Former Daily Telegram publisher is CEO of fledgling, just-the-facts TV news network

The latest business venture by the founder of 5-hour Energy is going back to the future of television news with free, over-the-air broadcasts of just-the-facts national news and sports.

Earlier this year, Manoj Bhargava, 70, bought a majority stake in two Michigan television stations and a fledgling 24-hour national news network, NewsNet, where anchors present the day's biggest stories in cycling 30-minute segments of straightforward reporting that have the feel of CNN Headline News in the 1990s.

The network claims to avoid any deliberate political or ideological slant to coverage and its slogan is "News ... as it used to be."

NewsNet can generally be watched three ways: through over-the-air TV, using streaming services including Roku and fuboTV, or with regular internet streaming.

The network isn't carried by many cable services (including any in metro Detroit) and forecasts that much of its future growth will come from "cord cutters," which are households that decide to cancel expensive cable or satellite TV packages and rely on streaming content and the old-fashioned airwaves.

The network has about 35 employees, up from about 20 when Bhargava bought it in January, and is in the midst of a $50 million investment initiative aimed at expanding coverage and audience reach, including major upgrades to its new, second studio on Bhargava's corporate campus in Farmington Hills.

NewsNet's parent company, Bridge News, also has started buying low-powered TV stations across the country that carry NewsNet, including a pending $1.65 million deal for WHNE-LD in Detroit and other deals for stations in Miami and Las Vegas. Those acquisitions are still subject to approval from the Federal Communications Commission.

During a tour Tuesday of the Farmington Hills studio, NewsNet CEO Vince Bodiford — a former newspaper publisher, including at The Monroe News and The Daily Telegram in Adrian — said it is now generally believed that viewers are tiring of hyper-partisan TV news that leans heavily on opinion, and this phenomenon presents an opportunity for NewsNet.

”The entire television industry is in a state of disruption right now. And where there is disruption, there’s opportunity," he said.

"We don’t have an axe to grind, we don’t have a political agenda, we’re trying very hard to clean bias out of our content," he said. "We believe in just presenting the news in the story the way that it happened and letting the viewers decide what to think about it. We’re not here to craft some sort of analysis or a narrative about what to think."

Bodiford said NewsNet viewership is roughly divided in half between those who watch the network via the airwaves and those watching through streaming services like Roku or the internet.

The network can be viewed over-the-air in 60 broadcast markets through TV station affiliation agreements, including in metro Detroit on WHNE's channel 3.9, broadcast from Oak Park.

“It is very easy with the TVs we have now to tune in to over-the-air signals," Bodiford said. "Some TVs even have the antennas built in, and you can also buy a very inexpensive digital broadcast antenna. It’s also now very easy to switch between watching over-the-air or cable or (streaming services) using your remote. You don’t have to crawl behind your TV and switch wires like you used to."

The number of NewsNet viewers at any given time can range from roughly 1 million to a peak of 3 million to 5 million, Bodiford said, with viewership depending on the time of day and what is happening on other news channels.

For instance, at times when a big event is live on numerous other news stations, NewsNet tends to pull in many channel surfers, he said.

80% reach goal

A NewsNet goal is to own or gain enough affiliate stations for an 80% TV market reach into U.S. households, according to Bodiford, who hopes that can happen within one to two years.

Bhargava's Bridge News in January bought a majority stake in NewsNet, plus two low-power TV stations, WMNN-LD outside Cadillac and WXII-LD north of Traverse City, from Eric Wotila, who launched NewsNet in January 2019.

The purchase price for the two stations was $20,000 and the assumption of liabilities, according to FCC documents. The price for NewsNet wasn't disclosed.

Wotila retained a minority ownership in NewsNet and now works as its president. He divides his time between the network's Cadillac and Farmington Hills studios.

“NewsNet was his vision to begin with," Bodiford said. "He launched the channel and just has done a remarkable job building the business. We are very impressed by that and also very impressed by his broadcast acumen, his business acumen and media in general. So when we made the acquisition, we wanted to retain him."

Bhargava is a serial entrepreneur who was born in India and moved to the U.S. as a teenager with his family. His Farmington Hills-based company, Living Essentials, makes the popular 5-hour Energy shots.

Bhargava has said in interviews that a big reason why he bought NewsNet was to own and control a television platform for advertising 5-hour Energy and his companies' other consumer products, because buying TV ads was getting too expensive.

"So the (advertising) costs were really becoming greater," Bodiford said. "That led to a discussion about what are some alternatives to delivering this advertising. And the conclusion was made to 'buy and invest in media itself.' ”

NewsNet is not one long informercial for 5-hour Energy. The brand's energy shots and 16-ounce cans appeared in only a few commercial breaks on the network's streaming platform on a recent afternoon.

Many of the other ads, such as MyPillow and Gerber Life Insurance, were served up for viewers based on algorithms from third-party advertising exchanges. There also were numerous "house ads" introducing NewsNet anchors, many of whom have deep Michigan ties.

NewsNet isn't the first or only TV news network startup to market itself as an unbiased and nonpartisan alternative to the cable news heavyweights such as Fox News and MSNBC.

Newsy, soon to be renamed Scripps News, is more than a decade old and available for free via streaming or over-the-air to more than 80% of U.S. households. And NewsNation, which debuted last year and is available on cable, recently hired former CNN anchor Chris Cuomo.

"A poor comparison would be OAN and Newsmax," Bodiford said. "They drive a very specific political agenda with their content; we do not. We are only about the headlines — 'This is what happened' — without any political agenda."

CNN also is said to be recalibrating its approach to news to be more centrist and have more reporting and less commentary.

"I think people are exhausted with trying to have to figure out 'How am I being played here?' when being fed news by the traditional news organizations," Bodiford said.

Bodiford has homes in Cheyenne, Wyoming, as well as Michigan. He has worked in the media business for years. Both The Monroe News and The Daily Telegram switched from afternoon to morning print delivery during his tenure from 2017 to 2019.

“Afternoon papers made sense if it was a two-paper town, back in the olden days,” he said.

Bodiford also owns the public relations firm NewsMakersMedia, The Cheyenne Post newspaper and TheWeekendDrive.com website for automotive enthusiasts.

Studio, staff expansions

NewsNet continues to expand its staff and recently hired a Washington correspondent for its soon-to-open Washington, D.C., bureau.

There also are plans to launch a 24-hour sports news highlights network using the NewsNet model, Bodiford said. That network's studios are still under construction inside NewsNet's building in Farmington Hills.

“One of the reasons that we’re expanding with the sports news highlights network is the demographic that likes sports and sports highlights is also a customer of most of our products," he said. “Most of the advertising that 5-hour Energy has done over the last few years has been on ESPN. So we know that sports has been a great audience for 5-hour Energy.”

Asked when NewsNet would become profitable, Bodiford said the network is still in its early investment and growth phase and that it is focused on building out its infrastructure, stations and affiliates, on-air talent and audience.

"In broadcast, advertising revenue follows audience share," he said.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 5-hour Energy founder goes back to the future with snark-free TV news