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Three years ago, before Kelly Lattimer was promoted in August 2014 to vice president and general manager of Nexstar Broadcasting Group’s Rockford, Illinois, station groups — ABC affiliate WTVO, Fox affiliate WQRF, MyNetworkTV and Bounce — she had an idea for a local quiz show.
“I did all the research and planning to put a show together, but I couldn’t find a venue and I couldn’t find a sponsor,” she says. “The economy was a disaster at the time, so I shelved it.”
In October, Lattimer was pitching a volunteer initiative to executives at Bergstrom, Inc., a global company based in Rockford, when the topic of quiz shows came up. With “brain drain” making it difficult for companies like Bergstrom to recruit highly skilled employees, they realized a competition celebrating local students could entertain and enrich the community.
“Athletes get all the accolades, but we don’t do enough to recognize the academic achievements of kids who choose to stay in school, study hard, and do well,” Lattimer says. “This is a way to recognize those kids and hold them up as role models to other kids.”
The 21-epsiode Stateline Quiz Bowl Presented by Bergstrom, was born. With Bergstrom on board as the title sponsor, Lattimer contacted Northern Illinois University, which offered a venue and $40,000 in scholarships to the winning team.
Additional sponsors followed, some offering funds, others offering goods or services. Monitors courtesy of a local appliance store, set decoration by a nearby graphics firm, and pizza party prizes for “Bergstrom Bonus” questions, written and presented, via video, by Bergstrom engineers.
WTVO/WQRF’s creative services director, Shawn Anderson, helped develop the show and serves as an executive producer. He’s quick to point out that it’s technically a game show.
The distinction is important since most contestants – from 22 high schools throughout the viewing area —participate in the Illinois High School Association’s scholastic bowls.
“This isn’t an IHSA-sanctioned event, meaning our format has to be different so it doesn’t get roped into ISHA rules,” Anderson says, noting, however, that the questions were purchased from the same place that supplies IHSA events.
Moving from idea to air in three months was a challenge, but the tight timeline wasn’t by choice.
“We knew we wanted it to conclude around the end of the school year,” Anderson says, “and we knew we couldn’t tape until [the second week of January]. That gives you a pretty finite amount of weeks.”
The exact date of the finale hasn’t been decided, but the plan is to air it live, in primetime, on the ABC affiliate during the first week of June.
The marketing campaign was going strong before the first episode was taped, with promos featuring “Eyewitness News” anchor Nick Toma, who hosts the quiz bowl.
“Most of the promotion has been done with our on-air and on-line presence,” Anderson says. They added a ‘Stateline Quiz Bowl’ page to their mystateline.com website and have active Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts to which viewers can contribute. The Facebook page will include mini-quizzes to give fans a chance to win prizes.
“We’re not doing ads in the local paper. I’m not buying ad time on Comcast. I’m not doing anything on radio. I’m not doing billboards,” Anderson says. “That’s not to say in the future we won’t, but right now we want to see where we’re at.”
He has, however, promoted the show across all four stations.
“We’ve even had time allocated in NFL broadcasts,” he says. “You’d have a hard time getting away from on-air promotions for this. They’ll be on American Idol on Fox and Dancing With the Stars on ABC. We’ll be promoting across all our platforms and allocating time in high-viewership areas.”
The show replaces paid programming on WTVO, and will be rebroadcast the following day on WQRF and MyNetworkTV.
“Anytime you get an opportunity to upgrade your schedule with an intensely local show like this, it’s something you want to do,” Lattimer says. “As broadcasters, our job is to serve the specific viewing interests of the local community, and we saw an opportunity to address an issue – education – in a fun and exciting way.”
“Stateline Quiz Bowl Presented by Bergstrom”
Premieres Saturday, January 17
Schedule:
• Saturdays 6:30PM (following “Eyewitness News”) on WTVO
• Sundays 8:30AM on MyNetworkTV
• Sundays 9:30PM on WQRF
• Each Monday, that week’s episode will be posted at http://www.mystateline.com/statelinequizbowl
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