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."
Local TV Stations: The Money Printing Press is Broken. Can Stations Build a New One?
Will News on the iPhone Save Us?
It's an accepted truism in TV that local stations, as long as there have been local stations, have been money-making machines. At least, until recently, when the gears jammed, the networks stopped being station groups' BFFs, audiences started sampling other sources for news, and even the uber-dependable local advertisers took their Buick dealer dollars and shoved 'em under the mattress.
Scary times. Local newsers are out of work, wondering if stations will ever field the local news benches that we all grew up expecting. The financial model that kept local news afloat-and profitable-seems to have fallen apart. Is that a temporary reaction to the recession, or a sign that things are evolving, as they have been for years in the newspaper biz?
Slate makes a compelling argument that debating the financial model misses the point: "unlike most businesses, serious journalism has seldom been about the straightforward pursuit of profit. Nearly all of the most important journalistic institutions in the free world are hybrids of one form or another—for-profit but underwritten by generous owners or other profitable businesses; not-for-profit yet entrepreneurial; co-operative; or government-subsidized," writes Jacob Weisberg.
But hold on there, JW. What about the reassuring words we've been hearing from our news directors, GMs, and station group suits: "the web will save us! serve the web!" (You know, just like weekend morning news did). Well, Weisberg points to the past: "In times of yore, the best American newspapers worked like this: Public-spirited families with names like Sulzberger, Bancroft, Chandler, and Graham (the owners of Newsweek, Slate, and the Washington Post) built highly profitable businesses by becoming dominant information sources in major local markets."
Graham and Bradlee: Money, Talent and History-Making Journalism
Weisberg argues that it was the media barons whose bankrolls made things work, not a successful financial model, and that, for papers at least--and perhaps local tv newsers as well, the magic formula that saves us all may not be there either: "With the decline of their traditional revenue sources, capitalists in the news business are having to become even more creative. But they won't find the grail of a new economic model for journalism—because there wasn't an old one."
What's your take, local newsers? Is the web and all its multi-platform potential a path to profitability? Was giving news away for free a mistake? Would anyone pay for the waterskiing squirrels we've been feeding them for years anyway? Will we all end up working for web-based, advertiser supported and charitably-endowed hybrids that let us do worthwhile reporting at moderate, but not princely pay?
Do tell.
Fading Fortunes for Local TV News: It's Not Just the Economy, Stupid
As if local tv newsers don't have enough to worry about these days, here comes research from Ketchum Public Relations that shows local TV news has slipped significantly from its perch as the top information source for most Americans. According to Ketchum, there's a "steady erosion of mass media authority," with local TV news consumption falling from 74% to 63% in 2008. That's an 11 percent drop, exactly the same percentage that blogs were UP... from 13% to 24%.
This isn't about car dealers and retailers rolling back their ad spending. This is about viewers getting their information elsewhere. And that's a big deal when pondering the viability of the medium in the future. Steve Smith at minonline.com puts it this way: "Professional content continues to have authority and a role in people's media lives, but it has to be ready to speak and position itself as a part of a larger conversation. Social syndication tools, journalist blogs and email remain powerful tools for publishers. But just as appointment television is becoming a relic of last century's mass media model, all forms of content will need to move into evolving usage paths."
UPDATE: Looking for an idea on how to bring your news to consumers who might not be sitting in front of the tube at 6 anymore? Check out this idea: WRAL/Raleigh's iPhone app. Read up on Outside the News Box.
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