With the expansion of its Newsy service this week, the E.W. Scripps Co. SSP, is betting that consumers have an appetite for more news, instead of just talking about news.
Newsy, primarily seen now online and through streaming services, is expanding its programming to 17 hours a day with an eventual goal of operating around the clock and, for the first time, will be available as an over-the-air television service.
The pitch from Kate O’Brian, head of the Scripps Networks’ newsgroup, and Newsy boss Eric Ludgood is simple: an unflashy service that goes beyond headlines to look at the breadth of news in some detail and without a political bias.
Its motto: “Be informed, not influenced.”
“It’s a little bit of going back to the future, what television news used to be,” said O’Brian, a longtime producer and executive at ABC News.
O’Brian and Ludgood have spent the past few months doubling their staff to more than 200 people. Newsy began in 2008 as a syndicated news service in Columbia, Missouri, with the staff largely from the nearby University of Missouri journalism school. The service was bought by Scripps in 2014.
