TVSpy recently had the opportunity to ask a few questions of KPIX GM Scott Warren who took over for the retiring Kevin Walsh in 2022 after Wendy McMahon joined the CBS stations group in 2021.
For reference, KPIX is one of two network-affiliated stations in the San Francisco Bay Area that hasn’t changed all that much since the golden years of local TV. Along with ABC-owned KGO, KPIX has been a CBS-owned station and affiliate since it started broadcasting 75 years ago on December 22, 1948.
We were curious about Warren based on the big bucks the station group recently spent on its new weather system, which we asked about later. But overall, a station GM can tell us a bit about how optimistic a station group is about the future of local TV and where leadership feels it wants to put its focus on maintaining or increasing viewership.
TVSpy: What makes the Bay Area unique when covering local news?
Warren: “The Bay Area is one of the most unique markets I’ve worked in, and I’ve worked in a number of them! It’s an incredibly diverse area in every way. The cities of Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco could not be more different from each other. It’s Like covering three separate markets in one. We are also attempting to lure a very intelligent audience of technology first adopters, who are typically more addicted to their social feed than traditional TV. And we have weather that encourages people to spend more time outside than inside with their television. With all this, you can see we have quite a challenge capturing people’s attention.”
TVSpy: So how do you do that? What is the strategy for capturing people’s attention?
Warren: “Great storytelling is at the core of everything we do. Factual, unbiased reporting and good journalism is the price of admission. We start there and then try to make an emotional connection with the audience. We are trying to do this through outstanding character-driven, community-oriented, visually compelling storytelling. A report is about an issue or a problem. A story is about seeing that issue or problem through the eyes of a person impacted and following their journey to solving their problem. It’s then that we feel something for the person impacted, and react emotionally to their story. A great story makes a connection. And great stories become the cornerstones for great shows. Once we have a great story, we try to give viewers an enhanced experience. We present our stories using AR/VR, and 360 degree storytelling. We know people will come to the TV for big visual events. The Super Bowl. A blockbuster movie, the finale of a reality show. We want to give them a similar big-screen experience for news. We are developing ways to immerse the viewer in the story rather than just view them. We are doing this through storytelling environments that bring viewers to the scene of a story. We are doing this by actually inserting the viewers in our 360 degree virtual stories using VR headsets. And we are doing this through our immersive 3D weather presentation.”
Speaking of weather, the station built an immersive weather display, which, may seem like overkill in an area not known for its wide range of weather events. There’s fog, mild cold compared to the rest of the country, mild heat and a pretty regular schedule of beautiful weather which, other than the high tech industry, is one of the reasons to pay a premium to live here.
TVSpy: Having worked at Bay Area news stations before, and knowing it’s not a “win weather or else” type of market, can you tell me why you decided to make the financial investment in the new weather system?
Warren: “Most of the time, we have pretty good weather in the bay area. But weather is something every one of us has to deal with in some form or fashion. And the weather is relative. As Mark Twain famously asserted, “The coldest winter I ever spent, was a summer in San Francisco. Though our weather is less extreme than most places, changes in the weather still matter and affect us all. That said, here in Northern California, we are experiencing incredibly intense atmospheric rivers that cause flooding and damage, and raging wildfires that have destroyed entire neighborhoods. So weather does matter here, and is getting more important and impactful. How we tell the weather story is also becoming more impactful. We have watched a person in front of a flat map for decades. But weather is not flat. It is multidimensional. Cloud height matters. Topography matters. Winds at different altitudes matter. We see, hear, and feel weather. To understand what’s going in the atmosphere, we need to be able to tell the weather story in a much more realistic way. So we are developing a new 3D immersive weather presentation, that, for the first time ever, visualizes real time weather data in a 3D environment at the local level. It is dynamic for sure. But it also allows us to explain weather in a much better, more understandable way. We are working with the best partners in the business, but we are also doing much of the enterprise development here at KPIX. We have an engineering team that is second to none.”
TVSpy: What changes have you seen at CBS stations since Jennifer Mitchell and Wendy McMahon have been onboard?
Warren: “Jennifer and Wendy hired me, so I’ve only known their world here at CBS. But I can tell you, since I’ve been here, I have watched the culture at CBS change in real-time. It is a much more forward-thinking, inclusive, innovative, and creative environment than when I started. Jennifer and Wendy both understand how the news and media landscape has changed and that we need to evolve how we connect with and serve our communities. I think they both told me that in my role, “innovation wasn’t a suggestion, but a mandate.” They then backed that up by giving us both the room and the support to bring new ideas forward and develop them.”
The elephant in the ever shrinking room of local viewership is that I always wonder how new GMs plan on keeping local stations going. Are the stations making money? Will they continue chugging along as they’ve always done or are there plans to remake the product?
TVSpy:What is your vision for your station? How will you get there?
Warren: “We have to constantly think about designing our news and information content and distribution systems to serve our audience the best. What information our audience needs daily and how they interact with that information is different today than it was even 10 years ago, certainly different when we started delivering news over television. Yet overall, we really haven’t changed all that much to keep up with our viewers. I think the vision for our station is to work with members of our community to design and develop the best possible way to serve them. Audience needs first. Then, evolve what we do to deliver the most relevant and compelling content in the most useful way possible. Compelling storytelling and an outstanding user experience are the start of that.”