How the pandemic has forever changed TV news
One year ago, "Today" co-anchor Savannah Guthrie was told by her bosses that growing concern over the COVID-19 pandemic could mean big changes for the NBC morning program.
"They said, 'Listen, the network wants to install a studio in your home just in case,'" Guthrie recalled in a recent interview. "I thought it was hilarious. I just thought that was never going to happen."
But it did happen. Guthrie soon found herself in the basement of her upstate New York home doing live earlymorning interviews with top government officials and business leaders as the national health emergency escalated. "And I could hear my kids riding their scooters right above me," she said.
Guthrie, whose special "COVID One Year Later: Life After Lockdown" aired March 11 on NBC and streams on Peacock, was not alone. Unlike scripted TV shows and movies that shut down and delayed production, network and local news programs needed to stay on the air and adapt to safety protocols. Anchors, correspondents and meteorologists across the country delivered reports from makeshift studio setups, at times while children occasionally interrupted and pets wandered by.
As more of the population gets vaccinated and social distancing restrictions are relaxed, many anchors have headed back to their familiar sets, where social distance is maintained. But the innovations and efficiencies discovered by the TV news business over the past year are likely to last when the pandemic is hopefully a distant memory.
"I think the days of sending a full camera crew to grab what will ultimately be a 12-second sound bite for a 'Nightly News' piece are over," said NBC News President Noah Oppenheim.
While more consumers confined to their homes increased their dependence on streaming video for scripted TV shows and movies, TV news viewing grew by 30% over the past year, according to Nielsen data, thanks in large part to interest in the 2020 presidential election and coverage of the pandemic. The data showed viewers are willing to accept a presentation that may be less slick than usual if they are getting the information they need.
"We've learned that the audience is mostly interested in the substance, and so if you can get that expert and that newsmaker but you can only get him or her on Zoom in their living room, that's fine and the audience will embrace that," Oppenheim said.
Ken Jautz, executive vice president for CNN, said audiences likely empathized with what news operations have gone through.
"People in all walks of life were trying to figure out how to go about their businesses with great and unprecedented limitations," Jautz said. "And our business was no different, and I think people understood that and are very flexible."
D'artagnan Bebel, senior vice president and general manager at KRIV, the Foxowned TV station in Houston, said his correspondents have found it easier to book interviews for their pieces by using Zoom instead of sending a crew to travel to a location and set up and then break down equipment, which can take more than hour.
"A lot more people are saying yes," Bebel said. "They pop on, they do it and it's less time on their part. It give us the ability to create more content."
Jautz said CNN had 2,500 guests across its channels in the month of February, all from remote locations. He does not see that changing once the health crisis subsides.
"We will do far more of them remotely going forward than we did before the pandemic," he said.
Wendy Fisher, vice president of newsgathering at ABC News, said her network always had a high priority on having guests in the studio, and will be eager to get back to it when conditions allow. But the pandemic also offered some lessons in what was possible in a pinch.
"We not only want to deliver news but it's a visual medium and we want to make great TV," Fisher said. "What we learned is flexibility sometimes is good. You can do things that you might not do if you didn't have to, and it would be fine."
Guthrie said "Today" will maintain its high production standards, but the technological possibilities the pandemic introduced will give the program more options going forward.
"In breaking news, if somebody wants to get on the phone, if somebody wants to do it by Skype or on their cellphone, you know, we now know we can do it and we should do it, and everything's not lost if it isn't perfect broadcast quality," Guthrie said. "We've all kind of had to be creative and resourceful."
Fox News outfitted trucks with fully operational studios that rolled up outside of some on-air hosts' homes so they could step in and be on the air. Makeup artists sidelined from working at the network's headquarters gave tutorials over Zoom so that anchors could touch up themselves.