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At the risk of being seen as a propagandist for the new (and very verbal)administration, I bring you Courant/Fox publisher Rich Graziano’s message to the company about its latest accomplishments.
I would be surprised if he wrote it all himself, but even if he didn’t, it speaks to his effort to knit two or three different office cultures into something resembling a coordinated operation. It is also interesting to note that he begins his memo with News — a part of the company that he appears to have been unfamiliar with in the past.
(One last thought before his lengthy memo: This trend of interviewing Courant writers on Fox 61 is a little ridiculous and overdone and artificial, isn’t it? Why not just put them on to offer commentary? Andy Rooney has been doing two mediums for years, so why can’t the Sports guys?)
The Courant News Department is busier than ever, turning out story after story and working with the folks at FOX 61 on some cross media initiatives.
HC’s Sports News Department teamed up with FOX 61’s Sports News to cover the UCONN men at the Final Four in Detroit. Jeff Jacobs appeared on the TIC’s Saturday night newscast after the team lost to Michigan State. Jeff was taped by HC photographer, John Woike, and it was sent to TIC via Skype, a great example of teamwork and of course, delivering news differently to our viewers and readers.
Jacobs and Dom Amore are among the sportswriters who, from time to time, appear on Sports Ticket, FOX 61’s 15-minute sports show on the weekend, another example of working together to utilize our resources and deliver great journalism. With Jacobs traveling between Detroit for the UCONN men and St. Louis for the UCONN women, we were the only state paper to have a columnist at each venue.
Check out more of News’ great work:
- courant.com had more than 24 million page views in March, a 20% increase over last year.
- The number of town briefs has been significantly increased on the local pages of the paper, and they are organized by region for a faster read.
- News implemented a regular feature called “Our Tax Dollars,” a probing series that couldn’t be timelier as the legislature tries to close a huge budget gap.
- The UCONN women’s basketball national championship special section came out on Thursday, April 16 with extra copies to be given away free at Sunday’s parade.
- Print and TV news departments are collaborating to get more Courant reporters and stories on FOX 61, including consumer watchdog George Gombossy.
Once again, the award winning Fox 61 News at Ten is the most viewed late news in the Hartford & New Haven market, winning the March sweep.
On Monday, April 20, Connecticut viewers will wake up to some exciting changes on the Fox 61 Morning News. Joy Lim Nakrin will stay with viewers an hour longer as her anchor duties expand from a half hour at 4:30 a.m. to include the 5 a.m. – 6 a.m. hour in which she will co-anchor with Logan Byrnes. Weekend Anchor, Sarah French, will make the move to weekdays and join the morning team as a co-anchor with Logan from 6 a.m. – 8 a.m. Sarah will also anchor the 8 a.m. – 9 a.m. hour with Byrnes and Rachel Lutzker.
Big news for the FOX 61 News team: The National Television Academy has announced nominees for the 32nd annual Boston/New England Emmy Awards. FOX 61 has received 23 nominations, more than all other news organizations in Connecticut and 5 more nominations than WFSB, WTNH and WVIT combined. FOX 61 WTIC-TV is the only Connecticut station nominated for Best News Team Coverage. Reporters Jim Altman and John Charlton both received five nominations apiece including Best On-Camera Talent for a Feature/Human Interest Story and Best News Writer. Chief Photographer Michael Piskorski also earned five nominations including Best News Photographer Within 24 Hours and Best News Editor Within 24 Hours. Reporter Laurie Perez was nominated for the Best On-Camera Talent Reporter-General Assignment for the second year in a row. The winners will be announced on May 30 in Boston.
As mentioned in the previous article, March was a very busy month for both the Hartford Courant and FOX 61. One of the highlights of the month for TIC was their live broadcast of the Hartford St. Patrick’s Day Parade. Logan Byrnes and Rebecca Stewart anchored the show from a stage on Main Street. Laurie Perez and Jim Altman reported from the streets while Erika Arias, Brent Hardin and Susan Christensen reported from the State Capitol at the start location.
As usual, the parade was a hit but even more so this year thanks in part to a three-week prepromotion by the station. Attendance was its highest in 38 years and doubled from the previous year, incremental revenue was generated for TIC and fox61.com saw its page views almost double February’s numbers.
An area we tend to overlook at times, but is just as important to the success of our company is our operations area and we have great news there. Our Period 3 ROP (run of press) waste was 3.75% – number one in Tribune. LA Times was number two with 3.99%. Tribune average in Period 3 for all newspapers was 4.83%. Year-to-date, we are number one at 3.68% with the LA Times in second with 4.11%. Tribune average for all newspapers year-to-date is 4.85% and we are well below that mark. Good job!
One last piece I’d like to touch on is the social media realm, which is a growing area for us. Many HC journalists have been blogging over the last year or so and are starting to use Facebook and Twitter more regularly. FOX 61 reporters also are joining the social network world and will have two forms of social media by the end of April. But it must be said that Metromix, Connecticut’s number one entertainment site, has been using the social media world for viral marketing since its inception and it has proven to be a very successful tool.
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