How to fix CBS-2?

Comments are pouring in on just how to fix WFMY CBS-2. And the opinions are strong on both sides. It obviously shows the brand name of WFMY and its effect on this area. But this appears to be a golden opportunity on how to fix the ailing station.

H/T to John Robinson, who points us to this article in the American Journalism Review on what some other local stations outside of North Carolina are doing to re-jig their local news formats...and it seems to work.

See what the article says about WUSA-9, the Gannett-owned CBS affiliate in Washington, DC:

At WUSA-TV in Washington, D.C., the revamped early morning news looks nothing like the competition. The program appears to be channeling ESPN's SportsCenter. Video that used to be full-screen is now boxed on the upper left side, with a scrolling "rundown" on the right listing upcoming stories and rotating headlines on the bottom. Weather and traffic information, a priority for morning audiences, is always on screen.

"It's a visible strategy that puts information out for people whenever they want it, not when we want to give it to them," says Lane Michaelsen, vice president of the WUSA information center. He calls the rundown a "convenience item" that helps viewers decide when to watch. "They can run to get the paper or brush their teeth and not miss something they want to see."

If viewers can absorb it all without getting a migraine, they can easily catch the top news of the day in less than five minutes. Which raises the question: Why would anyone bother staying tuned longer?

"The hope is we are covering relevant things they want to watch," Michaelsen says. And even if viewers don't stick around for long, he believes they'll come back. "They'll see us as the station that's interested in [their] time."

Bold stuff is what's needed, folks. Why NOT try something different? And I'm not talking Sinclair's NewsCentral-different (that floundered and flubbed and failed)...let's talk something uptown.

How would YOU fix WFMY?

E.C. ;)