Starting From Scratch: Building A Brand New Station With Limited Resources and Maximizing Results

In a time where local television stations are transforming their staff into true multi-media aids, delegated resources may be limiting to yield optimal results. However, taking each ingredient, thinking outside the box and maximizing the limited can turn the half baked cake into a superior cuisine.

KAGS-HD is a brand new start up local NBC affiliated station in the Waco-Temple-Bryan/College Station, TX market. KAGS-HD went on the air for the first time delivering local news to their viewers on October 17th, 2011. Live newscasts are delivered Monday thru Friday at 6pm and 10pm.

This resonates well that a shiny new station jumped right in to bring viewers a new choice for local news. However, the staff that covers news, sports and especially weather is quite minuscule. Despite a limited staff and tight budget, each newscast delivers what the viewers expect.

Anchors, reporters, sports anchors, and even the production team have several members each. The weather department is the only branch of this station with one leaf (one member).

Main topics with in this presentation will cover challenges a start up station faces in an age of technology and especially the obstacles of having one meteorologist. Additional topics include maximizing social media and how to better interact with your audience when your station does not have a website. Also, the following will be answered: - Covering severe weather with a single meteorologist on staff.

- Run master control during overnight severe weather, and still go live on the air as needed.

- Importance of researching your competition.

- Different ways to connect with the community for a brand new station.

- Adding interactive tabs to your facebook.

- Utilizing free services from the National Weather Service to get ahead of the competition. Example, iNWS, a service that texts a weather alerts to your phone.

- Taking advantage of free weather services. Example, Zoom Radar, a company that generates interactive radars for free that can be used for a website or social media page.

- How established stations have helped us.

- How a brand new station can help established stations go farther maximizing your tools.

- Demonstrate that you don't always need 15 computers to have an efficient weather center.

- How a brand new station can still have the “look” without really having the “look”. I will show examples of virtual sets we use.

- Using your weather vendor (WSI, Weather Central…etc.) to your advantage.

Overall, helping a start up station has been a great challenge. Yet, these challenges have helped me think of different ways to deliver a forecast, but much differently on-air and though social media. Additionally, this task makes me appreciate having a weather team to work with, but the harder we work now, the faster KAGS-HD will expand. Furthermore, despite having one meteorologist, we can still deliver superior severe weather coverage that saves lives and property. Finally, though a start up station has such few ingredients to work with in the beginning, we have been able to take what we have and cook up a different, but memorable dish that the viewers can enjoy each day.