Gray Media’s local television station in Las Vegas will relaunch one of its evening newscasts that will feature limited commercial interruptions thanks to an exclusive sponsor.
The 7 p.m. newscast on KVVU (Channel 5, Fox) will be sponsored by Ed Bernstein Injury Lawyers, a local law firm that specializes in personal injury cases and which has long sponsored the closed captioning presentation on the station’s other news and community-oriented programs.
In a phone interview with The Desk on Thursday, KVVU Vice President and General Manager Michael Korr said the sponsorship will allow the station to cut its commercial break time by more than half during the 7 p.m. newscast. That, in turn, will allow KVVU to commit itself to more in-depth news stories, which should give the newscast a competitive edge.
The sponsorship will be conveyed at the beginning of the newscast, which will note that the program is presented with limited commercial interruption by Ed Bernstein Injury Lawyers, Korr said. The law firm is not involved in the editorial or production process of the newscast, which will otherwise resemble a usual news program.
The idea of a newscast with limited commercial interruptions came together several months ago, when KVVU executives began brainstorming the best way to attract viewers and differentiate its news presentation from its competitors.
The approach has not been widely tested by other stations, and it is unclear if KVVU’s limited commercial newscasts will move the ratings needle — but, in the gambling capital of the world, there is no better place to roll the dice on a new idea than the highly-competitive news market that is Las Vegas.
KVVU’s past bets on differentiated programming have paid off in a number of ways. Its local newscasts are the highest-rated among adults between the ages of 25 and 54, one of the demographics that traditional TV advertisers target the most. It also airs a marathon news block between the hours of 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., which allows it to cover breaking news in real time, and often before other stations.
KVVU has also wagered on sports, with Korr overseeing the development of the Silver State Sports & Entertainment network that helped Gray Media obtain the local television rights to games played by the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces. The partnership kicked off a trend among TV broadcasters of investing more in local sports rights; Gray has since developed similar regional sports networks for its local TV stations, and peers like the E. W. Scripps Company and TEGNA have followed suit.
“We don’t want to be a standard broadcast station in the way we operate,” Korr said. “We’re all about live, local, and creating local content. The more content we can create, the better we are.”
If KVVU’s bet on the 7 p.m. limited commercial newscast pays off, Korr said it could potentially influence how the station presents some of its other news programming. KVVU’s newscasts stream via the station’s website and on the free, ad-supported app Zeam.
