A New Strategy to Win Viewers: Real News   

Monroe Anderson, WBBM-TV's director of community affairs, challenges a roomful of television viewers to complete the sentence, "I hate TV news because..."

It didn't take much encouragement.

"These shows are selling sensational stories," complained Dana Christy, one viewer invited to speak her mind. "As long as you spend five minutes on these horror stories, why can't you spend two seconds to put up a phone number where these people can get some help?"

"I think TV news is racially biased," added Catherine Moore, another viewer. She then launched into a detailed description of how Chicago's news stations have focused on gang crime in African American neighborhoods, in her opinion exacerbating the problem.

Such viewer venting may seem an odd way to sell a new format for Chicago's CBS-owned-and-operated station, a station mired in third place. But this is more than group therapy in search of higher ratings.

Since January, WBBM's news department has conducted 17 such sessions, with groups of varying demographics. The sessions are just part of a major format change for the station's newscasts. Besides adding new graphics and shuffling anchors – quick fixes commonplace among third-place stations like WBBM – the station is also changing the content of its news, concentrating less on sensationalism and more on issues that may be less sexy but are more relevant to viewers.

"We feel like we're repairing our relationship with our community," says Kathy Williams, WBBM's acting news director. "People are tired of the violence and sensationalism. We're trying to give them something different."

Rob Stafford, WBBM's new consumer reporter, is particularly pleased with his station's transformation, which allowed him to move from general assignment work to a new, high-profile position within the "News Extra" unit, a group of more than a dozen staffers charged with providing longer, more detailed stories daily. The "News Extra" unit ushered in the format change with a series in January that skewered tabloid television while sparing no criticism of WBBM's own past sensationalism. Stafford has responded to the challenge with investigations into allegedly unsafe treadmills, deceptive carpet cleaners and unscrupulous home builders.

Stafford's stories, in combination with other resources devoted to the "News Extra" unit, have freed Pam Zekman, the station's highly regarded investigative reporter, to pursue lengthier probes. She feels the new format has had a positive effect, fostering a new appreciation around the station "that you can't do these types of stories on a regular schedule," she says.

The station's new mission is a response to repeated demands to end its body-count style of journalism. For the moment it has stopped, but on many nights the newscast includes hints of the absurdities that have become all too common in local news: stories about derriere lifts in jeans, streakers and conventions for bald men.

The man behind the format change is former News Director John Lansing, who came aboard WBBM last October but recently left for WXYZ-TV in Detroit. Lansing is often credited with starting what came to be known as the "family-sensitive" news format, which gained popularity after he instituted it at Minneapolis' WCCO-TV.

So far, Lansing's approach has won mostly praise, but some wonder how much of the new format is really shrewd marketing rather than substantive change.

Kathy Williams notes that some of WBBM's competitors have criticized the community meetings. "They say we've handed over the news to our viewers," she says. "We're looking for direction and suggestions, not for viewers to produce our newscasts for us."

But if WBBM has handed over its news to viewers, they have not responded in kind. In the all-important May ratings period, WBBM's 10 p.m. newscast came in a distant third. Ratings leader WLS-TV attracted more than twice the viewers for its late newscast, considered the most significant benchmark for midwest broadcasters. During July ratings, WBBM remained in third place.

Lisa Kim, an anchor-reporter who returned to WBBM following the format change, says the station is prepared to take the high road for awhile. "Twelve years ago..we thought no one could touch us. But we slipped up. Now, it's going to take some time and hard work to get it back."