At NECN, they just want the facts
Philip S. Balboni, the former Channel 5 executive who in the early 1980s created the TV magazine show ''Chronicle" and paired Natalie Jacobson and Chet Curtis on the anchor desk, is president and founder of New England Cable News. NECN went on the air in 1992 and is now available to 3.6 million households. Balboni, 63, recently spoke with Globe reporter Chris Reidy.
Q: NECN just hired Beth Shelburne from a San Diego TV station to co-anchor various newscasts. What do you look for in an anchor?
A: We wanted someone who was thoughtful with a lot of curiosity and intelligence. A lot of anchors are very good at performance and presentation skills in front of a camera. We wanted someone with strong reporting skills who enjoys reporting and wants to continue to report.
Q: When NECN launched, it was described as a regional CNN. Is that still accurate?
A: In the early years, saying we were the CNN of New England was an easy description people could rapidly grasp. We don't talk about that anymore. When Fox News launched, CNN started looking over their shoulder, and they radically changed their mission, which was to do a first-class job of covering breaking news around the world. What you find today on CNN, Fox, and MSNBC is mostly talk. The evening is wall-to-wall with people who are talking about the news, not reporting it. We've stayed true to our founding mission.
Q: Is there still a need for a TV station like yours when people can get real-time news on the Internet? [NECN has partnerships with The Boston Globe and boston.com.]
A: We launched in 1997 the first all-video news website in the US. We've been doing this for almost a decade. We believe that our mission as a TV station on the Web is to provide video and take all the stories we've gathered and make them available to viewers, not in a traditional newscast formula, but in a menu of options where you can watch any story anytime.
Q: You're also getting into providing podcasts as well as news updates to people with certain kinds of cellphones. Can you make money at this?
A: The problem news organizations face is not so much in offering content but in finding ways to have an economic support structure in these new spaces. This is a question no one has an answer for, at least not now.
Q: Who watches NECN?
A: We have a substantial number of younger viewers; 18 to 44 probably constitutes at least a third of our viewing audience. We certainly have many viewers in the 55-plus range as well.
Q: How is NECN's presentation of news different from a typical local TV station's newscasts?
A: The average story on a broadcast station is 1 minute and 15 seconds. Our average story is 2 minutes. We have many stories that run 4, 5, or 6 minutes long. You simply cannot tell most stories adequately unless you give them more time.
Q: Your 8 p.m. weeknight show once featured Chet Curtis and Jim Braude together. Why did you split them up?
A: We felt that they're such different people, and that they were kind of, not holding each other back, but that Chet could be more himself in a program that was part newscast and part substantive interview. His style is very different. He's not a confrontational interviewer. He's a very capable classic journalist -- ask the right questions but don't hammer people.
Jim is incredibly quick -- his sense of humor, his love of repartee. He's very engaged, and he is more confrontational. We felt they'd be better apart.
Q: What do you watch on your day off?
A: My television viewing is mostly NECN. Some sports and movies. That's pretty much it. I tend to watch no entertainment programming. The classic network series -- ''American Idol," ''CSI," ''The Sopranos" -- I never watch any of those. I'm very much a news guy.
