Rob Roblin departs, taking with him one of the great secrets that local television stations never fully realized until it was too late: viewers like familiarity.
In the age of cable news and a zillion other media outlets, there aren’t many local TV news viewers left. But for those who remain, it offers some comfort to have a friend there to lay out the day’s grim news.
At one point, Roblin spent a quarter-century at WBAL’s “Action News,” long enough for everybody in town to know him for his reporting skills and humor and big heart. And he was here long enough that everybody knew you could trust Rob to get the story right.
He was 79 when he died last week from complications of a stroke. He first arrived here as a young man and spent several short stints with WBAL before settling in for 24 years.
It’s not a coincidence that WBAL has been the local TV news ratings leader the more they’ve learned to hold onto their best people – as modest as those ratings are, compared to those years when TV news operations all across America were swiping away all the big numbers from newspapers. These days, both media are fighting to stay relevant.
For many years, WJZ’s “Eyewitness News” dominated the Baltimore market as very few stations anywhere in America ever did. They did it by stressing familiarity. Think Jerry Turner and Al Sanders, Richard Sher and Bob Turk, and on and on. Those who ran that station understood the great secret: Hold onto the people your viewers trust.
If you look at that station now, the only familiar faces are Denise Koch, Marty Bass and Tim Williams.
If you stumble into that station’s news now, you find yourself echoing the great line Butch Cassidy kept asking The Sundance Kid as they fled from law enforcement: “Who are these guys?”
WBAL can attribute some of its ratings lead to such local folks as Deborah Weiner and Jason Newton, who grew up and went to school here.
Born in Toronto and raised in Mississippi, Rob Roblin didn’t grow up here. But he settled in and stuck around long enough that he felt like a hometown guy who could be trusted, not only to report the surface of a story but the heart and history of it.
Viewers want at least a little bit of texture woven into the standard 90-second stories. After all, they’re inviting TV reporters into their homes. That’s an act of intimacy. You don’t always feel like inviting in strangers.
Rob Roblin was a guy you were happy he stuck around for such a long time.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” (Johns Hopkins University Press) and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home” (Johns Hopkins University).
The Orioles' weak defense plays a major role in the nightly carnage, writes Michael Olesker.
Jmore Publisher Scott Rifkin, M.D., reacts to President Donald Trump's latest poll numbers and the real force behind the growing decline of the Trump movement.
Last weekend's Flower Mart once again demonstrated that there's nothing to fear about downtown Baltimore, writes Michael Olesker.
A junior at Roland Park Country School, Katie Grossman writes about a recent experience that spurred her to take action to fight antisemitism.