Media Watch

La Poderosa Makes Local Move

Spanish-language radio has enjoyed success in the market as a result of the area's ever-increasing Hispanic demographic, and KZLZ FM105.3 La Poderosa is pushing for a bigger slice of the pie.

The regional Mexican-music format station has severed network ties with La Gran D, based in California, as part of an effort to localize the product.

La Poderosa already has three DJs on staff, but the station expects to add to the local talent. Technical improvements are in the works as well.

"We're going to have a bigger signal and move our city of license from Kearney to Casas Adobes," said KZLZ general manager Sonia Tabanico. "We are here to participate more with our community."


KOVA: WE'RE BALANCED! WE PROMISE!

TV-news branding is generally pretty straightforward, with each station usually creating some moniker intended to separate it from the competition.

For example, ABC affiliate KGUN Channel 9 dubs itself "Nine on Your Side." KOLD Channel 13 opts for the tried-and-true "Live, Local, Late-Breaking" tagline, although it's anything but tried and true in terms of its on-air promotional campaign: This is the station that also runs a promo with cutout figures of its morning news team with the tagline, "Some of us aren't cut out for mornings, but they are."

Get it? Cut out?!

Then there's the ad campaign that features primetime news personalities Dan Marries, Heather Rowe and Chuck George dressed for a night on the town while driving a convertible Mustang.

Meanwhile, KVOA Channel 4 has added even more balance to "Balanced News You Can Count On," the phrase it adopted last summer by adding the word "balanced" to its long-standing catchphrase. Now, KVOA has also added a promise that it will be more balanced: It says so in very large print at the bottom of the screen at the end of every local newscast.

The news anchor reads this:

"We want to thank you for watching News 4 today (or tonight, depending on time of newscast), where we are committed to reporting fair and balanced news in every newscast. That's our promise to you. If you have any feedback, contact us at balancednews@kvoa.com."

While still fairly early--KVOA began the campaign a couple weeks ago--there's hasn't been much of a response so far.

"We haven't gotten much (feedback). Occasionally, someone will say we weren't balanced on something, but then we explain. It's just an opportunity for people to give us feedback and actually get a response," said KVOA news director Kathleen Choal.

"We're going to do it forever. This is not a sweeps thing. Being balanced is very important to us. We just wanted to give people an opportunity to give us feedback."