KTLA Nightly News Targets ‘Buffy’ Buffs, ‘Felicity’ Fans

Buffy. Felicity. Hal Fishman?

It’s the oddest of alliances--given that Fishman has been anchoring the news in Los Angeles for more years than just about any viewer of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Felicity,” two of the hit dramas on the still toddling WB network, have been alive. But it’s an incongruous marriage of new and hip and old and traditional that the veteran anchorman predicts will in the coming months push KTLA-TV Channel 5 back to the top of the 10 p.m. news heap.

“We’ll be out to dinner and teenagers come up to Hal and say, ‘Hey, you’re the news dude,’ ” said Jeff Wald, KTLA’s news director.

That never happened, Fishman admitted, before the youthful WB network began airing a prime-time lineup of teen-specific shows like “Buffy” and “Dawson’s Creek” as the lead-in to Fishman’s nightly newscast. Pre-WB, Fishman, who has been on the air in Los Angeles without a break since 1960--the last 23 years at KTLA--was much more likely to be recognized at dinner by those youngster’s grandmothers.

For more than 20 years, Fishman and KTLA had been the undisputed local news ratings champion at 10 p.m. None of the other stations ever really came close. But since May 1996, KTTV Channel 11, the local Fox-owned station, has topped Fishman and Channel 5 in every major ratings period.

Fishman claims that KTTV wins because of the Fox lead-in. And to be sure, ratings for Fox’s prime time have soared over the past several years, especially in sweeps when every episode of hit series like “Ally McBeal” are fresh and the network trots out its highly rated specials such as “World’s Scariest Police Chases.” Fox is often the most-watched network in this area, topping even NBC, ABC and CBS as well. And the larger the prime-time audience, the more people that see the promos for the news that follows.

Even with the blossoming of the WB in prime time, the Fox lead-in advantage to the 10 p.m. news remains quite large. Still, Fishman points out that KTTV beat KTLA by just two-tenths of a rating point--about 10,000 out of the area’s 5 million television households--during last month’s November sweeps. And once out of sweeps, during the eight months that KTTV personnel insist are not nearly as significant, KTLA usually wins.

“Bragging rights for the sweeps are very nice, and it has been very frustrating having to compete with their lead-ins,” Fishman said. “But things are changing and I do think we will win within the next couple of ratings books.” The next sweeps periods arrive in February and May.

Wald, a KTLA news boss during the 1980s who returned as news director a year ago after an unsuccessful stint trying to revitalize the news department at KCOP Channel 13, is more diplomatic in his assessment of the competition.

“In fairness, Channel 11’s newscasts have improved over the years,” he said. “For a long time they were not a contender and now they are, and that’s a tribute to a lot of hard work on their part.”

Wald also acknowledges the dilemma that both Fox and the WB, with their deliberate targeting of young audiences, present to local news departments. Traditionally, these teenagers and younger adults do not watch TV news. Consider the current demographic distance between the typical WB entertainment audience and KTLA news viewers. During prime time, roughly 81% of those watching WB shows are younger than 49 years old, 59% are 34 and younger, while 43% of KTLA’s news audience is 50 or older.

Those 50-plus viewers are not the audience that advertisers prize most. KTLA’s news ratings strength has always depended on viewers who turn to the station at 10 p.m. from elsewhere out of habit and loyalty to Fishman.

“I’m not even sure that these younger viewers watch MTV news,” Wald said. “But I think that if you provide information that is relevant to them, you can pick off some of these viewers.”

KTTV has succeeded in doing just that by including in its newscasts multipart stories on topics designed specifically to appeal to the younger audience watching Fox. For years during sweeps, the station has aired undercover, hidden-camera pieces on gangs, drug culture and underground rave parties. And KTTV news continues to beat KTLA in the younger adult demographic, even as the overall race tightens.

“I think those undercover series have worked well for them in targeting that audience,” Wald said. “But I don’t think we’d do that. It’s a fine line. Any time you spend an inordinate time on something that isn’t necessarily newsworthy, that hurts the overall news broadcast. I don’t know that doing a six-part series on rave parties is significant to the majority of our audience.”

While such news stories might not warrant news coverage in Wald’s shop, many of those KTTV series and the team that reported them have been honored with Golden Mike and Emmy awards.

Though both Fishman and Wald were a bit vague in offering specifics about how they intend to lure their younger viewers, Channel 5’s newscast--which has for years been known as solid, but rather stodgy--has changed a bit. Fishman, who also serves as managing editor, said he has insisted that stories for the most part be kept short so that the broadcast moves at a fast clip with a high number of pieces included in every show.

“In addition, we’ll take an issue from the fictional show on before us that night, let’s say, ‘Seventh Heaven,’ and make a news piece out of it. Let’s say the show dealt with sexual relations of young people and the issues of STDs and birth control,” Fishman said. “What we did in an effort to appeal to that audience . . . we went to schools and spoke to students and academicians and others to see what the real problems are right here in Los Angeles. So we do have strategies like that to try to make that audience a news audience. It’s a commercial choice, I’m not going to lie to you, but we won’t ever go the sleaze route. We won’t go to a party with half-naked individuals and say, ‘This is spring break.’ ”

Wald added that the station has conducted seminars to make all its news employees aware of this new, younger audience. That new sensitivity includes the suggestion to interview more eyewitnesses to stories, rather than relying heavily on traditional news spokespersons, especially interview subjects that reflect the ages of the WB audience. Also, the station now searches to cover hot trends such as new tools in cosmetic facial peels or homeopathic medicine. And “The Cyberguy” appears nearly every day with reports on computers and technology.

“It’s always a delicate balance. We don’t want to upset the core audience that has been relying on KTLA for years,” Wald said. “We won’t change the content of the news because of the lead-in. We just want to add to it. Many stories don’t have a demographic. With a fire or a traffic accident, it doesn’t apply. But those stories when you have some discretion to target that audience, this is a business. If we are intelligent about our approach to news, we need to know who our audience is and respect that audience.”

But that appeal for younger viewers won’t include a deliberate effort to freshen the faces that deliver the news. Fishman and KTLA mainstays Larry McCormick and Stan Chambers, along with KCAL’s Jerry Dunphy, make up the eldest statesmen’s club in local news. Meanwhile, the ultra-loyal WB viewers are drawn to their sets in prime time by the unlined faces of teens and 20-somethings who star in “Dawson’s Creek” and “Charmed.”

“I’m a little older than 20 right now, but I like looking at Shannen Doherty [the star of ‘Charmed’], and I know adults who are watching those shows. It’s not just 13-year-old kids who are supposed to go to bed at 10 p.m.,” Fishman said. “And I don’t think young people only want to watch young people. I don’t think that Latinos only want to watch Latinos and blacks only want to watch blacks. With news, people want credibility, period.”

Even the people who love “Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” “Even them,” Fishman said.

* KTLA News airs at 10 p.m. weeknights on Channel 5.