WHY THIS MATTERS
Scripps has placed some aggressive digital bets and sees KNXV's evolution as an important test market.
A year after gambling on building a truly digital first newsroom, KNXV, Scripps' ABC affiliate in Phoenix, has seen big boosts in on-air and online audiences, validating a model that could be adopted by other stations in the broadcast group.
When you look at the analytics, we are definitely onto something, said Sean McLaughlin, Scripps VP of news. If we look to which of our stations is doing the best job reaching consumers and their demands, Phoenix definitely leads the way.
News director Chris Kline, who has orchestrated the newsroom overhaul, said each one of the station's newscasts was up in the July ratings book, a significant feat for a station whose news programming typically ranked third in the market a year or so ago.
Late-night news rated No. 1 during the month, bolstered by a 28% growth in viewership, Kline said. Audiences at 4, 5 and 6:30 p.m. also grew by double digits, resulting in either No. 1 or No. 2 finishes for afternoon and evening news throughout the month, Kline said.
In-market traffic on KNXV's website, abc15.com, has grown 77% since producing digital content became a newsroom centerpiece starting June 2015, Kline said. The affiliate has 100,000 more Twitter followers and 50,000 more Facebook fans than it did a year ago.
Kline, previously KNXV digital director, said that success has been driven by the revamp of everything from job descriptions and workflow to mindsets. What makes or breaks our business is the content we produce. So our mission became dedicating half of our resources to that content-and not just the TV content, he said. Although that is still a core part of who we are, the digital side continues to grow and evolve. We need to be playing in these spaces and playing aggressively.
That has shown in the station's coverage of this summer's rash of storms, which have led to flooding and dust storms, Kline said.
TV coverage was boosted by having more journalists in the field, the result of newsroom personnel changes, he said. This has made a notable difference in our ability to be everywhere and show all sides of the stories.
Meantime, digital endeavors included Facebook Live reports, some drawing hundreds of thousands of viewers, Kline said. Newly hired digital journalists are turning user-generated storm footage into short-form videos. Interactive features that allow users to track rainfall and test storm preparedness are posted online.
We are trying to find new ways to serve or audience, Kline said. We are not going to sit back and look at the way things have always been done.
Being able to do that has required sweeping- and sometimes difficult-changes in the newsroom, said Kline, who built a career on blending the news and digital sides of local TV since the early 2000s. That includes:
Merging the newsroom's traditional news desk and digital staff to create a much nimbler group, that no longer includes assignment editors or web producers, Kline says. Today, that 10-person team handles it all-procures TV and web content, as well as managing the breadth of digital postings, he said. Pooling resources has yielded a much more powerful newsroom operation, Kline said.
Hiring digital-specific journalists to boost coverage of core beats-including courts, police and business- on digital platforms. Their content often complements, or takes a hard look at, TV stories. The goal of bolstering online and mobile content through features including data visualization and info-graphics also drove the move, Kline said. Doing so required going outside traditional recruiting sources to places such as Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism.
Restructuring staff to have more news crews- TV and digital reporters and photographers-on the street to generate more stories and increase investigative work. We wanted to get to a point of our newsroom where half were in a content gathering role, Kline said. He said adding staffers required him to make cuts elsewhere through steps like phasing out associate producers.
That process cost a few journalists their jobs, which Kline said stemmed from putting resources into hiring journalists who specialize in digital. We had to take a hard look at who in our newsroom was up for this challenge, Kline said. Some of the skill sets we needed weren't necessarily available in the traditional newsroom.
Kline would not specify how many people lost their jobs, saying only that the vast majority of journalists who worked at KNXV before the overhaul still do. Station staffers are not unionized.
Kline is giving increased consideration to the moneymaking side of the business. In every decision we make we are thinking how is this going to build the business as well as the content foundation, he said.
That includes using analytics, like site traffic and consumer engagement, to measure whether the new digital journalists are not only sustainable but profitable, he said. Digital features are created with sponsorship opportunities in mind, Kline said.
Analytics are also used to drive content. Being digital first means that what we are creating is going to evolve based on what the audience is going to tell us, Kline said.
I think any news leader in this day and age has to be cognizant of the business side, Kline said. Are there lines you can't cross? Of course.
But if we live in bubbles then how do we build the business we are working in and would like to continue to be working in for decades to come?
WHY THIS MATTERS
Scripps has placed some aggressive digital bets and sees KNXV's evolution as an important test market.
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
04/12/2025
Coronal mass ejections caused by eruptions on the surface of the sun can have fa...
04/12/2025
Gracenote Content Connect enables media ecosystem to precisely align ad campaigns and programming based on rich content signals
NEW YORK - December 4, 2025 - N...
WHY THIS MATTERS
