Thursday, January 22, 2015

Barking News From Connecticut!

The morning news crew made a major announcement on air last week: the co-anchor's dog will be a regular on the newscast.

Thoughts?

Is this a silly idea? A desperate attempt to draw in viewers with cuteness? Or is this not an issue at all?

By the way, the dog (allegedly) is blogging on the station's website. Here is the intro from the dog's first post:

Hello and woof! My name is Nell. My mom, Ali Reed, adopted me when I was 7 weeks old. At the time she was living in Boston, so I thought I was going to be a Boston dog, which I was pretty excited about. But, low and behold, three days later we were on a plane to Anchorage, Alaska. Let’s just say it is not warm there. But I quickly learned how fun snow is to play in and how great of friends Huskies make. At the time, my mom was working for a news station there and she would bring me in quite often. That’s how I got my paws wet in the news business (the Iditarod was my favorite). I was hooked from there.

The dog's post ends with a request for story ideas:

I would love to hear from you and your pets! Send me photos of your pets to Reportit@wtnh.com (write ‘For Nell’ in the subject line). Let me know what you’d like to see me do on air and what stories you’d like covered! You can email my mom, Ali Reed, here.

PS: the dog is on twitter.

3 comments:

Tracy Yatsko said...

Although some may view this as "unprofessional", I believe this is brilliant marketing. Being likable and relatable will only make more viewers tune in to the broadcast.

Jenna Faccenda said...

I like this idea. Then again I love dogs so I guess their idea is already working. This will most definitely draw in viewers. It makes the news station stand out from the rest. And the fact that the dog has a blog is just more of an example that they are doing this for attention. It is a good strategy. A silly concept at that but smart none the less.

Kira Runk said...

This is definitely a desperate attempt for viewers, but a good one at that. Everyone loves puppies and having one come on the air as a regular will get the audience hooked and leave them wanting more. I think it is a interesting idea to keep the audience coming back to the channel.