ONE Down

Screen gone, sound off, station dead.

Hardly noticed. Barely mourned. (A simple graphic did explain its extinction, TV's version of a shallow grave and makeshift headstone.)

So went last December's demise of all-news cable station Las Vegas ONE, which couldn't survive to its teenage years, despite being birthed by three corporate parents -- joint operators Cox Cable, KLAS-TV, Channel 8 and the Greenspun Corp. Born in 1998, it attempted to prove a 24/7 city could support 24/7 news -- at least through a traditional outlet.

It couldn't.

"All the partners did their level best, but they also had things that really demanded more attention than LV1," says Jeff Gillan, former anchor of Emmy-winning "NewsONE at 9," now managing editor of KVBC-TV, Channel 3's news department. "(Channel 8) had their newscasts and the Greenspuns had the Sun and all their papers and Cox had its cable system to run. We just got crowded out. It's to the credit of everyone that it lasted as long as it did."

Nor does 24/7 news access on the airwaves fare better on Las Vegas radio, where the closest to it -- top-rated AM station KXNT-AM, 840 -- is typical of the nationwide trend over the past 15 years, building its base around talk, with four news cut-ins per hour during morning/afternoon drive-time, including national feeds and local stories from four reporters. When major Las Vegas news breaks, it's discussed and updated on shows such as Alan Stock's and Casey Hendrickson's.

"The top three or four markets can do (all-news)," says KXNT program director Jack Landreth. "Las Vegas doesn't have enough people or content to support it. Our Web site is updated 24 hours a day, but to do a radio format based on that would be very slow and boring."

Meanwhile, mobile devices, online and social media (Twitter, Facebook) march inexorably toward the forefront of news consumption. "That's how many people are accessing news -- they want it when they want it and how they want it," says Emily Neilson, president/general manager of Channel 8, which, like many news outlets, including newspapers such as the Review-Journal, offers 24/7 news constantly updated through "multiplatform" delivery systems.

"Our reporters are sending tweets and video as they're being dispatched to the stories. So you can't make an assumption that because a linear channel (LV1) didn't work -- which is, you don't hear about it until 5 or 6 tonight, if you're home in time -- that people aren't interested in 24/7 news," Neilson says. "In fact, they're more interested."

Yet local and regional all-news cable channels have survived and even thrived elsewhere alongside their market's broadcast stations -- News 8 in Austin, Texas; NewsChannel 5+ in Nashville; CLTV in Chicago; NewsWatch 15 in New Orleans; Bay News 9 in St. Petersburg, Fla.; New York's NY1; Seattle-based Northwest Cable News; and Boston-based New England Cable News.

Why not Las Vegas ONE? Certainly, a brutal recession and plummeting ad revenue left it vulnerable. "Most broadcast stations have been able to survive that because they have a longer history, they were able to downsize and change profit expectations," says Stacey Woelfel, chairman of the Radio Television Digital News Association. "But on the cable side, some couldn't downsize, the margin was too close. Also, for news junkies, there's competition on the network level -- MSNBC, CNN and Fox, competing heavily."

Rumblings by insiders also suggest divergent agendas among the partners, with Cox mostly interested in adding something other than satellite programming to its lineup, and Channel 8 content with it as a marketing plus to expand exposure to its newscasts, leaving only Greenspun fully engaged to give LV1 its own journalistic identity.

"The community has not taken to Las Vegas ONE the way the three of us had hoped they would when we started it," Greenspun Corp. chairman Brian Greenspun told the R-J in December.

Out of 721,780 Las Vegas TV households counted by A.C. Nielsen Co. during November sweeps, the last full ratings period for which numbers are available, Channel 8 reached 570,000, while LV1 managed only 69,000.

"The idea was there was a service that could be provided to Southern Nevada by having a channel dedicated to both live newscasts and long-form programming like trials, things that would not be covered by the commercial stations," says Bob Stoldal, LV1's general manager from its inception, later also assuming command of the news operation, as well as running Channel 8's news department, until he departed in 2008. He's now executive vice president of news for Sunbelt Communications Co., anchored by Channel 3.

"There were many breakthroughs, like live coverage from Carson City of Supreme Court hearings. During the Binion trial, we were beating all the TV stations in town. ... And they loved that they would get the pool feed from us and not have to invest in it."

Original programming included a morning show that disappeared early, Gillan's weeknight newscast, "Face to Face with Jon Ralston" and "In Business Las Vegas" (the latter two now on Channel 3), plus simulcasts and rebroadcasts of Channel 8 news, and University of Nevada, Las Vegas Rebel basketball. "Our goal was never to be all news, it was to be all news and information," Stoldal says. "There's a distinct difference between news and information. We had no problem doing a handyman show or history pieces."

Much of the schedule, however, was nonlocal and repetitive, strewn with programming such as Bloomberg Business News, with only 10 or so local editorial and support staff members for much of its existence. "You needed to have more local programming that viewers could identify with and that was a budget issue -- I was happy with the support the partners gave but there was only so much money you could throw at a product," Stoldal says, also acknowledging that being based at Channel 8's studio was limiting.

"We were living in someone else's house. We had to do our programming in between Channel 8's. There was a period of time, from about 3 o'clock to 7, when we couldn't produce any programs."

LV1 emphasized political, governmental and business coverage over crime/accident reporting, which may have struck viewers accustomed to sensationalism as bland. "Maybe we needed to get more down and dirty," Gillan says. "But at the end of the day, I was very proud of what we did."

Post-LV1, Channel 8 turned Channel 128, its digital subcarrier, into a repeater station for its own and CBS newscasts on weekdays, then simulcasting all Channel 8/CBS programming on weekends. "For people who still have the desire to catch the news there, we wanted to still provide it," Neilson says.

Devoid of original content, it doesn't attempt to replay the experiment of Las Vegas ONE. "I hope a town like this would watch a cable news station of good quality," Gillan says. "I don't know the next time someone will try that here, but I hope someone does."

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@review journal.com or 702-383-0256.