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4Nov/090

NBC: “Locals Only” Strategy Delivering Big Boosts in First Year

Chuck and Sue? Huh? Not on this Site, Baby

NBC hasn't had a lot to feel good about lately, with Jay Leno a critical disappointment and train wreck for NBC stations' late local newscasts.

But the Peacock's got set of numbers they're ready to boast about, in a news release issued today. NBC Local Media reports its year-old effort to rebrand websites "Locals Only"--and move away from the traditional model for local television online--has had some success.

According to NBC Local Media, the ten re-branded sites "celebrated their one-year anniversary with significant growth in key metrics, including doubling their unique visitors and more than tripling their page views since their relaunch in November 2008."

NBC's "Locals Only" Now... on Your iPhone

The "Locals Only" sites, which strip away call letters and news anchor faces in favor of city IDs like "NBCChicago" and "NBCBayArea" feature news, video, entertainment and blogs. The effort has also stayed ahead of the tech curve, releasing iPhone applications for the sites--and generating 75 thousand downloads in just four weeks.

The somewhat fuzzier concept of NBC Local's "mood rating" system in use on the sites, which allows users to rate stories on how they make them "feel" (thrilled, furious, intrigued, sad) has also gotten a lot of click traffic, with 10 thousand votes cast each day, according to NBC.

The more important numbers--pageviews and uniques--are up. Unique visitors growing one hundred percent, from six million in November 2008 to 12 million in October 2009. Page views jumped 296%, from 29 million to 113 million.

"We made the decision to take a more city-centric approach with the NBC ‘Locals Only’ sites, and we’re encouraged by the tremendous response we’ve seen over the past year,” said Brian Buchwald, EVP, Local Integrated Media. “We’re proud of the direction the sites have taken and look forward to continuing to target our ‘Locals Only’ audience, building on the momentum we’ve gained in the marketplace.”

NBC Local clearly thinks its strategy is working--and can expand into other local markets. The question continues to be, do NBC affiliates sign on to the concept, or risk NBC going it alone? As LocalNewser first reported, the network has purchased "LocalsOnly" domains in cities across the country where the network does not own the NBC station, including "NBCTampa" and "NBCBoston."

Tagged as: iphone, KNBC, locals only, NBC, nbc boston, nbc local, Social Media, web, wnbc No Comments

13May/092

Local Newsers: You've Heard "Feed the Web." But Beware Throwing It Scraps.

KMSP/Minneapolis: Great Story On TV, Not So Hot Online

If you're working at a local news station worth anything, part of your job these days includes reporting for the 5:00, 6:00 and maybe the 11:00 and filing a version of your story for the station website. Maybe you remember, as I do, the emphasis put on this part of the job by your news director in memo after memo after threatening memo: "you must file a story with the web before your day is over," etc.

Some of us take this multiplatforming as a way to reach new audiences and flex new writing muscles (I, for one, love translating my broadcast voice into "print" format for the web, even if sometimes, it seems like rolling a boulder up a hill while riding in a livetruck back to the station at the end of a long day. (Oh man...what was the name of the hotdog vendor we interviewed at noon?) What about leaving the job to an overworked web editor? Ah, my friend, beware.

For that part of today's life lesson, we turn the blog over to WCCO's Jason DeRusha, who not only worked for broadcast and filed for the web, but also responded to a Brooklyn blogger's last-minute request for a guest post. And he offers some damn solid insight into the risks and rewards of telling your story--and keeping control of your story--across all platforms. If you're banging out the web version as an afterthought, or leaving it to someone else, you're playing with your own reputation.

DISPATCH FROM THE FRONTLINES: Jason DeRusha, WCCO-TV/Minneapolis

As a guy who started in Davenport, Iowa in 1997, my job was clear. I was a television news reporter. My job was to go find out stuff and put it on TV. Maybe I'd write a VOSOT for 10, or the morning news. But that was it.

Today, my job is to do work across multiple platforms. I blog, I have webcam a at my desk, I Tweet and I turn my nightly TV news report "Good Question" into a story that can live on the web.

Writing my story for online publication may be the most important and least appreciated part of my job. I learned this a couple years ago, when a Google search of my name turned up a Pacific Business News article ripping me for a story I did where I supposedly referred to Hawaii as the "big island." I did no such thing, on the air. But the online version of my story, published under my byline (and written by a web producer), got it wrong.

Fox 9s Story on Twitter: Great on TV. Online: FAIL.

I bring this up, because a local Minneapolis Fox station took a great deal of heat online for the text version of a perfectly fine TV story. They should have expected that a story on Twitter would get a lot of attention on Twitter. The story I watched on the air was a perfectly nice introduction to Twitter. It was well-written and well produced. The story online was not. No links to the people in the story. No quotes from anyone in the story. With no disrespect intended toward the person who probably had to post two dozen stories that night, it appeared to be written by a child. The story was annihilated online: with Tweets like this: "That Fox Twitter story reads like a piece on the CB Radio craze submitted to me in 1976 when I edited the 6th grade paper." Not good.

At WCCO-TV in Minneapolis, several years ago management decided that reporters and field producers would write their own stories for the web. We had seminars, reminding us that writing for the web is different. Online readers expect you to get to the point right away. On-air, you might build your story to a climactic point. Online readers expect you to cite your sources, specifically. Online readers expect you to link to source material.

WCCO's DeRusha: Live on the Street, Live at his Desk

Some of us are pretty good at this, others need quite a bit of editing. But the web producers can work on editing, rather than trying to figure out what we were talking about when the TV script reads, "SOT: In: bob went.... OUT: pizza parlor." At first, I hated writing my web scripts. It jams more work into the end of my work day. Now, I love it. I love adding the extra information that I had to leave out because of time. I love the challenge of coming up with a provocative headline to attract viewers. And I'm proud of the fact that when people link to my stories, they get a well-written story, under my name, and under my station's brand.

If you wonder about the value of a well-written web story, go to your web team and ask to see some web traffic statistics. I'll bet you the text versions of stories get at least ten times more views than the corresponding videos. And unlink the television story that went out into the ether and disappeared, your online version will live nearly forever. So make it count.