Learning how to climb TV news ratings mountain

THE BALTIMORE SUN

David Silverstein liked the story about the dog.

Sitting in a meeting at WMAR, Channel 2, the other morning, Silverstein, the station's news director, was discussing options for the day's news broadcasts when the dog story came up.

It wasn't a happy story -- a groomer went berserk and strangled a poodle, police said -- but it was the kind of story that would get viewers talking. And that, Silverstein told his staff, is what the station needs.

"It's the story of the day," he said, and assigned it to the top of the 6 p.m. broadcast. As it happened, the story fell through -- the dog's owner was no longer talking -- and Silverstein ran in its place a piece on escalating gas prices. Not as compelling, but important to drivers.

Brought in six months ago to reinvigorate the station's news operation, the soft-spoken Silverstein has had a tough job on his hands. The ABC affiliate is perennially in either third or fourth place in the Baltimore ratings, and has suffered for years from changes in leadership, serial departures of staff members and listless news programming. But with the May sweeps period coming to a close this week, Silverstein is trying mightily to turn things around.

"It's a brawl," Silverstein said in his office, as producers and reporters busily prepared for the day's newscasts. "You fight for every ratings point."

With rare exceptions, those points -- used to determine advertising rates -- have been an elusive prize lately at WMAR, Maryland's oldest TV station and for many years the market leader. Silverstein and Bill Hooper, the station's new general manager, concede that audiences' allegiances cannot be changed overnight.

"This is a marathon, not a sprint," Silverstein said. "For years, this newsroom has floundered. They could have thrown in the towel. They were always banging their heads against the wall."

To halt the head-banging, Silverstein has shifted anchors and reporters into new time slots, brought in new talent and aggressively planned news stories, or "promotable content," sometimes months in advance.

For the May sweeps, WMAR mounted an onslaught of almost 30 stories designed to get viewers' attention. One of the racier pieces, inspired by a new book, studied the propensity of some young, single women to "ruin their lives by bed-hopping," Silverstein said.

Another heavily touted story focused on "passion parties," events at private homes during which women purchase sex toys. "It's been edited so as not to offend anyone," David Clark, who oversees special projects, told his colleagues before the story aired.

A third segment, titled "Procreation Vacation," examined trips advertised as helping people relax from the pressure of trying to have children. The reporter interviewed a couple who, after attempting various treatments for years, went on one such vacation; the woman came home pregnant.

The station also aired a story about the so-called "B.A.R.F. diet," a startling acronym that stands for bones and raw food, and a segment on a new type of liposuction that uses an unusually thin wand to "melt" fat before sucking it out.

Building the staff

Silverstein's predecessor, Connie Howard, left Channel 2 abruptly almost a year ago after spending 16 months trying, without much success, to boost the station's news audience.

When he arrived in November, Silverstein was faced with filling seven open positions on the staff. Three weeks ago, he lured assignment editor Meg Jollett away from Fox affiliate WBFF, Channel 45. Other hires included reporters Joce Sterman and Megan Pringle, and producer Sabrina Agostini, who said her task was to "work for our audience, rather than follow the competition."

Another new hire is Al Petrasko, the news operations manager and a 30-year veteran of television news.

"You've got to have the kitchen working first before you can have a great restaurant, and the kitchen's been neglected here," Petrasko said. "Tell them they're good, tell them they're bad, but don't ignore them. They've been ignored for a long time."

Petrasko said the station is "still putting people in the right places, getting the right equipment," and he anticipates good results. "It borders on the exciting," he said, chuckling.

In an attempt to boost the profile of Good Morning Maryland, the station's signature daybreak program, Silverstein moved Denise Dory, who was working a split shift every day, into the anchor spot. As of February, he arranged to have the show simulcast on radio stations WCBM-AM 680 and WVIE-AM 1370.

Last week, WMAR's news department was elated to hear that it had received 12 regional Emmy Award nominations for work in 2006, more than its main Baltimore competitors, WBAL, Channel 11, the NBC affiliate, which received nine nominations, and CBS's WJZ, Channel 13, which got five. Winners will be announced on June 16.

Nonetheless, WMAR's audience numbers have shown only very modest increases so far. While about 15,000 households are tuned to WMAR's 11 p.m. newscast on an average night, as many as 100,000 are watching WBAL, a spokeswoman for the NBC affiliate said.

"We've shown growth in our newscasts, but we still have a long way to go to catch WBAL and WJZ," said Silverstein, referring to the two local powerhouses, which are locked in a perpetual battle for the top ratings spot. WBAL almost always wins.

WMAR's corporate owner, Cincinnati-based E.W. Scripps Co., which has owned the station since 1991, has contemplated selling it in recent years. Now, Silverstein said, the parent company is watching closely, but has given him no deadline for improvement.

"There is a sense of urgency because they want to see progress, but they're not saying it has to be done yesterday," he said. "They want to see the ratings needle move in a positive direction. We're not even looking at No. 1 right now. The first goal, simply enough, is progress. The next goal would be to challenge WJZ and WBAL for second place."

Bill Peterson, a Scripps senior vice president in charge of the company's 10 television stations, said he had hired Silverstein for the WMAR job "because he's a grown-up."

"We needed someone with as much experience as we could get," Peterson said. "That's not a good newsroom in which to have someone learning on the job. It needs consistency and stability, and it hasn't had that to the degree it needs it. That's an obligation of ownership, too -- we can't be too impatient and we can't be inducing too much change."

Peterson said he was pleased with what Silverstein and Hooper are doing at WMAR, that Scripps is committed to seeing the station succeed, and that there are no plans to sell it.

"We probably haven't given it the attention it deserves," he said.

Morale boosting

Mary Beth Marsden, an anchor who has been at the station for 19 years, said she's accustomed to seeing WMAR lag in the ratings race.

"If I knew how to change it we'd have done it already," she said. "The ratings feel somewhat out of our control. When we come off the set and we've done a good show -- great stories, well written -- we feel good about the job we've done, whether there are five people watching or 500,000."

Marsden's anchor partner, Brian Wood, who has been at WMAR for five years and grew up watching WJZ, said Baltimore is a very stable place in terms of residents' loyalties. "There are generational allegiances here. In this town, people's viewing habits don't change quickly. There are not a lot of new eyeballs. It's not like Phoenix or Las Vegas."

The new push for bigger ratings at WMAR is improving morale, at least. Marketing Director Maria E. Mager said Silverstein and Hooper, the general manager, "make a good combination," and that their efforts have "made a huge difference in the internal culture of the station."

Before joining WMAR, Silverstein spent five years in Ohio, directing the combined news department of WSYX, Channel 6, Columbus' ABC affiliate, and WTTE, Channel 28, the Fox affiliate. He said that running two stations' news departments simultaneously prepared him for his current job.

"When I got there, I don't think the product was that good, but when I left I think they were in better shape than when I found them," he said. "I think my success was putting the right people in the right places. So, when the chance came to come here and run one station and really go head-to-head against two formidable stations, I jumped at it."

In terms of households that watch TV, Silverstein went from the 32nd national market to the 24th, although the number of people under his command, about 70, is the same in Baltimore as it was in Columbus.

The other morning, Hooper walked into Silverstein's office and asked the ever-present question: "How did we do last night"

"Mezzo e mezzo," Silverstein said, only slightly mispronouncing the Italian phrase for "so-so."

"But," he added, "we'll do better tonight."

nick.madigan@baltsun.com

David Silverstein

Age:

41.

Born:

Wilmington, Del.

Graduated:

Syracuse University 1987, B.S. speech communications.

Family:

Wife, Gwen Kleinmetz; children Samantha, 11; Ellie, 8.

First job:

Production assistant, WGAL, Lancaster, Pa.

Career:

Also worked as a producer and news executive at TV stations in Charlotte, N.C.; Denver; Tampa, Fla.; Miami; and Columbus, Ohio.

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