Action News

Action News is a local television newscast format in the United States. It was conceived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at WFIL-TV by news director Mel Kampmann in 1970 as a response to the "Eyewitness News" format used on rival station KYW-TV. At this time, WFIL-TV was said to be "#4 in a three-station market." The main difference between Action News and Eyewitness News was that the former was far more tightly formatted. Time limits were set on packages—for instance, a reporter package could be no longer than 90 seconds. This difference enabled the station to cover more stories than its competitors. Another key difference was the focus on the surrounding Philadelphia suburban areas—a response to the movement of residents from the city to the suburbs. Finally, WPVI placed more emphasis on young talent—while WCAU-TV and KYW-TV used older, respected news anchors such as Vince Leonard, Tom Snyder, and John Facenda, WPVI used a young Larry Kane as their top anchor. Later, the station would add the very popular Jim O'Brien as its main weathercaster. The format quickly took off, and after going back and forth with KYW for first place, WPVI took the lead in 1977 and has held it ever since. Capital Cities Communications, WPVI's owner at the time, took the format to most of its other stations.