Continuing with the theme of TV broadcasters’ search for survival, the Wall Street Journal fronts today this article by Brooks Barnes on the rapid decline in the former cash-cows. Using Grand Rapids’ WOOD-TV as its centerpiece, the article delves into just how unprepared TV stations are for the rise in web-based video competition.
What’s interesting is that TV stations are turning to the web for survival, in essence becoming just one of millions of Internet businesses trying to capture audiences.
Ms. Kniowski [Diane Kniowski, President of WOOD-TV] is also experimenting with other revenue streams, including video Webcasts with nonskippable ads. She has tripled the number of video news segments on WOOD’s Web site, which help boost traffic, and has plans to sell sponsorships to local businesses. A local eye surgeon, for example, might sponsor the health section of the Web site and display video testimonials from patients.
“That’s something Google can’t offer them,” she says.
Among her other initiatives: podcasting news reports, and charging for the traffic and weather alerts that WOOD now offers for free on cellphones. Ms. Kniowski and her team are also working to “supersize” the station’s Web site, stocking it with everything from more breaking news coverage to archival footage of past sporting events “so people don’t get tired of coming back,” says Patti McGettigan, WOOD’s news director.
More interestingly, WOOD-TV is going after the revenues of the other major local media business that has been hard hit by the Internet: newspapers.
Ms. Kniowski is going after classified clients of the area’s dominant newspaper, the Grand Rapids Press, which is owned by Advance Publications Inc. “We’ve got to figure out how to take money away from them,” she says. With the emergence of low-cost digital video, she hopes the station’s Web site might someday sell video ads for something as mundane as pedigreed puppies.
Cynthia Brumfield at 8:03 AM|Comments(0)
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