FREE READ: Viewers Say KFOR’s ‘The Breakdown’ is a Breakthrough in Local TV News

By Paul Greeley

NOTE: This story was first published on News Blues on May 28.  

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KFOR, Nexstar’s NBC affiliate in Oklahoma City, changed the traditional format of its 6:30 p.m. newscast and changed the name to The Breakdown several weeks ago and viewers have noticed.

“Love the new Breakdown format.”

“Day 8 of The Breakdown and I see people posting about it on Facebook…And they say it’s a welcome change from news….So Heather you’re a hit!

So, what’s so different about the format of The Breakdown, the 6:30 newscast on KFOR, that viewers have noticed?

Heather Holeman, an 18-year veteran at KFOR, anchor’s The Breakdown.

“No teleprompters and everything is ad-libbed,” she said. “And it’s exciting. And what I love about it is that the viewers really get to know our personalities as well.”

Holeman credits The Breakdown idea with the arrival of a new general manager at KFOR who she says, “had some really great ideas that we’d never talked about before.”

Given the sameness of newscasts in the market and really everywhere, Adam F. Chase, KFOR’s new GM for less than a year, says he sat down with the newsroom, and they came to the consensus that “we have to break the entire format of how a show is produced.”

Chase looked at data around podcasts and how viewers were going in that direction and used that as a guide for formatting The Breakdown.

“And that’s how the breakdown started,” Chase said.”

Chase said the station tested the podcast style where reporters would sit down with the anchor and break down their stories as a segment in the traditional newscast for several weeks.

“We know talkbacks are nothing new, but to sit down and be interviewed about your story is different for local media,” he said.
Holeman says at the start of The Breakdown, she’ll introduce the reporter featured that day and get a brief synopsis of the story which is then shown.

After the news package, the show comes back to them to talk about “some things that we didn’t have time to show in the actual story.”

 

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“That’s what I love about it is sitting down together and just talking about what affects people in Oklahoma,” said Dylan Brown, a KFOR anchor/reporter. “It’s like they’re sitting in the room with us. It’s more like a discussion, not really a newscast.”

Brown says this format gives viewers a chance to “understand more about the story that we didn’t have time to fit into a 25-second VO for the newscast. It’s brand new for everyone.”

Holeman says The Breakdown gives the reporters and anchors an opportunity to “show your knowledge of the subject in a way that’s more conversational.”

“Just two people talking, which is kind of a lost art in local news because it’s so formatted and so formal,” Chase says.

Chase says The Breakdown gives the anchors and reporters time to get into a story that’s more honest and transparent.

“The reporters have the time to say what they don’t know and what they’re working on,” he says, “because the viewer probably has those same questions.”

Even the weather segment gets the The Breakdown treatment.

“We don’t call it the weather forecast,” Holeman says. “We call it our weather discussion.”

“It’s more relaxed,” Chase said. “It’s more conversational.”

The Breakdown has only been on the air for a few weeks, but Chase says ratings are up.

But the emails continue to come in and most say something like this, Chase says.

“I wasn’t sure what this was, but I really like it.”

Paul Greeley is the manager and a writer for News Blues.

He can be reached at Paul@NewsBlues.com or 817-578-6324.