VOLUME XXIII, NUMBER 28         JULY 14, 2003

Improving your teases is very important in attracting and holding viewers. Concentrating on several specific ideas can make a big difference. Workshops can sharpen staffers' skills.
A top promotion consultant shared with us insights that will help you improve audience retention from lead-in to kicker.

Keep viewers throughout the show

Writing effective teases is one of the most important elements in retaining audience, yet too often these are an afterthought.
It is one of the biggest problems facing local television news, according to Graeme Newell, President of 602 Communications.

If you can't convince viewers to watch, it doesn't matter how good your lead-in is or how good your product is.
Newell says your staff must have a clear understanding of what a tease is. It is important that producers make the mental shift. When writing a tease, they are not writing news. They are selling content.

Improving your teases is a tiny investment that can yield big dividends.

Here are some techniques your newsroom team can implement today for immediate results.

Every tease must have a promise of coverage.
Newell says that as he travels, one of the biggest mistakes he sees is the lack of a promise. Too often the tease is a 10-second news story, and it doesn't promise any specific coverage.
"Most teases are tiny news stories that don't give you a reason to come back. We want to make sure we have very specific reasons for them to come back," he stresses.

It must be very clear what the promise is.
"Many producers feel a great tease is about being clever --- some witty turn of phrase or something that will dazzle viewers. Those teases end up being very vague. It may be clever, but viewers don't have any idea what you're talking about," he says.
Newell reminds us that people are very distracted when they are watching TV. They may be reading a newspaper or the kids may be running around the house.
"You must hit them in the face with what's in your show. If the tease is too witty, you will miss the mark," he warns.

Teases should be written as the stories are written throughout the shift.
"Right now, most producers write their show, and then bang out the teases at the eleventh hour when many things are coming together. It is the very last thing they do," says Newell.
Some stories may have been written six hours earlier, and producers may have a hard time even remembering what was interesting about the story.
"When you write the story, you should write a tease line. Don't save them all for the end, because at the end, you are rushed and will do a poor job," warns Newell.
By the end of the shift, producers should have written an entire page of teases. Then they can choose which are best to use.

Put a maximum effort into the top of the show.
"The most important part of your show is the tease coming out of prime. Nothing is more important for holding viewers than that one tease," Newell stresses.
This tease is often called the credit squeeze. At many stations, it is a talking head most of the time.

Newell says the first tease deserves extra attention because it is the most important element of the entire newscast.
It is when people are making a decision about whether to watch, go to bed, or do something else.

If you must neglect anything, neglect the end of your show.
"Your teases become less critical the later in the show they get," he explains.
"Unfortunately, the top tease is the one that is banged out the most quickly. Sometimes it is a late-breaking story, or the producer is simply out of time," he says.
If you have nine teases to write, and there is late-breaking news, the top-of-the-show tease is going to suffer.
"That first tease should be the very best tease of the entire newscast. It should have the best sound and the best video. The goal is to get people to stay and watch the news, and you must give them a reason," he says.

In the first tease, Newell says you should tease the best stories in your newscast.
"It is okay to tease deep in the newscast, but you must always be sure you are promising good content in each block," he adds.
"The teases are the components of the show that make your second quarter-hour possible," he reminds us.

Beware of promoting too many stories and diluting your impact.
In terms of the number of stories to tease, Newell believes you should do as many as you can do clearly.
"Most producers tend to pick too many things. Err on the side of doing fewer stories well, instead of doing a lot of them badly," he says.

The latest trend he is seeing is stations putting a tremendous amount of pre-production effort into the top of the show tease.
"They are really editing that tease. In a lot of markets now, the promotion producer does it. You want your best video, neatest edits, and coolest stuff right at the top of the show. It must look clean and be easy to understand," he says.

The Executive Producer must check the first tease every night.
Newell says News Directors should make it a point to make sure this gets done.
"EPs generally want to check the news, and think the tease is okay. They must understand that tease is the most important moment in the entire half-hour. It is the first moment when people are making their decision to stay or go. If it doesn't absolutely rock, people are going to go to bed or change the channel," he stresses.
"The EP must supervise this well, and hold the producer's feet to the fire, and not do it as an afterthought. It is an incredibly important thing," he says.

Don't tease your news. Tease your coverage of the news.
Instead of saying, "There is a fire downtown ... Join us," say, "I'll show you how the firemen used three cans of silly putty to get into the building."
"That is something specific and it talks about the interesting component of the story," says Newell.

Many stations might tease it as, "Tonight, five people are homeless following a fire ..."
Newell says that "tease" is really a tiny news story. Instead of teasing the unusual or exclusive element to your coverage of the story --- something only you will show the viewer --- it gives a fact.
Newell says the difference translates into viewers thinking they can get the news any-where, as opposed to thinking your station did a really good job on the story.

"We want a promise of specific coverage that preferably is unique and unexpected coverage," he says.
In terms of video for a tease like this, it should be the most exciting video.
"Everybody has seen a million fires. If you are going to get me to watch this fire, you had better prove it is not like any other fire I have seen in the past," he says.

When producers talk to reporters in the field they should ask three questions:

• What is your best sound?

• What is your best video?

• What surprised you?
  "The thing that surprised them will probably be the teaseable component," says Newell.

Communication is critical.
"You can't write a good tease if you don't know what's in the story," he warns.
"You must watch the package or talk to the reporter. That's the time to go over with the reporter how you want to tease the story," says Newell.
He says when the tease doesn't match the story, usually it is the result of a lack of communication between reporters and producers.
"Many reporters feel if their story makes it on air, their job is done. Marketing the newscast is everyone's job," he adds.

Don't forget to use sound.
"The predisposition of most producers is to do all writing for a tease. Using the sound and video is a pain in the neck, but if they are going to end up with a great tease, nothing will sell the story better than the great video and neat sound. But most producers don't think that way," he says.

"I like to think of a tease as a movie trailer. Do you have the hot love scenes and the great car crashes in your tease, or do all you have is a bunch of plot?" he says.
"The most compelling thing is the great sound, great video and cool, neat facts. You want to tease the things you have the goods on. If you don't have those things, don't tease them," he says.

Additional strategies to improve retention now

Here are more suggestions that Newell feels can yield specific, positive results.

Anoint one EP in the newsroom as the "Tease Doctor."
"Make sure that person checks the teases as carefully as they check the story. The teases cannot be throwaway items," he stresses.

Have a "view and chew" session.
During lunch or dinner, look at what you sold in the promos and teases, and hold that up to the story.
"Take the teases and take the story, and put them together. I even include the promos, too. Ask yourself whether you found the best stuff in the story. Did you promise the best things this story had? You'll be shocked at how often you didn't," he says.

The promotion producer must have a place in your newsroom.
"The News Director should also facilitate the communication between the promotion producer and the reporters. The promo producer must know what's in the story, but many reporters don't want to be bothered because they are busy putting it together," he says.

Understand what not to tease.
Don't tease the "dumb story." Routine crime stories. Predictable meetings. Fires.
The video we always see --- smoldering ruins, yellow tape, and meeting video with angry teachers/parents --- are not surprising.
"You must prove to viewers that you don't have that story, you have something better, something specific. They'll find it in the specific promise of coverage. It's okay to tease a fire, but you better prove this is like no other fire they've ever seen," he stresses.
"Sometimes that happens, and sometimes it doesn't. If it doesn't happen, you don't want to tease it," he adds.

Are you covering the right stories?
Newell says you must ask yourself the question: "If you can't write a good tease for a story, should it be in the newscast?"
"If I can't come up with two good things to say about this story that are interesting, why is it in my show?" he asks.

Don't rely on "easy" teases that don't reflect your brand.
Newell often sees stations that call themselves Live, Local and Late-Breaking or the Breaking News Station, but from their teases and promos, it looks like they are the soft feature station. That's because they are teasing franchises and other stories which are done early in the day. Those stories are easy to include in the promos, but they may not accomplish what you want them to.
You may want to be the Breaking News Station, but you could be teasing a story on the best hair spray.

If you want to tease late-breaking news that happens close to air time, Newell suggests doing live teases with the reporter at the scene. That tease should be along the lines of .... "I'm Bob Smith, and this just happened seconds ago..."
"That approach conveys a sense of urgency right at the top of the show," he says.
He adds it takes practice to do it well, because most reporters are not adept at doing live teases.
"What people love about news is the "it's-still-happening" feel. Too often we feel such a need to package everything, we leave that out," he says.
Newell says you should devise a system where the latest breaking news gets included in your teases.

See also:
PROMAX Award-winning Promos: The Keys To Attracting Viewers
Here are details of one station's successful promotion strategies and techniques. A promo designed to attract women viewers to its 5 p.m. newscast won a New England Emmy for WTNH-TV, New Haven, in 1998. Not long after that, the station won a PROMAX Gold Medallion.

How To Do Successful Television News
Here are practical suggestions from veteran television news broadcasters.

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