Women in Business: Andrea Larson Media

Andrea Larson
Born: Cooperstown, ND
Education: UND, Grand Forks- Bachelors in Advertising & Marketing, Communications Minor
Business: Co-anchor TV 11 Valley Today
On leadership: “A leader to me is someone who provides direction, vision and motivation within an organization. Also a leader must be able to connect with people.”

After graduating from the University of North Dakota, Andrea moved to the Twin Cities and worked for Media Relations, a company that schedules guests on local and national TV talk shows. During this time Andrea became very interested in working in front of the camera instead of behind the scenes and while working she took the first step towards working on-air and attended Brown Institute and earned a broadcast certificate.

Andrea left Media Relations to pursue a broadcast journalism career which took her to several TV stations in North Dakota. She worked at KFYR-TV in Bismarck, KMOT –TV in Minot and then came to Fargo in 1999 to work for KVLY-TV 11. When Andrea started at KVLY she reported five days a week, then co-anchored the weekend news and moved to the early morning Valley Today news show which she has been co-anchoring with Mick Kjar for three years.

Working very early each weekday means that a typical day for Andrea begins with a wake up call between 2 and 3 am. Once at the station, Andrea works with the producer to write stories for the morning show and plans around advertisements and the network news cut-ins that come every 25 minutes throughout the morning. Andrea then goes on the air to co-anchor the Valley Today with Mick Kjar from 5:30 to 7 am. After the Valley Today broadcast she tapes the Consumer Report that will air at 5 pm the same day and attends the station news meeting which starts at about 8:45 am.

Having to be at work very early means that lunch time comes early for Andrea and she typically takes a break at 9:45 am to eat lunch. Afterwards, she helps to produce the KXJB noon show and then anchors the show. Andrea is done with her work day by early afternoon but occasionally works at home in the afternoons preparing for the next morning.

Andrea said that there are several trends currently taking place in TV broadcast journalism. One, television stations are switching from analog to digital air wave capabilities and she notes that February 2008 is the FCC deadline for all TV stations to be transitioned over to digital broadcasting.

Two, currently KVLY and KXJB put out a high definition signal and the next step is to upgrade the control equipment so syndicated programs such as Oprah and Regis and Kelly can be broadcast in high definition. The stations’ local newscasts will not be in high definition for several more years. The cost to have the network signal in high definition will cost KVLY about $2.2 million.

Three, very few local TV stations are owned by local companies as they were in the past and KVLY is owned by North Dakota Television, LLC which also owns stations in Bismarck, Minot, Williston, Dickinson and Sioux Falls, SD. KXJB TV is owned by Catamount and contracts with North Dakota Television to manage the station.

Four, within the media ownership issue, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has taken up the issue of broadcast ownership rules. The FCC looks at companies who want to own more than one medium in a single market. The companies who owned several media outlets before the issue came up have been “grandfathered in” and are able to retain ownership of multiple stations or newspapers in the same market.

The fifth trend within the broadcast industry that Andrea points out, is that television broadcasting has also gone online and local stations are putting their news content on their web pages. And, Andrea says that because of this phenomenon, local TV stations end up somewhat competing with the networks when a rerun is put online. When a network airs a rerun, the local TV station misses out on the advertising dollars that could be generated by a local broadcast.

Outside of work, Andrea loves to read and a favorite way to spend her time would be in a book store from morning until night reading and enjoying the atmosphere. Also, people may be surprised to know that Andrea is a night owl and loves to stay up late reading and working on projects even though her work starts very early each weekday morning.

Barbara Walters, Catie Couric and Diane Sawyer inspire Andrea in her work at TV 11. Andrea admires their versatility, experience and the skills they have to effectively cover light stories to serious interviews of world leaders. She also admires their strong writing abilities.

To keep honing her profession’s work, Andrea reads and attends seminars that are focused on news writing and photography skills. Andrea’s plans for the future include staying in the Fargo-Moorhead area. She loves what she does and will stay with KVLY. She also has family here which adds to her life outside of the work day.

Her favorite saying was originally said by Teddy Roosevelt and is,” Do what you can with what you have, where you are.” Andrea says,” In other words, make the best of your situation, stay positive and create a path in a different direction.

As Andrea is inspired by Barbara Walters, Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer, you can be sure that someday a young TV broadcaster will be looking to Andrea for inspiration.