Erin's Newscast Pitch

A typical newscast starts out with, “Good evening. This is the 5 o’clock news broadcast for channel 7. Here are your anchors, Marnie Pepper and Todd Williams.” The show covers breaking news, sports, weather, local stories, special interest pieces, and traffic. It’s boring. It’s old. With media and technology advancing faster than ever before, it is of utmost importance that the way the news is received is as current as possible to keep people informed.

If I were to produce a newscast, it would be shown via electronic devices. TV newscasts, newspapers, and other sources are losing their prominence. Rate of online news viewing is on the rise and will not slow down any time soon. Therefore, my newscast would be aired online. The main newscast would be live streamed and then individual clips from that newscast would be available on the site for audiences to view at their discretion. This would provide the people with control over what news they receive. I would have a free downloadable app created for smartphones, tablets, etc. for easy accessibility to the stories and other site content. A premium version of the app could provide extra content for a small fee in order to generate revenue for the business. The app downloaders could choose to receive notifications on their devices about breaking news and other stories tailored to their personal interests. For example, if Susie Anderson downloaded the app, she could choose to be notified about entertainment stories and human interest pieces. Sam Jones could choose to be notified about traffic and political news.

Today, people expect to have things their way, so let’s give it to them. The website and app would have a search feature to help people find the stories they want. The stories reported would be broadcast and written as online articles. The stories would be shorter, as most people are more likely to read a concise, informative piece than a lengthy and elaborate one. However, we could have links and resources connected to the candid stories in case viewers/readers want more information. The live newscast, individual clips, and written stories would have comment sections for viewer feedback and interaction. Also, the anchors could be contacted through the app and site to make the newscast more personal – not just educational, but emotional.