Portland Media Test Paths To Digital Future

Officials with Portland, Ore.’s KGW-TV suspected they were onto something big after launching a traffic application optimized for smart phones during the Memorial Day holiday weekend.

After all, “you need information when you are on the go, so you need that information in your car,” reckoned Frank Mungeam, director of digital media at the Belo Corp.-owned NBC affiliate.

His theory worked. The new service attracted “a ton of downloads from people trying to get out of town and not get stuck in holiday traffic,” Mungeam said. “It’s extremely relevant, and that’s what apps need to be.” So far, the mobile traffic service has registered 10,000 downloads.

Recognizing Portland residents’ digital demand has prompted KGW -- a major presence in the market -- to introduce four mobile applications in less than a year, with more on the way.

First, in November 2010, the company rolled out a news application that has attracted 50,000 downloads. Rather than simply replicate the existing Web site on a smaller screen, Mungeam said the news app leaves out “all the clutter you can have on a Web site, with ads over here and other things not related to the page that you clicked on over there.”

Then in April, the station unveiled its weather app, which has 10,000 downloads so far. The traffic app came in May. And, in late July, KGW inaugurated its latest app, developed specifically for the iPad screen and featuring faster downloads and content that’s easier for users of electronic tablets to scroll.

Within the next few weeks, the company expects to release a mobile service permitting users to search for local events.

All these offerings are part of the station’s attempt to tap digital opportunities made possible as more people traverse the Web using smartphones rather than laptop or desktop computers.

According to ratings firm Nielsen, only about 38% of all U.S. mobile phone subscribers use a smart device, leaving plenty of room for growth in the sector. Buoyed by falling prices and ever-increasing capabilities, the number of smart phones is expected to surpass the number of conventional feature phones in the U.S. by the end of this year, Nielsen said.

With that kind of potential, KGW is pushing hard to identify niche information areas beyond news.

The shift is showing up in the numbers at the television station’s KGW.com. In the year ended January 2011, about 12% of the station’s traffic came from Internet-equipped smartphones, up from just 1% in 2009. During the past six months alone, one of every four views of the station’s digital content originated from a mobile device, Mungeam said.

People using KGW’s mobile news app also linger on the site, typically viewing six times more content than people connecting with KGW.com on a conventional cell phone.

KGW’s efforts are just one example of how Portland’s local online media outlets are aggressively pursuing new solutions to tap into the growing digital market. And the financial stakes are high in the Rose City, a market of nearly 3.2 million people and the nation’s 22^nd largest media market.

Major media players in the Portland market include The Oregonian, the city’s only daily newspaper, which operates as Oregonlive.com on the Web. That site drew 35.3% of all Portland adults who logged into the Internet during a 30-day period, by far the largest draw of any online news site in the region, according to an October 2010 report from The Media Audit.

KATU.com, owned by Fisher Communications’ ABC affiliate KATU-TV, drew a 22.8% visitor share; followed by KGW.com, with a 22.1% share. The local public TV and radio outlet, Oregon Public Broadcasting’s OPB.org, was the area’s next big online player, drawing 19.3% of adults. Meredith-owned Fox12Oregon.com/KPTV.com rounded out the top five, bringing in 18.7% of Portland adults, the report found.

Fortifying The Oregonian’s online presence has led to several major newsroom changes during the past 18 months as the organization works on shedding its longstanding “print mindset,” managing editor of breaking news and online Susan Gage said.

In order to assure lively, aggressive coverage to Oregonlive.com, the paper’s first online news team arrives at 7 a.m. The remaining reporting staff must get started no later than 8 a.m., the same hour editors added an additional story-planning meeting. That way, Gage explained, rather than have online postings “happen when they happen, we are much more focused on planning our online report as much as we plan our print report.”

Several recent stories about a massive early-morning fire on property owned by Evergreen International Aviation in Portland suburb McMinnville illustrated the newspaper’s approach.

A three-sentence story posted at 5:38 a.m. broke news of the fire, which had started the previous evening and burned through the night. Oregonian breaking news reporter Lynne Terry posted a more detailed story at 8:26 a.m., and a six-sentence Associated Press update came at 10:34 a.m.