TOUCHING YOU BACK
First report in a series on how local stations can use their Web sites to generate new content
By Jeff Gralnick

First, let's try to get your attention. It IS the Internet stupid, but NOT in the way you think. It is interactivity but NOT in the way you think of that either. Merely having a site is no longer enough. Nor is having a site that posts local news--a recent survey found more than 91 percent of television Web sites already do.

It is also no longer enough to use your site to reach out and touch your viewers with e-mail news alerts or program promotion. What's important now is how you use the Web to let those viewers reach out and touch you back. In other words, it's time to re-define interactivity.

Every station must recognize that its Web site is a two-way path and find ways to get its users and viewers to use that path to supply ideas and content. It's possible, because of the explosion of bandwidth and available digital photographic and recording equipment in the hands of those at home. To miss out on the opportunity of being a "first user" in your market is to miss the boat completely.

Remember "CNN Newshounds?" That was one of those early "breakthrough concepts" for the cable network. CNN used its viewers and their home video cameras as news gatherers, giving the network coverage capability in all those places where it wasn't. It also gave CNN something eminently promotable as it sought to grow and differentiate itself.

In today's developing digital environment, you can do something similar. Enlist all those digitally-equipped consumers to be your eyes and ears; to be vigorous but unpaid members of your staffs. Do that in the right ways and you empower them; make them friends for life; and more importantly turn them into repeat visitors. Through their efforts you can gather, post and broadcast unique content that differentiates you from the pack. At the same time you will grow traffic and build community.

Some stations already are leading the way. Take WTVJ-TV in Miami and its coverage of last October's floods. The station urged its viewers and users to e-mail pictures of what was going on in their neighborhoods. What came back allowed WTVJ to post and broadcast an "up close and personal" form of coverage that put the station and its site in places where its crews didn't or couldn't go. That significantly differentiated WTJV from other local stations. As Jeff Thein, EP of the site, notes, "I think we underestimated the response we were going to get." Unfortunately, we can't show you that coverage because, in going to a smart new design and new servers, the station's total archive was lost. There's a cautionary lesson there for all site managers to consider.

WTVJ has continued to post user-provided images, however, recently adding a home page request for users to send in "pictures of the day." The daily "winner" goes up on the site and on the air. "The pictures started trickling in instantly, without major promotion," Thein says, and he promises the station will continue to tap into what it has discovered is "the power of the people."

Prowl the web, which I did in an unscientific survey of several hundred sites, and you can find other attempts to involve viewers and users in the coverage process. KOMO-TV in Seattle has started to use viewer-supplied digital pictures to spice up its weather content and give its web users one more reason to revisit the site. KOMO also actively solicits news tips on its home page, and gets them in the 4,000 or so e-mails that Web site manager Stan Orchard says the station receives each month. One example: a story about a local prom gone bad which took the station into a coverage area it might not have known about.

Another site that caught my eye was KITV-TV in Honolulu because of the vigor with which this smaller market station is going after viewer and user involvement. KITV's site, developed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, is getting a steady flow of story ideas by e-mail. One story that site manager Brent Suyama points to came from a woman whose brother was in trouble with the police. Her tip provided effective copy and opened the way for an exploration of drug rehabilitation vs. prison. KITV is also getting and using viewer supplied digital pictures. A fire fighter involved in the clean up of a chemical spill in the Honolulu area provided one which Suyama posted along with his coverage of the story.

Does all this Web stuff matter to your core business? KITV news director Walter Zimmerman, in an e-mail response, has no doubt. "At KITV we can spend time with our viewers by e-mail," he wrote. "They write, we answer. It is personal service. Over time this does more to build loyalty for our broadcasts than anything I can remember." Mel Martin at KOMO, director of Fisher Broadcasting's web operations, comes to much the same conclusion about the benefits of a vigorous and interactive web site. "What's the payoff?" he asked in reply to an e-mailed question. "Eyeballs. I want all our news product to be indispensable to our audiences and these extra 'services' give us bonding so that throughout [the broadcast] day we are there for them at any place, at any time or on any device."

The only problem with KOMO and KITV's approach, I would suggest, is that they rarely point out when stories are supplied by viewers or users. That's the payoff that will keep bringing in story ideas and leads. It's the key to the "Your Stories" concept at WIXT-TV, and "You Choose the News" at KMOL-TV. The message here is: Never be shy about telling your users what you are doing and why. If you market and promote the message that you want to be "touched back," your users will get it and do it.

Next topic:
A suite of interactive tools for involving users.

References:

1. Jeff Gralnick was in broadcast news for 43 years until electing semi-retirement in 2001. His background includes 24 years at ABCNews as executive and executive producer. While there he oversaw development and launch of ABCNews.com. Currently he is doing Internet and media consulting for a number of organizations including the University of Southern California's Integrated Media Systems Center http://imsc.usc.edu