Saturday, April 4, 1998 | 4:35 a.m.
The idea is to combine the substance of print journalism with the polish of a television newscast and the transmission capabilities of cable TV.
The concept will become reality Monday in Southern Nevada as Las Vegas 1 takes to the air on Prime Cable Channels 1 and 39.
A joint venture between the Las Vegas SUN, KLAS Channel 8, the city's CBS network affiliate, and Prime Cable, Las Vegas 1 debuts as the area's first 24-hour local television news station.
Anchor-reporters John Purvis and Deborah Levy along with reporter Anne Yeager will deliver the station's first live 30-minute News One newscast at 9 p.m. Additional live newscasts will follow at 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m.
The broadcasts will originate from the KLAS studio just off the Las Vegas Strip and from a studio at the SUN's office at 800 S. Valley View Blvd.
The cable newscast will utilize the news staffs of Las Vegas 1, Channel 8 and the SUN.
Periodically throughout the day the News One newscasts will be repeated. Other news programming to be broadcast seven days a week include: rebroadcasts of Channel 8 Eyewitness News reports and Bloomberg Business News reports. Weekend programming will include the Wall Street Journal Report, It's Your Business, Travel News and Nevada Week in Review.
"This is the perfect city for this type of news operation," general manager Bob Stoldal said. "The fact is that this community, unlike most communities, truly operates 24 hours a day, and television news does not fulfill the needs of those people who work other than the traditional 9-to-5 shifts."
In other words, Stoldal explained, it is the mission of Las Vegas 1 to provide news at times when viewers want it, but don't have access to it.
Stoldal said that because the Las Vegas SUN is a "full editorial partner" in Las Vegas 1, viewers can expect the same in-depth coverage of local news issues that they expect from print journalism.
"The SUN will be supplying its resources, and the institutional memory will be invaluable," Stoldal said.
SUN editor Brian Greenspun explained that through the medium of television, the newspaper will reach out to every part of the community.
"The SUN's role is a full editorial partner with Channel 8 in providing what will be the best local news program in Las Vegas," Greenspun said. "We have long believed that the news-gathering ability of the Las Vegas SUN is second to none, and we are looking forward to using our skills to provide this quality of reporting throughout Southern Nevada."
Channel 8 is owned by Landmark Communications, a Norfolk, Va., firm that owns three major daily newspapers, four community dailies, 39 weeklies and four specialty publications. Besides Channel 8, Landmark also owns WTVF, a 24-hour cable news channel in Nashville, Tenn., and The Weather Channel, based in Atlanta. Landmark also owns Norfolk-based InfiNet, an Internet access and service provider.
The Greenspun family owns both the SUN and a majority interest in Prime Cable, the area's predominant cable company with more than 300,000 residential customers.
Greenspun said the development of a local news television channel has been a goal of his family ever since his parents sold KLAS to Howard Hughes in 1969.
"But it wasn't until we built the cable company into one of the 10 largest in the nation that we acquired the ability to make this all happen," said Greenspun, who explained that he considers the SUN's partial transition into the world of electronic media as a natural progression.
"In a way, it's diversification of the means of providing information," Greenspun said. "If we look at ourselves as a newspaper, we do just fine, but if we look at ourselves as news providers, then we can consider ourself as a vehicle to provide news to the greatest number of people.
"When you look at where the media are going in the next decade, it's really like the train business earlier in this century. While some owners believed that they were in the business of operating trains, others believed they were in the business of moving people, and they diversified and started bus lines and limousine services."
Emily Neilson, news director for Eyewitness News, said the new venture is a great opportunity for Channel 8 and the SUN.
"We're excited because we'll be able to time-shift our newscasts to reach areas of Las Vegas with many new residents," Neilson said. "They'll be able to sample more of our Channel 8 newscasts, and because (the Las Vegas 1 newscasts) are produced by our news department, there will be branding for Eyewitness News."
Dick Fraim, president and general manager of KLAS, said he is confident Las Vegas 1 will be a success.
"We look forward to offering our viewers an opportunity to watch 'Eyewitness News' at various times of the day and we're thrilled to join our new partners in delivering not one, but three prime-time local newscasts each weekday evening," Fraim said.
With the scheduling of Las Vegas 1 on Prime Cable Channels 1 and 39, Metro One will be moved to Channel 48, and the Travel Channel will be offered only as part of upgraded cable packages.
Prime Cable officials say a 24-hour local news channel has been something subscribers have wanted for a long time.
"Cable's popularity is due to its diversity of programming," general manager Harris Bass said. "A news channel in the fastest growing city in the United States is a natural. In a city that never sleeps, the news shouldn't either."
Steve Schorr, Prime Cable's director of government relations, said Las Vegas 1 will offer cable subscribers "the opportunity to see a newspaper (on the air) at 9 p.m., 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m."
But will area viewers turn into a local cable news program between 9 and 11 p.m.?
"It certainly will be very difficult going up against prime-time entertainment," Neilson said. "After all, the networks spend millions of dollars on prime-time programming. We know if someone wants to watch Seinfeld, they won't tune in (to Las Vegas 1), but we also believe there are a lot of other people who are looking for local news during that time."
Fraim said attracting prime-time viewers is a challenge, "but we know what we're up against, and we're confident that Las Vegas 1 will be a success."
Stoldal estimates there are some two dozen other similar ventures throughout the nation, including in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, New Orleans and Nashville, but nowhere is a 24-hour local news station needed more than Las Vegas.
"Ever since the day this city was born on May 15, 1905, Las Vegas has been a place of growth," Stoldal said. "It has consistently doubled in population, and in just the past six years the community has grown by 40 percent. Clearly there's a great interest among local residents in news and local issues."
Similar ventures among newspaper, television stations and cable companies throughout the nation include:
* San Francisco: Bay TV, a 24-hour local news, sports and information channel operated by the San Francisco Chronicle, KRON Channel 4 and cable television giant TeleCommunications Inc.
* Newark, N.J.: News 12 New Jersey, a 24-hour local news cable channel owned and operated by Newhouse Newspapers' the Star-Ledger and Rainbow Programming Holdings, a unit of Cablevision Systems Corp.
* Boston: The Boston Globe, News 4 New England and Boston.com, the Globe electronic publishing subsidiary, have formed a multimedia partnership designed to help consumers navigate their way through cyberspace. On Monday evenings, the media partners collaborate to produce a special segment on News 4 containing information about the Internet. The segment features Globe staff members.
* Lawrenceville, Ga.: The Gwinnett Daily Post has entered into a five-year agreement with Northeast Gwinnett Cablevision in which the cable company purchases copies of the Daily Post and distributes them to cable subscribers as part of a cable-newspaper package. In return, the newspaper supplies editorial content for a local news channel. As a result of the partnership, circulation of the Daily Post jumped from 14,000 to nearly 50,000 last year. Competitor Atlanta Journal and Constitution lost a court battle with the Post over the rural newspaper's qualifications to carry county legal advertisements.
Each newspaper-television venture differs greatly depending on the media competition base and the various sociological and economic factors of each area.
Probably the venture that most closely parallels the Las Vegas partnership is Bay TV, which was launched in 1994 by the Chronicle Publishing Co., parent company of the Chronicle; KRON, the local NBC network affiliate; and TCI, the area's predominate cable television company.
Program highlights of Bay TV include "All Consuming," a live hour-long consumer issues program hosted by Laurel Pallock, a 20-year veteran of the San Francisco district attorney office's Consumer Fraud Unit, and "Bay Cafe," a half-hour Bay Area food magazine show.
Bay TV is offered to some 1.6 million TCI cable customers throughout the San Francisco Bay area.
"We're getting some pretty good numbers in terms of viewership," executive director Jeanette Gitler said. "As we continue to add programming the viewership has grown."
One program added recently is "Take Issue," a one-hour evening call-in program hosted by KRON anchor Pete Wilson. Past topics include race and violence in schools.
But the meat of Bay TV is its local newscasts.
"We have a camera in our newsroom, and we have a number of editorial people who are utilized, and through this collaboration between the newspaper and television, we can offer a better product to cable viewers," John B. Sias, chief executive officer of the Chronical Publishing Co., said.
Despite the growing popularity of Bay TV, the newspaper-television-cable partnership still has yet to turn a profit.
"Financially, we are still investing money in it," Sias said. "We are selling advertising and we are making progress, but we're still not covering all our expenses. It's not inexpensive to provide good quality news and information."
In Las Vegas, Greenspun agreed with that statement.
"Certainly one of the challenges of Las Vegas 1 is that it's a great expense," he said, "but we are committed to making available the capital that is required to make Las Vegas 1 the best source of information available to residents of Clark County."
archive
