burrous, dressed casually in a gray shirt
and blue jeans that look a size too big for him, is on the
air going interactive with the story that emailing viewers
have told him they most want him to cover. It involves a
controversial statewide bill that would n-rake pet neutering mandatory. Not exactly a stunnet, but the viewers
are into it. On the TV monitor, Burrous' finger is already pointing to the results of another impromptu cyber poll conducted at the CBS 13 website.
\fhat makes it fascinating is that ir.rstead of having
him sit rooted to a chair behind a desk in the accepted
format of
TV
r-rews
frorn day immemorial, Burrous is
standing and the camera is as likely to be looking over
his shoulder at his fingers pointing to the screen of his
PC as focusing or.r his face. And indeed, when the camera does feature him in the fi'ame, it is likely to be tilted
off-center, with a big flat screen monitor out-of-focus
behind hirn.
Cells and Sites
'Aha! 52 percent oFyou think all dogs and cats should be
neutered," Burrous exclaims. "l dor-r't know, I don't
know." There is passion in the emails and in the 513
phone messages that ultirnately come in. Burrous rolls
with it. "Did you know that last year 400,000 dogs and
cats were put to sleep?" he says. The emails and phone
calls pour in faster now. It's a hot story, and viewers have
opinions.
Later Burrous and his co-anchor, Lisa Gonzales, sail
into the other news of the day. The director of homeland
security has a "gut feeling" that more terrorist attacks are
on the way. The weather is weird; it's raining in July in
Sacramento, so it gets a fair shake and so do the pope,
Vest Nile virus, the California wildfires and the Iraq
war. Burrous rocks through the lineup, changing the order as he sees 6t, switching at will to close-ups of the
web page and then checking to see if a viewer has captured something exciting on a cell phone video that he
-.,- -:. .:-l-. ..,.,-.,
This young and interactive anchor is 32 years old and
looks younger. Is this the future of TV news? Have the
proliferating platforms of the YouTube generation made
the old "talking heads" delivery sryle obsolete? \With advancements ir.r technology smashing the traditional ways
of broadcasting the news, what is the future and which
station in Sacramento "gets it"?
What War?
The questior.rs are worth asking from a business point of
view because even while the internet, cable TV video
games, TiVo and podcasts carve into viewing time, there
are still tens of millior.rs of dollars at stake in the dog-eatdog battle for TV news supremacy in Sacrarnento. In
fact, the news war berween char-rnels 3, 10 and 13 has
become one of the more ir-rtriguing and entertaining
shows in town.
For the past five decades, of course, it has been ar-rything but a war. KCRA 3 has dorninated the news scene
to a point where its number of viewers often more than
doubled the viewers of all the other stations combined.
Perhaps no TV news market in the country has been so
conquered for so lor-rg.
Today, KCRA 3 is still the towering goliath of the Sacramento region, and in a static market you could expect
this to continue. But today's news landscape is anything
but static. Technology and consumer expectations are
changing so fast they've left even the most seasoned media experts shrugging their shoulders when asked about
the future of TV news.
"No one knows what television news will look like a
few years from now," says Bruno Cohen, president and
general manager of KOVR 13. "How could they? It's going to change more in the next 48 months than it has in
the last 48 years."
Elliott Troshinsky, president and general manager of
KCRA 3, seemed less impressed with the changes, and
his reasons would soon become clear enough. "Sure, the
46 prosper
September 07
"Did you know that last year
400,000 dogs and cats were
put to sleep?" The emails
and phone calls pour in
faster now. lt's
,.,
hot story and
viewers have
a
OplnlOns.
CHRIS BUBBOUS KOVR 13 NEWS ANCHOR
LOCATION: ARTICLE SALON SPA BOUTIQUE
WARDHOBE: ANDREW FLOOR
HAIR: TARA FLOOR
MAKEUP: JEFF JAFWIN
r1
I ri,, l
'',ri.,
new technology will come into play," he says. "Our abiliry
to gather news and present news is growing rapidly, and we
have many new plaforms to present the news, such as the
internet, but I dont know whether anchors will be sitting
behind desla five years from now or not. It really doesn't
matter. In the end, it only matters ifwe are accurate and delivering the news in a way that people accept."
Pollination and Proliferation
The cross-pollination of nerwork news and the internet
is already a reality. Every station has a website, and refer-
ring viewers to it has become an important part of every
broadcast. Hosting a website not only keeps starions
current with their rivals, it adds another advertising revenue stream and allows them to become a richer information source. The websites contain far more subsrantive news than is presented during the daily and nightly
newscasts because of the additional space and time
available.
Another change, this one initiated by the national
news nerworks, is that far more anchors are going into
the field to do their reporting. This supposedly gives a
greater feeling of immediacy to the newscast. The use of
home videos, captured on cell phones and the like, has
also become more proli6c. This has given rise to socalled "citizen journalism" and the theory that TV and
internet news may someday consist primarily of instantaneous, unvetted videos being shot at news and disaster
sites worldwide.
Still, the dynamic aspects of TV cannot be denied. In
Sacramento, about 90 percent of adults watch TV and
82 percent say it is the most influential of all the media,
according to a recent Nielsen Media Research Survey.
The fact is, TV news rnatters to us and it most likelv always
will.
However, the TV news rnarker of 2007 is much like
the wide-open computer sofrware market of the 1970s.
The decisions that are made by the stations today, in this
confusing hurricane of changing techr.rology, will likely
determine their long-term success or failure. Already the
strategies are being formed. The stark contrast between
KOVRs innovation and KCRAs traditions couldn't
be
more aPParenr.
The Dave and Lois Show
Watching the king and queen of Sacramento news, Dave
\Walker and Lois Hart, in the KCRA 3 newsroom explains Tioshinsky's reluctance to gush over the upcoming changes in TV news. The newsroom itself is a pin-
striped, corporate affair, subdued, quiet, ali ties and
white shirts and a huge, impressive sign on rhe wall that
oroclaims:
'Where
the News Comes First.
The place has the feel of a front-runner, an organization that still leads in the Nielsen ratings in almost every
category of news in almost every time slot. A question
comes to rnind as you look around the orderlv newsroom. If you were the industry leader and had been for
50 years, just how eager would you be to change?
How would you like to be known as the general matrager who rnade the cl.ranges that cost the statior.r its half-
century of dominance? lioshinsky's position is potentially a treacherous one. He faces tremendous changes in
the industry, yet in trving to change with it, he risks all.
For the mornent, though, he is insulated from the risk
because of Dave ar.rd Lois. Husband and wife in real life,
they are the last of the r-rews royalry in Sacramento.
Their pedigree is impeccable. They anchored CNNt
initial broadcast and they are the lineage of 'Walter
Cronkite, Eric Severeid, Dar.r Rather, Ed Bradley and
Sacramento's Stan Atkinson. They fit perFectly in the
library-quiet and l.rospital-cleatr newsroom of KCRA 3.
Unlike Burrous, who is a flurry of kinetic energy and
rurnpled clothing, Walker is calm, avuncular and
imr.r.raculately dressed. Hart is the talented 6rst lady of
news. She is graceful, unflappable :rnd emir.rer.rtly professional. Unlike the efficient cl.raos that reigns on Burrous'
show the set at KCRA 3 is so measured and isolated that
the car-neras, automated, move themselves.
Of course, their newscasts coffle across warm and it-tviting on your screen, but that's Dave and Lois and the mirrors of technology. l)ave :rr-rd Lois rrre, without question,
the rwo highest-rated anchors in the Sacramento region.
Nobody else is even close. Yet the questiot.t lingers as they
near retlrenent are we seeing the end of ar-r era?
For all his consumrnate skill as an anchorm:rn, \X/irlker
is the first to adrnit that he could trot do what Burrous
does technologically. Dave ar.rd Lois have little coutrol
over their broadcasts; Burrous is thc master wizard, fully
in charge of his sl.ror'v. Nightlv scripts are writter.r for
D:rve rrnd Lois; Burrous is rlostlf inrpron-rptu. KCRA 3
broadcasts are c:rrefirlly ordeled,rnd r,rrely char-rged
n.rid-show.
On the otl.rer l.rar.rd, KOVR 13 presents a fluid,
ever-ch:rnging procluctiot-t with itrstantaneous Googled
f,rcts ,rnd streaming video. Still, the broadcasts featuring
Dave and Lois contir-rue to beat the t:rl or-rt of evervbody
else night ir.r and nieht out, and they have for a decade.
What
r i''i
gives?
Trust Trumps Tech nology
"lt's called trust, says KCRA 3's froshinsky.
"People
trusr Dave and Lois. You cln have ell the ner.r'techr-rology
in the world, but without tmst you dor-r't have a newscast. That will r-rever ch:ruge. Trust belts technology
every time." But dor-r't cor-rfirse traditior-r with stagt-rattou.
Tiosl-rinsky has made a number of cl-rar-rges to the station,
50 prosper
Sepfernber 07
primarily in the technology realm. KCRA 3 bought
a
fancy helicopter and has taken the lead in broadcasting
in high definition, but when Dave and Lois retire, which
could be in the next few years, the station will have to
adapt quickly or face serious challenges.
"I think
we will have the No. 1 rated newscasts within
boldly predicts KOVRs Cohen. "We're the
years,"
three
willing
to overturn every rock to compete. 'What
ones
we don't have is last night's news being read in the morning by a bunch of Ken and Barbies. KCRA has the great-
in place right now, and the last thing
Television (which owns KCRA 3)
Hearst-Argyle
that
make a lot of changes. Ve really
is
for
them
to
wants
KCRA can be . We won't know
know
how
creative
don't
and
Lois
retire."
until Dave
'Without question, KOVR 13 has taken the lead in
new and innovative content. That station's No. 1 show,
"Good Day Sacramento," is not a true news show, but it
handles news while using many of the same cutting-edge
technologies as Burrous (who came from "Good Day
Sacramento" and still appears regularly or.r the show). A
key personaliry on that show, Mark S. Allen, is or.re of:
the few anchors who has a definitive vision of TV r.rews
in the future.
"I think everybody will give the news naked," he says,
referring to the change in anchors from being passive
"newsreaders" controlled by program directors to interactive partners working directly with viewers as Burrous
does. "I think it will revolutionize the entire industry.
There will never be such a thing as a slow news day."
est brand system
they still have the 'talking heads' giving the
change
news from behind the desks the same way they did 50
and they are losing millions of viewers,"
years ago
Charlier says. "\7e aren't going to get to the top in the
Sacramento market by trying to be like KCM."
The fact that there is no love lost benveen the two srations makes things even more interesting. Brandon Mer-
cer, a32-year-old whiz kid from USC who is the executive
producer of cbsl3.com, says: "If you want to watch yesterdayt r.rews today, all packaged up, then you should
watch KCRA. If you watch us, you'Il get everything we
raw video and everything
have access to at the moment
else
and we may be messy and have our hair all messed
up, but we'lI be telling you the story as it happens."
The comment incenses Tioshinsky. "Printing that is
irresponsible journalism," he charges. "How can anyone
Our ratings prove that people watch us because they trust we will give news thatk
accurate and timely. \What he said is utter nonsense."
say we air yesterdayt news?
Anzio Williams, the news director of KCRA 3 was
quick to counterattack as well. 'At the end of the day,
the other stations still have to stand up to Dave and
Lois," he says. "They can't. \fe're way ahead in this ballgame, but we aren't trying to just win by one or rwo. \7e
want to put this gam€ away.l'
Cohen of KOVR l3 wasn't having it. "You can either
buy or inr-rovate your way to success in this business," he
says. "KCRA is trying to buy, and we're innovating.
KCRA's dominance is over."
ro
Brilliant Nightmares
Burrous is only slightly less irreverent when it comes to
thinking outside the proverbial box. He may be doing
things on-air that no one else in the country is doing in
controlling the cutting-edge technology. Says Atkinsor.r,
the reigning king of Sacramento's TV news scene for 30
years until he retired in 1999 and who served as an anchor on both KCRA 3 and KOVR 13 during his career:
"God only knows what Chris is doing over there. You
can never tell what Bruno is cooking up. Itt either brilliant ideas or nightmares. Chris is a very talented kid,
though.They are using his early morning time slot to see
whether this kind of pioneering of new technologies will
stick to the wall. Will Sacramento viewers buy into it?
It's going to be very interesting finding that out."
Cohen gives much of the credit for the stationk pioneering programs to Steve Charlier, KOVR's vice presider.rt of
news. Charlier, 37, who grew up in Iowa, made a mark as
an innovative programmer in Phoer.rix and Salt Lake Ciry
before coming to KOVR 13 wo years ago. "I watch every
month as the national nework news stations refuse to
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