TV & Papers Ramp Up Similar Strategies

Much like the Texas city it covers, NowAustin.com has a distinct and lively vibe. The website highlights Austin culture, notably live music and nightlife. It’s got green tips and news deemed “strange,” all furthering what one of its architects calls a “pure, local kind of feel to journalism.”

NowAustin.com also offers local news, weather and sports. That makes sense on several levels, not the least of which is that NowAustin.com is a product of LIN Media, which also operates NBC affiliate KXAN and its companion website KXAN.com in town.

In creating NowAustin.com, LIN is one of a growing number of TV broadcasters and newspaper publishers now pursuing digital dollars by targeting niches within their markets -- some geographical, some special interest.

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The early efforts of newspapers and TV stations on the Web focused on market-wide portals for news and information, natural extensions of what they have done on air or in print. Most still harbor that ambition.

But at the same time, they are offering an array of targeted services that amass audiences and revenue in smaller bits. They are also eyeing opportunities in the burgeoning mobile arena.

As locally-based media businesses, TV and newspapers face common disruption from national Internet innovators, and their digital strategies are looking increasingly similar. Both businesses are also realizing that their strength may be serving news and advertising across multiple platforms.

“The Web is not a silver bullet,” said Bob Papper, a media studies professor at Hofstra University in New York. “What you have now is a more realistic model of where the Web fits in,” Papper says. “The new business model isn’t trading in one business for another. The new business model is you’re in a lot of businesses.”

Mark Fratrik, a VP at BIA/Kelsey, agrees. “There isn’t a mega-hit; there is no one answer.”

Staking out market share: Driven by the loss of classified ad dollars to the Web, newspapers claimed their online turf at a more ferocious pace then TV stations did. And looking at the numbers, the newspapers’ headstart is still paying off. In 2009, newspapers grabbed 23.6% of the $13.4 billion in local online ad revenue, while TV stations only picked up 8.7%, according to Borrell Associates.

But newspapers' share of online revenue has fallen as more players jump in the game, and TV stations are making gains as they focus new energy on digital business.

In Raleigh, for example, WRAL’s website draws 57% of the market’s online audience. And, according to ComScore’s May report, LIN Media’s TV station websites are beating newspaper portals in 11 of its 17 markets.

Allbritton Communications, owner of WJLA, the ABC affiliate in Washington, has gone right after washingtonpost.com with TBD.com, a local site that shares content with WJLA as well as with Allbritton's regional cable news service, News Channel 8.

“We don’t want it to be just an adjunct for the TV station,” says Allbritton’s Jerry Fritz. “This will be competitive to all media. This is a new way of looking at coverage and information.”

The prize is getting bigger.

According to a Borrell report, local online ad spending will grow an average 4.1 percent annually over the next three years before leveling off in 2014 at $16.4 billion.

And there is more to be had. Spending on mobile media is expected to surge, more than doubling each year over the next four to reach $14.6 billion.

Hyperlocal niches: Legacy media have reached the realization that simply leveraging their old brands online and in mobile is not enough to win larger digital audiences and larger shares of the digital advertising.

So, they have begun focusing their efforts on niche services, either verticals like NowAustin.com or hyperlocal sites aimed at neighborhoods rather than entire media markets. In doing so, hometown media companies are trying to protect the turf over which they have reigned for years, says Gordon Borrell, CEO of Borrell Associates.

“I really do think it’s the last little moat around the local media castle they can protect.” Plus, the niche services can be moneymaking opportunities, he says.

Research shows that adults make 80% of their purchases within a five-mile radius of their homes. So it makes sense that media companies would try to woo those merchants with a product designed for their customer base, he says.

Fisher Communications, a Seattle-based TV and radio company, has been rolling out hyperlocal news-and-information sites within some of its TV markets and enjoying some success. Since last August, the company has rolled out 124 neighborhood sites. Seattle-area residents can access more than 50 neighborhood-specific sites through Fisher’s main TV station website, komonews.com.