Special Report: Winning Strategies ---
RTNDA 2008 Regional Website Awards

VOLUME XXVIII, NUMBERS 17 & 18 APRIL 28 - MAY 5, 2008

Some of the RTNDA 2008 regional winners in the Best TV Website category just shared their insights with us. We have selected a cross-section of the winners from various market sizes and regions to profile.
Here are techniques you might try to improve your web product for the May book and beyond.

Make it easy for them to use WSYR-TV, Syracuse Work back from the customer What do they want and how will they use it? The important content should be "front and center."

A young newsroom has embraced it WNDU-TV, South Bend It isn't as hard to get people to contribute when your staff grew up with the Internet. An innovative design on this site makes it simple to find links to items mentioned on air.

Technological upgrade boosts weather impact WSAW-TV, Wausau The site's weather is so popular that 15 percent of the DMA has signed up to receive breaking news and severe weather warnings.

Breaking news, breaking weather, and more interactivity WBNS-TV, Columbus Viewers are invited to participate in breaking news and weather coverage and to talk about it.

Showcase your big story coverage KNSD-TV, San Diego After the breaking news slows down, package and produce your online elements the way you would showcase your special coverage on TV.

Make sure your online brand is what you are on air Bay News 9, Tampa Bay If you are a 24-hour news outlet on your channel, you better be the same thing online.

Keep improving, updating, and moving into new spaces KUSA-TV, Denver This winner is just about to roll out a new design. The lesson here: Don't be content with the status quo. You must keep pushing and innovating to stay out in front.

Make it easy for them to get everything they want
WSYR-TV, Syracuse

The most important content is front and center on 9wsyr.com  so people can find it easily.
"If you want to know what's going on in Syracuse, in Central New York, or in the world, you don't have to hunt for it. You don't have to search for a tiny headline section that has national stories and local stories --- it is all right there in a big box that is front and center of the web page. It has the very latest news, which could be national or local," says News Director Jim Tortora.
There is plenty of depth that users can find, but the basics of what people are coming to a site for are easy to get.

Tortora feels there are too many sites where people accessing them have to work to figure out how to get what they want.
"They might have to wait through a slide show to see the item they are looking for or they have to do two or three clicks to get to what they want to find," he explains.

"On our site, it's all right there. We're not worried about 'giving it away' on the home page. We give more than just a headline, and include little descriptions of stories. Almost all of the things people are coming to us for can be accessed from right on the home page, without having to go into inner sections and then finding links from there," he says.

The content is easy to read.
Things are clearly labeled.
"Other sites may look more attractive when they first pop up. But then when you are trying to find what you are looking for, you realize it's not as friendly on the navigation side. It might just be aesthetically pleasing," Tortora explains.

Avoiding clutter is a priority

"We worked on that. There are ads, and you always debate about how much you want to put on the home page. But every time we take something off, we get bombarded by people who can't find it anymore," he says.
The overarching goal is to make things easy for people to find, even if it is their first time visiting.

Consumer box is displayed boldly.
All the consumer reporting has been blocked into a "Consumer Protection Unit" section. This includes the Your Stories franchise, The Real Deal, Consumer Reports and Recalls.
"Usually, if there is an interest in one, there is an interest in another. So instead of having them in totally different sections, we created the Consumer Protection Unit section, and gave it a big black box right in the middle of the page," he says.

A person can't miss it.
"Whether you are looking for it on your own, or you are getting referred to it from a newscast, you are not looking for a little thing somewhere. We can tell them to go to the big black box on the home page, and then click on The Real Deal or Consumer Reports," he says.
Tortora says they are trying to serve those people who are already Newschannel 9 fans, as well as people who are just looking for information --- people who may use their website and not necessarily watch the on air product.

The weather page has been established as an important resource.
Twenty-five percent of the 9wsyr.com users have the site's weather page bookmarked as their home page.
Although the market doesn't have life-threatening weather very often, with major winter storms and lake effect snow, the Doppler radar is still a big draw.
"On an average day, we may get 10,000 to 15,000 video views. On a day where we are live streaming a weather situation, it jumps to 40,000 to 50,000," he says.

In the last 18 months since they re-designed the website, the number of users has grown substantially.

According to their February numbers for the month:

448,000 unique visitors.
16.7 million page views.
81,000 daily visitors.
2.3 million visitors over the month.

"When you compare the number of unique users (448,000) to the population, which is 386,000, we have 116 percent of the population using our site," he says.
The site frequently receives notes from people who have moved away from Syracuse and who stay in touch through the website.

On 9wsyr.com the average length of time spent in February was 21 minutes!
"The fact people are on the site for that long is pretty impressive," he adds.
Tortora says the site's depth tends to hold people longer than other places.

Viewer feedback about the design and content is sought

"We create test pages for our users to play with and ask them what they think of them. We'll get some feedback for a few weeks, and then we'll try something new. We are always experimenting with how we are going to showcase things --- whether it goes in the Top Story section, whether we should create a banner for it, or a link on the left," he says.
Items are moved around to see what tracks best. The goal is always to make it as user-friendly as possible.

Live streaming is offered frequently.
"We committed to it early on. If there was a news conference, we would do live streaming or if a major storm was approaching, the weathercaster s would be on talking to the web users live for several hours at a time," says Tortora.

Micro sites are an important part of the mix.
In creating things like a marching band site or a pet lost and found, he says the important thing is not to get so caught up in the template itself that you lose sight of how people are going to use it. "Don't make people hunt for the information they are looking for. It should be front and center," he says.
It won't reduce the amount of time people spend on your site.
"It's going to keep people on the site and allow them to find things of interest to them," he says.

Photo albums are right below the news.
Many people are interested in the pictures. These include viewer-submitted photos, national photos, or compilations from network shows, he adds.

The Big Red Bar
WNDU-TV, South Bend

The links to things mentioned on air are all in the Big Red Bar on wndu.com.
Ease of use is a big factor in their web success, according to News Director C.J. Beutien.
They mention the website on the air all the time. But directing people to the right area became convoluted.

"If you want more information on this story, go to wndu.com and click on stories about such and such and then follow the links ..."

"It took up way too much time in the newscast, and it wasn't making it easy on the viewer," Beutien explains.
People would go to the site and then start hunting.
"We have tried to train the viewers that anything they see on the air, they can go to the Big Red Bar and it will be there. It has been very helpful with a lot of stories," he says.

It is particularly useful on stories that are confusing and require a lot of explanation.
A switch to a new automated toll collection system is a good example.
"How the system works and what people had to do was confusing. We put a lot of information on the web, so people knew how much the units cost and where they could get them. We knew that after the story aired people would still have a lot of questions. All they had to remember was to go to the Big Red Bar and they could get what they needed," he adds.

The home page has extensive material.
Web Channel Director Scott Hums says they put as much content as they can right on the home page.
"There are about 100 links to different content now on the home page," says Hums.
People are given many choices in hopes they are going to find things that are "tab worthy" to view.
"A lot of this design was due to the rise of tab browsing. People go to a web site and they may open up two things in tabs that they want to read, and then they move on," he explains.

Weather has been made easier to use.

"We know that weather is one of the main reasons people go to our site. When the site pops up, people get the forecast for today and tomorrow and access to the live radar. It's all right there," says Beutien.
"We really try to listen to what viewers and web users want and what they expect from it, and then we make sure we are delivering it," he says.

Breaking news goes right to web

Cell phones provide initial video quickly.
Reporters and photographers often use their cell phones to shoot pictures when they first arrive on the scene of a story. They can get that video online right away.
"The cameras on cell phones are perfect for use on the web, and we use them all the time," says Hums.
It could be 15 or 20 minutes from the time a crew arrives on the scene until a live picture is established, he points out.
"Using a cell phone, they can hit a button and e-mail it back to the station in 10 seconds. Cell cameras might not be the highest resolution for print, but for the Internet, they are great. We're usually dealing with a 200 pixel by 150 pixel picture, and it's perfect," he says. The web site has a Top Stories module. It is formatted to utilize an image.
"There is a big push to get images back as soon as possible," Hums explains.

Web coverage is planned just like on air coverage is.
Sometimes the web is wrapped into the on air piece. One story looked at the dangers of BB guns that kids are mocking up to look like real guns.
"The police were afraid some child was going to have one of these toy guns, and an officer will think it's a real gun," says Hums.
They shot the story and held it for a day. When placed side-by-side, the toy gun and real gun are hard to tell apart.
"We put up a test image of the police officer holding the two guns in a 10 second video clip, and asked people to vote on which gun they thought was real. We used those results and the feedback from that in the story we ran the next day," says Hums.

People are responding, participating

Interactivity is stressed.
"People can comment on any story, and we are fairly lenient on what we allow people to post. If it is laced with profanity or racist comments, it won't go up. But if someone is critical of the station or a story we did, or of our city government or anything, we let it go," says Beutien.

Some topics really pop with users.
When federal agents raided a company and rounded up illegal workers, there were 450 to 500 comments on the story!
"As a news director, I like it because as I read through the comments, I get a lot of information from them. It is a constant source of feedback," he says.
The comments sometimes provide new angles that can be followed up.
"I'm a firm believer that the more interactive you can be with your viewers and web users, the better it is. They send us information on stories or they e-mail pictures, especially during tornado season or when there is a big fire," says Beutien.
There have been fires that were 50 miles away from South Bend.
"It would be an hour or so before we could get there, and people who live there shoot video of it. They send it in and we'll have it on the web and on the air before our crews even get to the scene," he says.

The station staffers frequently survey the web users.
Web surveys are done several times a year. Each one is left online for six to eight weeks.
"It's like having an ongoing research project always online," says Beutien.
One question is whether the person would be willing to visit the station to talk more about the web.
"We bring people in like a focus group. We give them dinner and spend about two hours talking to them. They give us good feedback and advice," he stresses.

A good percentage of the respondents are people who already watch the station most of the time.
"These people are our best customers. These are the people who we want to keep happy, so they don't go someplace else! It's wonderful if you can recruit new people, but the purpose is just to talk with our best customers, and to make sure we are delivering what they want --- both on the web and on air," he says.

They also use Survey Monkey and pay a modest monthly fee for the service. Sta tion staffers can pick the demos, so the group is balanced by age, sex and location.

Technological upgrade boosts weather impact
WSAW-TV, Wausau

It's hard enough to find the resources in large markets to devote to the Internet, but news managers in smaller markets have an even bigger challenge.

In Wisconsin, WSAW-TV managers gave the job of web producer to Bill Martens, a former morning anchor/producer.
His TV producing experience has been invaluable when it comes to writing and producing stories for the web.
"I have never lost that sense of urgency you have of getting news on air. Once you cover enough breaking news stories, it comes naturally," says Martens.
"We push to get one or two details posted online right away, and then constantly update it as the story develops," he explains.

"Our company, Gray Television, gives us a lot of tools to work with. I am far from being an expert at html, but our company will do a lot of things for us. We just call them up and tell them what we'd like to do, and they make things happen," he says.
"We supply the content, but they give us a lot of the bells and whistles to put on there," he adds.

Weather tools impact increased

The weather is so popular that 15 percent of the DMA has signed up to receive breaking news and severe weather warnings in the form of desktop alerts.

"Weather is the one thing that impacts everybody. We capitalized on that and we are constantly adding new weather graphics to wsaw.com," he says.

When Martens took over the job, he wanted to find a way to make better use of their state-of-the art Titan weather system.
"It has a really cool radar that can put things in 3-D mode. We wanted to get it on the website. For a while, we were uploading only one image, which happened to be whatever image they were using on air," he explains.
The downside was that the image only focused on one part of the market.

Martens worked with the station's meteorologists, who used the weather system software, to develop maps of each county in the viewing area. Then he went to the corporate staff to get it to work online.
"We managed to not only get the still images up, but also time lapses, so people can see the storms moving across their area," he explains.

Every time there is even just a little bit of rain, the web traffic spikes.
"The bigger the weather event, the more people come to our site, and they keep coming back for it. The beautiful part is we did all the work once, and now it is all on autopilot," he adds.

People's pictures are valuable, too.
The station's RTNDA entry also showcased the viewer photos that were sent in after a major storm swept through with tornados and huge chunks of hail.
"We couldn't get to every location where there as damage, so we asked people to send in their pictures. It just kept coming and coming and we put it all on the website," says Martens.

Breaking news, breaking weather, interactivity
WBNS-TV, Columbus

The bread and butter of 10tv.com is the same as on television: breaking news, breaking weather and enterprise.
"We focus on the core values: breaking news, treatment of the big story, enterprise reporting and investigative. We have really made those focal points of our website. If there is a breaking news story underway, you know you will see it on the website. We will package it in a way to make the big story interactive. We may put slideshows, video, discussions --- whatever we can to get people more involved," says Craig Friedman, Managing Editor of 10tv.com.
"We are breaking stories with our investigative unit, and the station is not afraid to allow us to break stories on our website," he adds.

Breaking weather is treated as aggressively as breaking news.
"If there is a tornado watch or a severe thunderstorm warning, we make sure people are aware of that. We highlight our weather story front and center on the website. You'll either see it as our top story, or in the video as the forecast, so people know we are the station to tune to for weather," he says.

There are four people dedicated to the web.
"We're covered 24/7. We are also updating on weekends, so we are always around. We recently added an overnight person to be the fourth person," he says.
The overnight person also works with the Columbus Dispatch website, but he works out of the television newsroom.
"Not only is he updating the newspaper's website at 3 a.m., but if something happens, we will have that fresh news when people are getting up in the morning," says Friedman.

It's important that the site is fresh early in the day.
"That's a trend we are seeing more and more. People are waking up earlier and logging onto the site from home, especially during the winter when there are school closings and delays," says Friedman.

The website has been re-designed to make it much more interactive. Friedman says web users love to be more engaged, and just adding a simple discussion to stories has helped.
"We wanted to let the user get involved --- whether it is by submitting photos or by letting us know what their own experience is or what they are seeing and what's going on. In the big snow storm this winter where we had 22 inches in 24 hours, we had school closing information and asked for snow pictures and snow stories," says Friedman.
During the storm, the content was constantly updated with listings of counties under snow emergencies.
"The situation was always changing, and people want to go to a site that is updated," says Friedman.

The Dispatch website has its own content, but the programmers on the newspaper's site are available to help 10tv.com with technical issues or to produce the back end of special content sections.

The online service is supported enthusiastically by TV management.
"Here we are willing to try new things, and we're not afraid to fail. We have the entire support from the general manager to the news director and everyone else. That's the biggest thing. If your site doesn't get the buy-in, it won't fare well," he warns.

Showcase your big efforts in special sections
KNSD-TV, San Diego

At KNSD, they do all the things the other winners focus on --- big breaking news and weather coverage, interactivity, ease of navigation and web-only extras --- PLUS they make a point to showcase their coverage of major stories by creating special sections with custom graphics and unique software applications.

Firestorm section had interactive maps, many elements

During the massive 2007 wildfires, the station spent a week of 24/7 coverage on the website, streaming the on air coverage to the web, and providing very detailed fire and emergency information for the entire region.
Over a half-million people were evacuated.
"The fire coverage basically took over our home page," says Bob Ponting, Managing Editor of nbcsandiego.com (an Internet Broadcasting site).
He explains, "We generated a huge amount of content, including video, slideshows and maps. Getting the information out quickly is what really mattered. People needed to know when to evacuate, when it was safe to go back and where the fire was headed."

After the fires were put out, the newsteam organized the coverage into a reference resource.
"We wanted to make it easier for people to navigate, and to showcase and document what we had done," Ponting explains.

They created a special Firestorm section with interactive maps.
People could move their mouse over a fire name and get the statistics of how many acres burned, structures destroyed and damage estimates.
If you click on the location today, all the news stories, video and slide shows that were done about that fire can still be accessed.
"It was a huge story that was of a lot of interest to many people for months and months. The quality of the content is what made our entry stand out," Ponting adds.
"We did it in a more comprehensive way and a way that was appreciated by the local population. We did a classic 'news you can use,' and people responded to it," he says.

The pro football Chargers have been another opportunity for an expanded treatment.
"During the football season, we had a post-game webcast. We have a live streaming video player that also has a chatroom window in it. People could watch the anchors discussing the game off the air and they'd take questions from people in the chat room," he says.

Another special section was produced for the station's political coverage during the February primary. ÿ This was included in the RTNDA entry.

Good people make it possible

"It starts with having really good people on staff --- people who care about getting it right, getting it first, and having it grammatically correct. A strong staff is the basis of everything, then you must learn to showcase it in a way to attract users," he says.

Ponting adds that a big key to their success is support from top management. A decade ago the site was pretty much a one-man band.
"Things changed when the management perspective changed --- when the news director and GM made it clear that the web is an important product," he adds.

24-hour news on cable and online
Bay News 9, Tampa Bay

Bay News 9, the 24-hour regional cable news channel in Tampa Bay, has had a website since 1999.
"One of our key philosophies has always been to hire print reporters, because we wanted our stories to be more in-depth, better written and better researched," says Elliott Wiser, Corporate Vice President of News and Local Programming for Bright House Networks.

The news channel is trying to do a news-paper on the web with pictures and video that is quite different from what TV stations do, he explains.
"This was something I have always believed was important to make us stand out," he says.
"As a 24 hour news channel, we have a brand image of news. To make the web product standout, I felt that we needed to do more than cut and paste the stories of the day," he says.

Clarity highlights site design

Bay News 9 and its sister station in Orlando, Central Florida News 13, undertook a major web re-design last year.
"It is a cleaner look and is not as cluttered," Wiser says.
"My biggest complaint about local websites is they are cluttered.
It's become the flea market of the Internet. It looks like they throw everything up there to see what people buy. I think that is wrong," he says.

Over the last two years, they have added more video and interactive elements.
"We've always encouraged people to add their comments on stories and we also do polling on the website," he says.
The site features many links for the different communities that make up the market.

Execute your brand

"The most important thing is to look at what has been successful on television, and it is always what has the strongest brand image. When you think of the most successful stations, one thing always comes to mind," he says.
He feels some stations have gotten away from that in their online efforts.
"There are too many people trying to do too many things on a website," he cautions.

Bay News 9 and baynews9.com are --- as much as possible --- the same service all the time.
"We've been 'ruthlessly consistent' about that, and it has paid off," he says.
"When we look at our web numbers for unique users, we are basically in a three-way tie with the two newspapers," says Wiser.

The site gets about one-half million unique visitors a month. The average length of time people spent on the site last year was 19 minutes and 33 seconds.
During storm season, the average length of time was 29 minutes.

Into the future:
Keep improving, updating and moving into new spaces
KUSA-TV, Denver

A big part of the success of 9news.com has been the station's 9 News brand and its strength in the market.
"A large part of our success is due to the combination of the credibility and the longevity of the brand in the market, along with the fact that we got into the space 12 years ago. Back then, the site was little more than a picture of the front of the building and a telephone number," says Tim Dietz, Vice President of Interactive Services at KUSA-TV.
"But we felt we had to get into the space when no one else was, and since then we have built some salient content," he adds.

Breaking news is a priority.
"The one thing we continually pride ourselves on is the ability to get news on the website faster than anybody else. That has built a loyalty among people who see smoke off on the horizon and who wonder what is going on. The natural instinct is that 9 News will have it," he says.
"We have a good following online based on how we have been able to build a culture of responsiveness to getting breaking news on the site," he adds.
"Obviously, there is no immediacy akin to what there is on a website. We can do breaking coverage on anything, versus having to wait until a 30-second spot is over so we can break into coverage on air. We don't have those barriers online," he says.

Dietz says to be successful today you must have video on your site.
"Video, video, video. That is key. As a company, Gannett has spent the last 18 months tutoring our newspapers on how to shoot video. It is going to be a threat to television stations all over the country," he warns.
"Some days we have hundreds of thousands of page views attributed to nothing but slide shows. That is the low-lying fruit," he says.

Keep experimenting, moving ahead

The managers make a continual push to adjust, grow, and stay in touch with the public's interests.
The mandate to serve new media is a company-wide agenda. "Within the last year or so, there has been a push within Gannett to re-invent our newsrooms into information centers, and to have those information centers be reflected in all of the platforms we serve," says Dietz.

Vertical sites have been successful additions to the main site.
A high school sports page was started last fall and students in a dozen schools shoot whole football and basketball games that are posted on the website.
"Mom and dad, a recruiter, a coach or a friend can go to 9news.com and watch entire games," he says.
"We are trying to enhance core verticals across the site. We have a good handle on what it takes to create the kind of content we have to have on the news of the day. The next step is to figure out how to improve the individual verticals," he says.

Even though 9news.com has been singled out as an RTNDA winner, they aren't standing still.
A completely re-designed site will be rolled out this summer and more verticals are in the works.
"We are reaping the rewards of our work, and that is the secret sauce behind this --- realizing that tenacity pays off," he says.
"For us, this was something we kind of thought we needed to be in. Now we're at the point where we know we need to be in it," he says.

Even though they have a core group of web producers, Dietz says the whole newsroom must take part in the website.
"That was the hardest lesson for us to get over --- to realize we weren't competing against ourselves the way it looked like we are on the surface," he says.
"People had to realize that it didn't matter where we broke the story, as long as it was broken by one of the 9 News brands," he adds.

Things are moving very quickly today.
"You must realize that where we were 10 years ago is where we are going to feel we are today five years from now. It is moving exponentially faster than we can keep pace with," he adds.
Stations must master the basic content of breaking news and weather --- plus traffic. Once you have that down, Dietz says the focus should be on developing verticals and how you can enhance some of the subject areas.

Mobile m.9news starting to grow

"The next horizon for us is going to be mobile. We're not quite at the critical mass stage for our mobile application, but we are at the point where we can see it is more and more sought after, and something that will be another differentiator for stations," he adds.
"The goal of 9 News is to be able to provide information when, where and how people want it. The experiences are different across each of the platforms, but we should be able to give people the information wherever they happen to be," he adds.
He points out that cell phones used to be big, but then they got smaller and smaller.
"They're starting to get bigger again, because people want to take advantage of video," he explains.

Make Your Station's Web Site A Powerful Asset

Your station's reputation and brand do not automatically move from the broadcast to the broadband media. Here is advice on how to compete from top consultants and award-winning Web managers.

Web video journalist hired
A photographer has become talent and is producing pieces for the Web site of WPRI-TV, Providence. He shoots, writes, and narrates the pieces. News Director Joe Abouzeid and his team explain.

New TV websites target moms and neighbors
Websites with independent domain names are using the on air power of the stations to draw people to the services. KSDK-TV has created Stlmomsworld.com to connect with mothers and the advertisers who want to sell to them. General Manager Lynn Beall told us this was an extension of the station's many programs and features directed toward women.

Changing the culture: A 24-Hour web channel
Web sales more than doubled in one year at WIBW-TV, Topeka. General Manager Jim Ogle shared with us the strategy that is working for his team.

Viewers invited to predict future
The online ABC 7 Futures Market invites viewers to predict the outcomes of different events. People "invest money" or "buy stock" in an outcome. KGO-TV News Director Kevin Keeshan told us the theory is that a group collectively can make more accurate predictions on outcomes than a smaller number of experts.

Station breaks national exclusive online
The FBI spied on Coretta Scott King. The KHOU-TV investigators filed a FOIA request after her death. The files were released a year and a half later. News Director Keith Connors explained why he broke it online for a national exclusive.

Hire the right team for your new media positions
The new media requires new skills and attitudes. For advice on how to approach these staffing decisions, we turned to veteran television executive Tom Dolan, President of Dolan Media Management.

Please continue for more articles about television station web sites.

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