In her book “Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live,” author Susan Morrison says that when she asked about the description of how the show starts as being known as “the cold open.”, Lorne Michaels said: “I made that up.” She also notes that the actual origin of the phrase is “a bit murky.” But as we’ve been recovering from a nasty sinus infection over the past few days, her book has been a great read about the man behind one of the cultural touchstones that television first brought us in the 1970s. We’d recommend it if you’re looking for something to read. You can pick it up from Amazon (while supporting this blog) by clicking our affiliate link here.

Whoever came up with the term “cold open” understood the idea that it is significantly better to start a program by getting right into it, from the proverbial cold start, rather than just sticking with the traditional format of beginning with: “Now it’s time for our show! Here are our regular hosts (naming each one) and our special guests, so now on with the show!” Given that is how most television programs began in the early days of the medium, it was probably inevitable that local television newscasts would follow suit–at least in their early days.

Then somebody thought of beginning a local newscast by getting right into the news stories of the day, with what you probably now know as either “Headlines” or a “Cold Open.” You probably know this so well, you don’t even think of it. It is just how the local newscast begins. Sometimes it might be a little different, perhaps with some extra urgency, if, possibly, there is a reporter live at the scene of breaking news or something different than the normal expectation due to a major event.

That was certainly the case yesterday, when the first word of the death of Pope Francis had come early in the morning. By the time the early evening newscasts rolled around, most began with the headline of the Pope’s death, probably adding in some reaction. Some stations (and networks) we saw made this their entire cold open, previewing a “special edition” of the newscast that was to follow would be (forgive us) “All Pope, all the Time.” Other outlets added in additional stories as they usually might, if only to round out the opening sequence, and then went on to start the newscast.

In other words, the first sixty seconds or so of the newscast went about as any regular viewer might expect on such a day, dominated by one major news story (especially for the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics who just lost their spiritual leader). And we are here to present the idea that this was a missed opportunity in most cases.

It is easy to understand how this happens. The “cold open” of the newscast is usually one of the last things to be done in the frantic crunch of putting the program together. The desire is to have the first thing in the program present the very latest information and be as up-to-date as possible. That is, even with the limitation that most newsrooms will pre-record this segment, to make it as perfect as possible and put as much production value as possible into it.

Even in the aforementioned book about Lorne Michaels, the process that unfolds each week in the creation of a new episode of “Saturday Night Live” is described in this passage from author Susan Morrison: “A high-energy cold open is important to him (Michaels), and he often has the writers start from scratch on Friday or even Saturday. The idea is, if you begin the show with a home run, then momentum will carry through the next ninety minutes."

So the same idea that has opened a network television institution for the past fifty years is also behind the start of every television newscast. OK, maybe without the signature shouting at the end of “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” But the concept of grabbing attention and getting things going strong is pretty much the same.

And for too many stations we watch, this single idea is an opportunity lost.

The legendary radio consultant Holland Cooke states it so economically and eloquently: “Hook Early, Hook Hard." The first sixty seconds are your first–and in most cases, your ONLY– chance to “reel in” the viewer to continue watching/listening past that first minute of air time. It is just too easy to switch to something else or, worse still, tune out altogether.

Too many newscasts start with recitations of this tired formula: “Coming up on this newscast, we’ll have news story #1, then news story #2, then maybe a longer story #3 and fun or feature story, and a promise of ‘all that and more’ in this newscast that starts…right now!” This is usually followed by what we label as “the fanfare” part of the opening: Typically a short punchy title animation with a big musical logo. Finally, we come to a shot of the anchor(s) who introduce themselves and get on with the newscast.

What’s missing from that formula is an actual hook. What would grab someone’s attention and make them think that they have to keep watching? Usually, there is very little because the cold open is often just that: cold. It’s often as unappealing as a tired server in a restaurant, less-than-enthusiastically reading off “today’s specials.” You want to hear the answer to the age-old question: “What would you recommend getting to eat here?” If the answer to that was ever “We have the best damn (insert a food dish here) in the state” then wouldn’t you would be far more likely to order that–rather than something off a list that was delivered as unappealingly as possible, right?

Let’s turn back to yesterday’s major news of the death of Pope Francis. What if your newscast opened with this promise: “Tonight, as the world mourns the passing of a Pope, hear how he changed the lives of people here in Anytown with one simple question.” Now that’s a hook–because it includes a promise to deliver more than just the expected details.

The opening to any newscast should include the promise to deliver more than what your viewers might expect. Most days, the news is a known commodity–especially in an age where nearly every breaking news story is delivered in real-time to the smartphone in their pockets. What can you offer beyond the expected? What will surprise and potentially impress your audience today? If your answer to that last question is nothing, you need to reevaluate what is going into the next twenty-nine or fifty-nine minutes that follow.

Is today a unique enough day for you to consider dramatically changing things up? Just because you always open the newscast the same way doesn’t mean you should miss the opportunity to signify an important occasion by ditching the normal formula and trying something completely different. Don’t be afraid to use a different hook to engage your audience. What might that be? Almost anything. Natural sound. A sound bite from an eyewitness. A reporter’s standup. Just about anything you can think of that might showcase the stories you are about to deliver, as if to say, “We have the best (insert food item) in the state for you today!”

Put more simply, don’t miss the opportunity to turn the cold open into a minute with real impact. Because the quote (attributed to both Oscar Wilde and Will Rogers) is true: “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

At least until the next newscast.