Media Savvy
Reaching For Relevance
By Andrew Stockey

First, a four-letter word: ESPN.

For sports fans, they are the greatest four letters ever assembled,but for those of us covering sports for any local television outlet, this four-letter word has become a source of frustration, cutbacks and even firings. This view comes from one who not only works for a company that partially owns ESPN, but also has a good working relationship with the network.

No, ESPN has become a four-letter word for those of us in the local sports broadcast industry because it has become the standard by which electronic sports journalism is measured, causing local sportscasts to be seen by some as superfluous.

Two decades ago, when it came to nightly sports coverage, you did not have much choice. Catch the 6 p.m. or 11 p.m. broadcast on channels 2, 4, or 11, or do without until the morning paper hit your driveway.

No more.

Today, ESPN is the industry leader, causing local TV news executives in Pittsburgh and beyond to re-think their approach to sports. This has resulted in everything from your nightly newscast cutting down the time allotted to the extreme case of KCTV-TV. The Kansas City-based CBS affiliate fired its entire sports department and struck a deal with the local cable sports network to produce its nightly sportscasts.

So the question being asked at the local stations here is, how relevant is our sports segment to our viewers? That question that becomes even more intriguing with the addition of Fox Sports Net's Pittsburgh Sports Tonight, the nightly-half hour show covering exclusively Pittsburgh sports. Also, sports fans now have the internet and two all-sports radio stations.

My answer to that question is that you have to make it relevant and make it, with apologies to NBC, must-see TV. Channels 2 and 11 have given their sports departments more airtime on auxiliary channels. At WTAE, we don't have this luxury, so we must find a way to make our time at 6 and 11 important and relevant.

How?

Go local.

We are almost all local in our content. Forget out of town baseball scores. Pittsburgh sports fans care less about the rest of their world and more about their own teams. So the focus must be on teams that call this region home.

Be unique.

While ESPN is the 400-pound gorilla of sports coverage, its reach does have limits. You won't see daily Steelers' news there. Even when they do have a Steelers' story, it might be a day old. We must bring you something that you won't find in the myriad of national services. Also, provide sports coverage the national services likely can't match. Extensive high school football coverage is a clear example of this.

Good old fashion reporting.

I always tell hopeful young sportscasters the most important thing you need to learn is the skill of reporting. Many aspiring sportscasters want to work on catch phrases or nicknames. What they forget is that the first job of a sportscaster is to be a reporter, one who builds contacts and breaks stories. Being a good journalist makes sports relevant to the entire broadcast.

Are we, the sportscasters at channels 2, 4, 11 and 53, relevant to our viewers? We can be, but it's up to us. We must work harder than ever, desire to be different and be responsive to the needs of our viewers. If we aren't, that decision to clean house in Kansas City may be repeated here, soon.

Andrew Stockey is sports anchor for WTAE-TV.