State of Local

This TVNewsday article is getting a lot of attention today, primarily because of its basic premise: that newspaper-based web sites offer a breadth of coverage and level of writing that can’t be matched by the average television station web site. The article compares the sports coverage offered up by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the offerings from its TV station competitors.

For all the talk these days about TV on the net, the Web is still primarily a writer’s medium. It is more Gutenberg than Marconi.

And writing is what newspapers do and have been doing for a long while. In the case of the Post-Gazette,

Repurposing content from the printed pages, newspaper Web sites are filled with highly detailed local stories by beat reporters.

They have editorials; op-ed pieces; letters to the editor; obituaries; TV, movie and book critics; and usually a street-smart columnist or two who really know how to tell a story.

It truly is rich media.

Right upfront, I’ll throw out this disclaimer. IB has two partner web sites in the Pittsburgh market. So rather than talking about that specific market, let me make this a more general discussion. Read More… »

The American Press Institute’s Newspaper Next project has released a report on the state of newspapers and how their role is changing.

One key finding is that readers are increasingly searching for information that is pertinent to them rather than what just would traditionally be thought of as “news.” The report advises newspapers to become “a local information and connection utility.”

As you read the 100-plus page report, it becomes clear that many of the problems and possible solutions are also applicable to Internet Broadcasting’s broadcast TV clients. Like newspapers, they’ve struggled to grow or even retain their local online audiences, with mixed results.

The study observes that the most common solution among newspapers is to offer up ideas which offer added value to current readers, instead of developing ways to bring in new eyeballs. Things like video are mentioned in this category, and we suspect that if our industry had the metrics to prove it, the same would be the case with visitors to our sites, and those of our competitors.
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One of the biggest challenges any local news organization has faced in recent years has been reorganizing the process of gathering and publishing news across a number of platforms. Local journalism now includes not just the traditional broadcast or print market, but the web, mobile, video, rss, widgets, radio and whatever else comes along.

It’s difficult to find the optimal mix of resources for each task. There are budgetary issues, and in many cases, news organizations have had to revamp their entire business model to survive.

One such reinvention was at the Manchester, U.K. newspaper the Evening News, which decided to make the paper free in central Manchester, while keeping paid-for distribution in the city’s outskirts. That move was part of a larger move to convergence of its different media outlets (which include 23 local weeklies, the flagship daily, the Channel M TV station and several radio stations).

The changes began in 2000, and the results have not only boosted the bottom line, but led to an integrated regional newsroom where all the various outlets share content, staff and other resources.

That central news hub is an interesting development, and its one that makes sense for local news outlets that have several different media businesses. According to Paul Horrocks, editor of MEN, the changes have completely altered the way that organization gathers news. Read More… »

TV news stations love their brands. They splash their logos, slogans and anchor mugs on air, on billboards and the sides of big-city buses.

Stations also brand themselves online with the same smiling anchors and punchy mottos. The strategy generally enjoys limited success, with many stations still struggling to gain a sizable share of local online traffic.

One veteran executive of the digital news world has some advice for those stations: Help your brand pack its bags, drive it to the station and give it an emotional kiss goodbye. Then go home and get to work doing something useful online.

Nancy Bruner’s been doing new media for more than a decade. She just made the switch from heading digital content for the The Seattle Times Co. to leading online development for Fisher Communications. Fisher, based in Seattle, is a publicly traded firm that owns 19 TV stations and nine radio stations, plus a satellite and fiber distribution system and a data center.

Fisher brought Bruner on board shortly after buying Pegasus News, a Dallas-based site that’s trying to forge a next-generation mold for local digital media. Pegasus has a bit of everything – staff writing, aggregating, events listings and a “Daily You” algorithm that learns users’ preferences. Fisher plans to hone the model in Dallas and then adapt it to other markets. Read More… »

A lot of media companies post their video on YouTube, and they do it for several reasons.

First, they’re often able to create a “channel” in which they can share ad revenue with YouTube. That certainly makes sense. And many companies believe that having a presence on YouTube is good branding, and might lead people to the video who otherwise wouldn’t visit the home site. Once again, not a bad idea.

But I’ve heard some execs argue that YouTube is great because it “protects” your videos from being downloaded. If that’s your motivation, then you’re in real trouble.

There are literally dozens of web sites and programs which allows users to download video off of YouTube, Google Video and other sites. Mashable has a rundown of some of the best known solutions, but there are many more available. Read More… »

Graeme Newell at 602 Communications has a great post on the challenges of marketing ads to people who are moving away from email and other mass market advertising platforms to social networks that limit direct contact to trusted people you know. In a world where technology is increasingly making it easier to eliminate “interruption” advertising, it’s important to create a trusted relationship with your readers.

There is an adage on the internet that if you obstruct the flow of information in any way, the community will not fight you, but simply go around you. You will quickly find yourself irrelevant. As technology gets better and better, tools will continue to arise that simply eliminate unwanted interruptions like mass advertising and promotion. Holding people hostage and forcing them to watch a non-targeted ad is not going to be tolerated in the future. The audience will demand that the ads they let in be customized to their individual tastes and desires.

So what’s the answer? Newell suggests that broadcasters begin the hard work now of connecting with their audience in a more personal fashion. Read More… »