A Bevy Of Sites Milk Media-Rich Madison

With its highly educated population, and long history of being progressive, it makes perfect sense that Madison, Wis., has taken digital media and run with it, meaning the digital shepherds here have to stay on their toes even more so then in other markets.

“You can’t take a day off,” says Chris Gegg, who, as news director of Gray’s NBC affiliate, WMTV, also oversees the Web portal NBC15.com. “You have to hammer it out every day and if viewers don’t find it they are going to find it somewhere else.”

Home to the state’s capital, the University of Wisconsin (which is big enough to be a small city in its own right) and a growing number of high-tech businesses, the country’s 85th largest media market has a plethora of local portals, both tied to legacy media and independently run.

The online portal for The Wisconsin State Journal, the daily newspaper, and The Capital Times, the once-daily afternoon paper that has moved primarily online, Madison.com is the No. 1 news site in the city. The site dates back to 1996 -- early enough to secure one of the best URL’s in the market. Tim Kelley, who oversees the company’s digital products, attributes Madison.com’s success to “positioning the site as your first and best stop for all local information.”

“We leverage our news brands to get folks to visit the site regularly, then introduce site visitors to other information and offers,” he said.

“We use standard SEO tactics and have been pushing hard into social media marketing,” Kelley said. Madison.com runs more than 50 Facebook pages for people with special interests, as well as its recently revamped entertainment site 77Square.com, a prep sports site and interactive features.

That has translated into some hefty numbers. Over the last year, Madison.com page views have ranged from 8.5 million to 10.4 million per month, according to Kelley. Unique visitors have ranged from 900,000 to 1.1 million a month during that same period of time.

According to Media Audit, Madison.com lured nearly 58% of Madison’s adults in 2009, a virtual tie with Channel3000.com, the Morgan Murphy CBS affiliate, which drew 57% of the population. That's nearly
15% higher than the number who logged onto the next most-visited local site NBC15.com. [Editor's Note: After posting, this paragraph was changed to reflect the correct ranking of Web site's in Madison: Madison.com, Channel3000.com and NBC15.com.]

As in many markets, next in line are sites from other area TV affiliates: WKOW.com, run by Quincy Newspapers’ ABC affiliate WKOW; and FOX47.com, run by Sinclair’s WMSN Fox affiliate.

The competition doesn’t end there.

Thedailypage.com, the digital offshoot of the weekly independent newspaper, The Isthmus, and theonion.com, the online incarnation of the parody paper based in Madison, have serious showings in the ratings. In fact, both sites garnered more than double the audience of FOX47.com.

Also looming large in cyberspace are the portals operated by the University of Wisconsin, geared to a community of students and staff about 40,000 strong, many of whom Madison.com has not reached.

“We're worried less about audience erosion to TV competition than to niche sites or other portals, such as my.wisc.edu , a UW-Madison portal that packages news and campus online services to students,” Kelley said. “It draws more audience than a couple of our TV competitors.”

The university’s athletics site, uwbadgers.com, also competes with Madison.com for sports audiences and advertisers, Kelley said.

Fending off that kind of competition means Web sites have to stay fresh and creative, Madison media representatives say.

“We’ve always believed that channel3000.com is something of a different animal, locally as well as compared to other markets in the Midwest and around the country,” says David Hyland, the site’s managing editor.

Hyland said the success of the channel3000.com is fusing the strength of print, broadcast and new media -- including the drive to win.

“It’s targeted to give our audience what they want online instead of trying to crudely shoehorn broadcast content into an entirely different medium. We strive to adapt ourselves completely to this realm,” he said.

The site recently launched 16 local neighborhood sites, expanded its coverage of the NFL’s Green Bay Packers and shares content with its sister publication, Madison Magazine. 

At WMTV, the Web site, NBC15.com is now considered “an extension of our station,” says Geoff Shields, the TV station’s director of operations.

The leader among TV station sites, according to the Media Audit report, NBC15.com distinguishes itself by being the only station Web site in the market that streams the majority of its newscasts live. The site also streams its digital weather channel online and runs a short morning newscast with just two or three headlines.

The station also shares online content with the radio station WIBA.

The first Madison TV station to develop a mobile app, WMTV has developed its digital properties by delivering its best resources online, Shields said.