There's a new force - SKYFORCE - among local TV news choppers

THE WAR for the hearts, minds and eyeballs of the region's residents has flared up in the skies over the Delaware Valley.

That's where a high-tech, multimillion-dollar battle is taking place as the market's four local television-news operations duke it out - via helicopter.

This resurgence of the local chopper war, which first broke out a decade or so ago, was ignited last month when NBC 10 introduced SKYFORCE 10.

The blue-and-orange, four-passenger, state-of-the-art Bell 206 L4 LongRanger helicopter boasts four high-def cameras: a rotating "gyro" unit mounted on the front, one on the tail and two in the cabin. The gyro-cam is so accurate, station bigwigs brag, it can read a license plate from 2,000 feet in the air.

Inside, reporters have a "telestrator" that allows them to draw on-the-screen images (think NFL broadcasts) to help viewers understand what they're seeing. Stations in only two other markets - New York and Los Angeles - have such a tool.

In January 2009, NBC 10 joined Fox 29 in what is known in TV lingo as a Local News Service agreement, in which stations share certain resources - in this case, a helicopter. This LNS deal was the first of its kind in the country (today, 13 Fox outlets are involved in an LNS program) and ultimately included CBS 3, which remains 29's partner. But last June, newly hired NBC 10 news vice president Anzio Williams decided to take a different flight path, as it were.

"We believe we should look to differentiate ourselves from other television stations in the market," Williams said. "It was hard to differentiate ourselves when we were using the same pictures."

He added, "We wanted to make sure that everything we do is better. And by getting SKYFORCE 10, we now have the opportunity to have closer images, and we can take viewers where we want to. We wanted to have the best possible tool we could put in the air.

"And I like the way it looks. It looks kick-ass."

Although Williams wouldn't reveal the cost for SKYFORCE 10, he acknowledged that the station and its Comcast overlords have made "a large investment" in the million-dollar-per-year range to operate the chopper and lease it from St. Louis-based Helicopters Inc.

Williams' competition says it isn't particularly impressed by SKYFORCE 10. Jim Driscoll, Fox 29's vice president/news director, doesn't think that the strategy is forward-thinking.

NBC 10 is "doubling their cost for generic footage - a traditional strategy that is 1970s and '80s thinking," he said. "You can't be traditional in 2013. You have to be innovative, which is what LNS is."

Driscoll added that this shared-services approach frees up staff for other, exclusive stories. "Anybody can shoot an overnight fire," he said. "If I have an LNS camera to do that, I can redirect my resources to do emotional stories that will resonate with viewers."

Choppers, yes?

Choppers, no?

Richard Goedkoop, a retired La Salle University professor of communications and author of the book Inside Local TV News, takes a pox-on-all-their-houses view of the TV news-chopper war.

"What do they do with helicopters?" he asked. "They occasionally show you a fire. You can see car crashes to some degree. But I've always wondered about television doing traffic reports anyway. How many people are actually watching television while they're driving?

"They're battling on the fringes here. Like anchors and [reporters] who are well-built or very young, it's another quiver they can put in their competitive package. But is it going to increase the value of the newscast? In my view, it probably doesn't. I'd rather have another aggressive reporter or two on staff pounding the beat and getting behind the scenes of what's actually going on in the city and area."

Executives at channels 3 and 6 begged to differ.

"Chopper coverage is very important," said Susan Schiller, CBS 3's vice president/news director. "We're very aggressive in covering whatever news can be covered from the air." She cited the dramatic pictures that her helicopter provided in the wake of Superstorm Sandy as proof of its significance as a news-gathering tool.

For Bernie Prazenica, president and general manager of 6ABC, which has ruled the local TV-news roost for decades, his station's Chopper 6 is as important - and yet, as mundane - a news-gathering tool as a camera-equipped van or even a reporter's notepad.

"To us, [the hubbub over news helicopters] is much to do about nothing," he insisted, adding that his station needs a chopper "because of the geography of what we have to cover in breaking-news situations where we have to be able to move quickly."

That's something even a tricked-out news van can't do in a coverage area that stretches north to the Pocono Mountains, south to Dover, Del., east to the Jersey Shore (from Cape May to Tom's River) and west to Lancaster County.

Ultimately, it may be that the only way the competition's helicopters can help them win the ratings war is if they are used to bomb 6ABC's City Avenue headquarters. According to the March Nielsen ratings survey of local TV viewership, 6ABC's "Action News" retains its stranglehold on Philly viewers. Among the findings: The station's newscasts remain the most popular in all time slots; its 6 a.m. program has more viewers than its three competitors' newscasts at 4, 5 or 6 p.m.; and the "Action News" 6 p.m. broadcast has a 100 percent-plus lead over the competition.

But that doesn't mean that the introduction of SKYFORCE 10 won't leave its mark on the local TV landscape. As one Philly TV veteran, who requested anonymity, said, "What impact will this have on local TV news? I guess we'll see more helicopter promos."