Posts to our blog tend to deal with a variety of topics that catch our eye.  One of these topics comes from an interview in this week’s New York Magazine with Andrew Heyward, President of CBS News from 1996 to 2005.  In the article, which questions the future of the TV news anchor, Heyward is asked if he foresees a day when the TV networks abandon the anchor model altogether.  In answering the questions, he touches on the history of innovation in American media whereby “new formats don’t tend to supplant the old ones” and, in particular, calls attention to the fact that radio was not replaced by television, as had been the forecast upon its advent. 

Instead, Heyward speaks to a future model for TV news in which the “story and reporter will become more important.”  What he thinks will be of growing importance is what he calls “sector expertise” and on-scene coverage. 

For those of us in the radio industry, this is what we call being local and being relevant.  At the close of the interview, Heyward mentions recently seeing a poster in Times Square for HBO’s “Vice” newsmagazine show in which the tagline is “We Go There.”  Heyward comments that “it’s a pretty sad day when a newsmagazine can use ‘We Go There' as a distinctive selling point.” 

For all of the radio stations out there that struggle with a new breed of outside competitors hoping to sell an innovative offer, I think it’s important to remind yourselves that you can have the edge simply by doing a better job of what we’ve always done as a medium…we go there.

To check out the full article and interview with Heyward, click here:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/04/anchors-network-news.html