Local Market Profile: Fort Myers-Naples, Fla.

Old Media Companies Fuel Hot Online Engine

The Fort Myers-Naples market is home to one of the Web's early media pioneers, and the region's new media expansion is still going strong. The area's legacy media companies are all increasing their online presence. Add to that an older, more affluent population, and you have the nation's 30th fastest-growing online media market, according to Borrell Associates.
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The Fort Myers-Naples, Fla., market is home to one of the Web's early media pioneers: The Naples Daily News was winning awards for its NaplesNews.com way back in the last century.

The spirit of innovation continues at the Scripps property. The paper redesigned its site about two years ago to make it easier for users to interact with it, said the site's architect Jason Garcia. An e-edition for readers who want to read the paper online was added at about the same time.

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Its big push of late has been in building a community area where readers can post their own news items, often with little or no editing, he said.

And over the past summer, the Daily News introduced a free iPhone app. Next up: a new entertainment Web site called GoNaples.com. It should be ready to roll out in the first quarter of 2011.

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Clay Cone, president of Cone Communications, a public relations and marketing firm in Naples, and a former reporter for the Daily News, said all the legacy media companies in the market have increased their online presence in the last couple of years.

But the Naples site has encouraged more community-generated information and added more video, he said. “The Fort Myers News-Press really hasn’t changed its systems in a couple years.”

But news-press.com, perhaps because it covers the larger Fort Myers area, has something that that NaplesNews.com wished it had: more traffic.

According to the latest Media Audit survey, news-press.com trails only NBC-2.com, a product of NBC affiliate WBBH, in attracting traffic.

Right behind NBC-2.com and news-press.com come WinkNews.com, the site of the CBS affiliate, and then NaplesNews.com.

Fox4Now.com, a site belonging to Journal Broadcast Group’s WFTX lands owns the No. 5 spot among local media sites.

The Fort Myers-Naples media market, with a population of 1.2 million, is a bit older than the rest of the nation. The median age here is 43.5, compared with just under 37 for the U.S. as a whole.

Upscale Naples is responsible for much of that age difference. The median age in the town, known for its white beaches and sprawling retirement homes, is 63, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

However, it is also tops when it comes to median family income -- $115,287, dwarfing the U.S. median of $63,211, according to 2006-2008 Census figures.

Fort Myers, the other urban pole in the market, is bigger and younger, but not nearly as rich (median family income of $45,383).

All that money may account for why Borrell Associates pegs Fort Myers-Naples as the 30th fastest-growing online media market, even though it ranks 64th among TV markets and under indexes slightly on Internet access.

According to the research firm, online revenue will hit $54 million this year and jump $92 million by 2015.

Like NaplesNews.com, news-press.com has caught the hyperlocal bug. It now breaks out news for about a dozen communities with separate URLs for each, online editor Michelle Hudson said.

News-press.com also introduced a free iPhone app late this summer. Called the Hurricane Hub, it tracks hurricanes in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico.

A company that makes hurricane shutters sponsors the app, managing editor Cindy McCurry-Ross said. While she won’t release revenue numbers, she calls the app “really quite successful” with more than 30,000 downloads to date.

McCurry-Ross also points to her site’s increasingly sophisticated multimedia presentations. A project focusing on an impoverished Fort Myers neighborhood received honorable mention in this year’s Associated Press Managing Editors (APME) Online Convergence awards.

McCurry-Rose would not break out ad revenue tied to the Web site, but said page views are up 62% from two years ago and the unique visitors have grown 13% during the same period.

The site set a record for page views this September, if you don’t count the spike in activity during Hurricane Charley in 2004, Hudson said.

Journal Broadcast’s WFTX reports success with a program designed to showcase local advertisers. Morning Blend brings advertisers on-camera to discuss their services or special offers.

The show airs on the station each morning and then lives on Fox4now.com.

Jim Thomas, vice president of marketing, programming and interactive media for Journal, said the show has been effective in attracting advertisers and new revenue.

Thomas also said that Journal has been working with DoApp Inc. to develop smart phone apps in several on its markets and hints that they may soon become available in Fort Myers-Naples. “It’s something we’re considering.”

To recommend other markets to profile, contact us at netnews@newscheckmedia.com.

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