Somewhere back there I said that local TV evening news would be toasted by the inevitable end of subsidies for local TV dealership advertising. Then I was just pointing at the wall. Here’s the writing that’s starting to appear. Hat tip to Terry Heaton for that one.
Also for this, which points in another direction:
| After years of careful planning, Media General’s NBC affiliate in Raleigh, WNCN-TV, has quietly launched what is one of the most creative and exciting approaches to relevant and hyperlocal information anywhere on the Web. MyNC.com is a highly organized portal featuring user and staff-generated content from even the smallest communities in the area. The site launched earlier this spring with just one neighborhood but has expanded since to include a big chunk of the overall market. There’s no reason it can’t eventually cover the entire state of North Carolina. |
| The brainchild of WNCN President and General Manager Barry Leffler, the pioneering idea was funded by Media General in hopes of discovering new business opportunities. It’s one of the few new enterprises I’ve seen coming from a local media company that really hits a business development home run. The site aggregates content from the entire region and isn’t branded as a part of the TV station. |
| Content is king when it comes to hyperlocal, and Leffler’s approach was to assign staffers to deal directly with each community to prime the pump and find contributors. These employees are called “Community Content Liaisons,” and they are a key to the success of the entire project. |
Bonus clue: they need to make that a news river, for mobile devices.
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