O.C. deemed headline-worthy

Alicia Robinson

Live from Orange County, it’s CNN Headline News?

Not exactly, but news junkies will soon get a five-minute fix of

local news twice every hour from the 24-hour national news provider.

Comcast Cable, a cable service provider to about 40,000 households in

Orange County, will launch Comcast Local Edition, a five-minute

program featuring interviews with local officials on community issues

and events.

It should begin airing later this month at 24 and 54 minutes past

the hour on CNN Headline News.

Costa Mesa’s Comcast viewers already can watch City Council

meetings or Newport-Mesa Unified School District board meetings on

Comcast, and its Channel 3 news delivers a half-hour of local news

three days a week. The new five-minute program will expose a wider

audience to community news that often doesn’t make the major networks

and isn’t shown through other types of services, said Del Heintz,

director of governmental affairs for Comcast’s Southern California

region.

“We can do local things, where DirecTV or [satellite] dish or

someone else can’t, so it’s a responsibility we take very seriously,”

he said. “We have a very big sense of giving back to the communities

that we serve. It’s one way to make ourselves differentiated from our

competition.”

When Local Edition begins, viewers will see a familiar face

delivering the news. Valerie Mitchell, a news producer who has been

with Comcast since 1988, will anchor the program, conducting

in-studio interviews and sometimes covering events in the field.

“We won’t have the ability to do breaking news, which is kind of

hard for a reporter,” Mitchell said. “What we will be able to do is

still incorporate community stories through this new avenue.”

She’s already done some test taping in Comcast’s Costa Mesa

studio, and this week she will interview dozens of elected officials

-- city council members, Orange County supervisors and state and

federal officials -- and people with community organizations such as

Habitat for Humanity, the Costa Mesa Senior Center and Friends in

Service to Humanity.

“They’ve tried it elsewhere, and it’s been very popular,” Costa

Mesa Mayor Gary Monahan said. “It’ll be an opportunity to speak to

people without spending a lot of money.”

This is the company’s third such local news launch in Southern

California, and more are planned for the first half of 2005, Comcast

spokeswoman Patti Rockenwagner said.

The Los Angeles-based KCAL station used to produce local news

inserts for CNN but chose not to renew its contract, so Comcast

decided to step in and produce its own segments, Heintz said.

A problem with local programming that airs on other Comcast

channels is that you have to know when it’s on to watch it,

Rockenwagner said.

“With Comcast Local Edition on CNN Headline News, it plays several

times during the day,” she said. “It is also a network that gets more

viewership in general than, say, a public access or local origination

channel.”

As the show becomes more familiar, she said, Comcast hopes to be

contacted by community members who want to be a part of it.

“There’s a lot of people that do watch Headline News,” Monahan

said. “Any time you can add local coverage, because it’s so expensive

to do it, I think it’s a positive.”

Heintz summed up the five-minute local news bits another way.

“We’re all used to fast food,” he said. “It fits the lifestyle of

today’s television consumers.”

* ALICIA ROBINSON covers business, politics and the environment.

She may be reached at (949) 764-4330 or by e-mail at

[email protected].