Las Vegas Review-journal
Las Vegas, NV
What do you do when you’ve been Nevada’s news leader since 1909, with a daily print circulation of over 95,000, a Sunday circulation of nearly 150,000, an average of 12 million average monthly page views and a reach that touches one out of every two adults in your market every month? You expand your audience, grow your revenue and take on legacy television news with two seven-minute streaming newscasts each weekday. And you do it in the middle of a pandemic with nearly everyone working from home!
The Las Vegas Review-journal and reviewjournal.com, Nevada’s largest media company and number one source for news, has the largest news staff in the state, with more than 120 journalists in Las Vegas, as well as bureaus in Carson City, NV and Washington, D.C. In January 2021, they launched “7@7” to address their readers’ desire to view a fast-paced local newscast from the most trusted news source in Las Vegas. “We are moving at the speed of the audience. They don’t have time for 30-minute newscasts that are often filled with national and international news and chit-chat from news anchors,” explained Jim Prather, Las Vegas Review-journal’s executive director of programming. “We cut to the chase and give our audience all the local news they need in seven minutes.” The program targets smartphone users and is available on most streaming platforms, including reviewjournal.com, and on-demand so that viewers can watch or listen when their schedules allow.
Rather than interrupt the reports with conventional commercial breaks, “7@7” incorporates sponsored segments to generate revenue while giving viewers nonstop local news and providing advertisers with extended branding before an engaged audience. “We have averaged over 850,000 video views per month with ‘7@7’ and have tripled our video revenue through this news program,” said Chase Rankin, senior vice president of sales and marketing. “Our partners have seen great results and are excited to continue with ‘7@7’.”
Video streaming hasn’t been without its challenges. First was the communication and planning during the COVID pandemic. Changes to their digital editorial planning meetings to accommodate 7@7, training the team to use new technology, building a production workflow and instilling video deadlines that collide with print deadlines and regular writing and reporting deadlines were just some of the hurdles. Then dealing with breaking news two hours before a show and coming up with a backup plan when a fire near the studio forced evacuation and regrouping made for a steep learning curve. “We trained for four weeks, going from producing four newscasts a week to ten in a week. Then we actually launched and learned even more,” said Prather.
Definitely innovative, but not for the faint-at-heart.
Remembering that the video streaming content was in addition to their regular full-scale news operation, the initiative has been a win on all sides of their business. Review-journal executive editor Glenn Cook said it best, “Television stations can’t match our volume of local content. That allows ‘7@7’ to have an exclusively local focus, and it gives our reporters and visual journalists a platform to expand their own brands. ‘7@7’ was never intended as a replacement for any of our legacy products. It’s another platform for us to connect with our growing audience. The Reviewjournal’s newspaper is still printed seven days per week, and that isn’t changing.”