Anchors are out! Quarterbacks are in!

Newscast researchers recommend retiring multi-anchor formats in favor of systems built around one main “quarterback” anchor.

Why It Matters

After decades encouraging clients to produce fast-paced, high story count newscasts, researchers are saying that context and depth are now the order of the day. A context-driven newscast needs a context-capable anchor, they say — a “quarterback anchor.”

It’s a compelling analogy, but only if newsrooms are staffed and managed to support it. The challenge is systemic. You will not effectively change what talent do on-the-air without changing the process that leads up to it. No matter how many anchors you have on the anchor desk, you will not get context-driven performance out of a team built to produce breaking news-driven newscasts.

If we’re going to reimagine what anchors do on the air, we’ll have to start by reimagining how those anchors and the people who support them prepare for it off-the-air.

Going Deeper

That’s why, when clients ask me for examples of an anchor playing quarterback, I recommend they watch Raj Mathai anchoring NBC Bay Area News Tonight, a 7 p.m. show designed specifically to provide context and depth.

Here’s a sample segment :

When I asked the station’s General Manager, Stacy Owen, about the anchor’s work on the show, she was quick to point out that it’s a team sport. In her words: “Even the best quarterbacks can’t win without a team around them that knows how to execute strategy, clear the way, and move the ball across the goal line.”

I asked Raj to help me understand how that process supports the product. He had a lot to say.

• The show is designed to achieve quality, not quantity. It’s 30 minutes built around just two to three stories (plus a few 40-second headlines and weather). Mathai describes it as "three mini podcasts for TV standards." It deliberately breaks conventional rules: no story-counting, no formulaic leads, no premeditated questioning.

• Conceptual buy-in is non-negotiable. Raj returned to this repeatedly. The show only works with the full-throated commitment from three constituencies — the boss/management, the talent, and the producers. Without all three aligned, Raj says, the show is possible but very difficult. It’s not enough to have a game plan. Everyone has to believe you can win with it.

• Planning the show is a team sport. The anchor, the Executive Producer, and the producer are all involved from start to finish. If there is one big takeaway from a performance perspective, this is it.

  In many newsrooms, the planning process has evolved to exclude the anchors almost completely. They show up at work with the planning — and the related thinking — already done. Their job is simply to perform something conceived and constructed by others.

  In football, the quarterback is generally the best-prepared athlete on the field. He’s studied and contributed to the game plan and takes the field knowing it better than anyone else. Everything about his week is calibrated to deliver him to Sunday mentally and physically ready to lead.

  In Raj’s case, the process begins with a morning planning call that includes the program’s brain trust. That initiates a conversation among them that continues throughout the day. On the air, he is leading a conversation he owns because he helped conceive and create it. He’s not simply performing something that was conceived by someone else and handed to him at the last minute.

• Ledes lean into providing context. They are typically longer than ledes featured in a breaking news format. There is a sense that the anchor is leading up to something — something we’re going to have to think and talk about. Mathai doesn’t always draft the ledes, but the goal is to review and, if he chooses, edit all of them before he goes to air.

  In many newsrooms, reading cold is now baked into the process. The news may not be fake, but the anchors routinely fake knowing the news. This team understands that anchors can’t effectively communicate context if they go on the air not even knowing what they have.

• The show is built to elevate inquiry and conversation. Sometimes with a newsmaker. More often with a reporter who can provide depth and insight. Raj goes in with a list of priorities for the discussion, but he is not limited by that. Conversations evolve spontaneously and with a heightened sense of interest and curiosity. These people are actually engaging, not simply performing an interaction that’s been premeditated and truncated to preserve story count.

  This reframes the conversation in the editorial process. The team is not just asking themselves what stories they should be covering. They’re asking what conversations they should be leading.

• The talent are comfortable in the space and use it aggressively. People are on their feet for most of the conversation. They look loose and comfortable. Not static or posed. The screens behind and between them function as tools, not simply as decoration. Understanding this, the team plans accordingly. When they change venues, there’s a reason for it.

• The focus is on connection. Not perfection. A reading mistake doesn’t matter because the anchor knows clearly where he’s heading. The energy of the argument (rhetorical) carries the day.

• Reporters are chosen for their ability to contribute meaningfully and authentically. Conversations can be unscripted and spontaneous, because the reporters involved are beat veterans with the chops to listen and respond authentically — even when that means saying they don’t know. Conversations are not truncated to accommodate story count and questions do not have to be pre-approved to ensure we won’t ask anything the reporter can’t answer.

As a lifelong student of professional communication, I love watching conversations like this. I leave them feeling smarter. More important than that, I leave them feeling that something about being in the conversation really mattered. Yes, it has to do with what the talent have to say, but it has as much to do with how they say it. It’s context and depth, fully embodied.

If context and depth really are the order of the day, folks like these can teach the rest of us a lot about what it will take to get there.

Next time:

Follow the Lede-r: What your ledes teach viewers about your newsroom and your news talent. It’s a lot.