Nashville station promotes legacy, weather team during big game

WSMV in Nashville, like many NBC affiliates, took advantage of the massive number of eyeballs watching Super Bowl LVI to air some promos for itself.

For the big game, WSMV prepped three spots — one outlining its legacy in the community and two versions of a weather promo.

The legacy promo took viewers back through vintage footage from the station’s early days, including when its call signs were WSM back in the 1950s. 

“Things have changed a lot since WSMV signed on as Nashville’s first station back in 1950,” says the announcer.

“And now, things are changing faster than ever,” the voiceover continues. 

A clip of the late Dan Miller, who anchored at the station from 1969 to 1986 and again starting in 1992 until his death in 2009, is played with him saying “I’m confident that whoever ends up in this news desk in the future will find the same friendship and support that has meant so much to me.”

There’s then a short clip of talent walking outdoors followed by a collage of the station’s historic logos before the current one boldly appears on screen against a blurred city skyline. 

“Thank you for choosing us to tell your stories,” the announcer says, before closing out with “WSMV 4 is Nashville’s station.”

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Current talent was also featured earlier in the promo.

Two separate weather promos, one running 30 seconds and one 60 seconds, were also created, with an emphasis on the station’s weather team and its mission of keeping viewers safe.

Both versions highlight the station’s new First Alert branding and what it describes as Nashville’s only live, local radar that it says can detect atmospheric changes up to five minutes earlier than others. 

WSMV has adopted the First Alert weather branding which is a trademark of its parent Gray Television. Some CBS-owned stations have also recently switched to the branding. 

Throughout the spots, studio footage of meteorologists delivering forecasts is mixed in with imagery of what natural disasters leave behind.

Both spots also include a circular “Certified most accurate” seal, though it doesn’t use the WeatheRate logo despite being listed on the site’s page as a client.

The spots were created by Shannon Cleary and Kendal Dennis under the direction of Bob St. Charles and original concepts by Jasmine Hatcher-Hardin.

NBC reportedly sold 30 second commercial spots for as high as $7 million and sold out of its national in game inventory over a week before the game.

However, like with most network programming, affiliate stations are given a small portion of advertising time during each hour to sell to their own clients or hold back for airing their own promos. Most stations typically do a mix of both. Some ad inventory is also sold on a regional basis, while pay TV providers can also insert ads during select programming.

Advertisers who buy at the local or regional level pay significantly less since their ads are only seen in a limited part of the country.

In some cases, these are local businesses but it’s also not uncommon for big-name companies to buy ads at the regional or local level — and it’s sometimes a “backdoor” way to get an ad on during the Super Bowl if a national spot is out of budget or unavailable. 

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