Posted by Bud on October 27, 2009 at 08:17:58:
From Phil Rosenthal's Tower Ticker media blog:
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Time for WCIU's 'You & Me This Morning' to rise and shine
"You & Me This Morning," Weigel Broadcasting's unconventional entry into local news, wiped the sleep from its eyes, rolled out of bed and tiptoed onto the air Monday, making its debut with a soft launch on The U and Me TV, WCIU-Ch. 26.1 and Ch. 26.2, respectively.
Its short news and information segments with a strong local lifestyle and entertainment bent, presented by Jeanne Sparrow (pictured), are to slip in between the regular syndicated fare on the two channels weekdays between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. The four segments Monday ranged in length from four minutes to 11 minutes.
"It's focused especially on women, getting through the day, doing it economically," said Neal Sabin, Weigel's executive vice president. "We will not focus on blood and guts. We are not going to send a reporter to the airport to report that the traffic's slow. I've said a traditional news director would blow their brains out over this and then we wouldn't report it. We're not doing that kind of stuff."
Headlines and video come from CNN and a deal with the Chicago Sun-Times. "We get to use (the Sun-Times') content, not their people, but the things that they've written locally," Sabin said. "It's a very nice promotion for them."
Other segments, such as love advice and movie reviews, will be provided by a variety of contributors, mostly unknown but whom Sabin said "are going to become knowns."
Although "You & Me" is fronted on camera by Sparrow, formerly of WMAQ-Ch. 5 and WGCI-FM 107.5, at the helm is Dick Tracy, who was named Weigel's Chicago director of content shortly after the new local interstitial A.M. programming venture was announced in July. Tracy is a veteran of 25 years in advertising, the last 11 as vice president/creative director at DDB Chicago, developing multi-platform content for McDonald's, Budweiser, Bud Light, CapitalOne and other brands.
The content for "You & Me," according to Tracy and Sabin, will be produced with TV, online and mobile viewing in mind, and WCIU's Web site is set to get an overhaul in the next two weeks or so to better showcase the new material. It's all a work in progress.
"The code word for this is 'morning show' and that's where you first see it on the air, but it's really about content," Sabin said. "Some of these features or people may become long-form shows. They may become Web people, phone, I don't know. It was to get into content."
Tracy said morning TV "should be feel-good television" because it's how viewers start their day and he echoed Sparrow, who has said it will be at its best when everything has a silver lining.
"Even if it's a negative story, we're going to find a positive spin on it and hopefully leave people feeling better," Tracy said.
In unveiling the long-gestating idea for "You & Me," Sabin said this summer that Weigel wanted to be in the news business to snag a share of the news and information ad dollars in the market. Also, he said, there was a need for more local content so WCIU could "become more than just a station with syndicated first-run and rerun programming and [Rich Koz's] Svengoolie."
At that time, Sabin also said there would be some sponsored content and product placement that would be clearly identified.
Posted at 11:15:12 PM