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From MHRA News, January/February 2002
Media Organizations Converge OnlineFerrara is the general manager for web operations at HeraldTribune.com, a joint venture of two Sarasota, Fla.-based news outlets, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (owned by the New York Times) and Six News Network (SNN), a cable news channel jointly operated by the Herald-Tribune and Comcast Inc. During that busy September, the Herald-Tribune and SNN covered a number of major news stories. President Bush was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota the morning of the terrorist attacks in New York City and Northern Virginia, so the story had a strong local angle. Soon, it was learned some of the terrorists received flight training from a school in nearby Venice, Fla. Within a few days after that, a major hurricane storm ripped through the state and anthrax was discovered at a Florida office park. As the news stories converged, the combined strength of the two news operations became apparent. "Between our TV and print operations, we had 10 reporters at the school where the president was speaking when the attacks occurred," said Ferrara. "Then, a few days later the storm hit, and the HeraldTribune.com web site became the only way to communicate what was going on to the outside world. We were able to beat national news organizations because of our ability to publish to the web." The HeraldTribune.com initiative is a prime example of media convergence -- a term often used to describe joint ventures between newspapers, TV stations and Internet sites serving a common market.
Mutual Goals
The concept of media convergence is not a precise one, and cooperative efforts can take on a variety of forms. "In many cases, it's a 'we're just friends' approach: A TV station and a newspaper will once and a while get together and do some project sharing," said Tompkins. "Usually, this has to do with community outreach, or a special program or promotion during sweeps week." In other cases, the media organizations function more like true partners, sharing information on a regular basis. "For example, the newspaper will allow the evening TV news broadcast to preview what is going to be in the newspaper tomorrow," he said. And, there are a few cases where media outlets are fully converged. "They share information on a minute-to-minute basis, let each other know their story budget, attend each other's planning meetings and pool sales resources," said Tompkins.
TBO.com: Full Convergence Jim Riley, the content manager of TBO.com, said the shared facility helps bridge the cultural differences between reporters for print, TV and web. "Physical proximity has been key," Riley said. In addition to realizing savings through shared facilities, the building helps bridge the cultural divide between print, broadcast and online journalists. "It helps all three teams keep in mind each other's platform and understand each other's product." Why are TV stations and local newspapers, which have long viewed each other as hated rivals rather than potential partners, suddenly willing to cooperate? "We've reached the point where newspaper publishers and TV stations realize that they need each other," said Gentry, who co-presented an MHRA-sponsored session on media convergence at SHRM's 2001 Annual Conference. "Over the past decade or so, newspaper circulation has been declining. At the same time, local TV stations have also seen their share of the broadcast market decrease." And, then there's Internet. For both TV stations and newspapers, the advent of the web held promise of new markets and sources of advertising dollars. But, as they launched their web sites, both realized they had limitations that kept them from making the most of the new medium. Broadcasters often did not have the reporting resources needed to provide round-the-clock coverage of local news, and newspapers were unable to produce the video and audio segments needed to compete with the web sites of national media outlets like CNN and MSNBC. "The converged approach helps each partner fill the other's gaps," said Riley.
NewsOK: Melding Text and Video Dyer said the strategic use of video helps distinguish NewsOK from other newspaper web sites. News clips are used to bring alive the in-depth reporting associated with newspaper journalism. "We don't just want to have a talking head reading the news story," she said. "We give viewers the full text of the story, and the video clips are used to add value to the package." Both the Oklahoman and KWTV have enjoyed expanded audiences thanks the joint venture. "Before the launch of NewsOK, the Daily Oklahoman's web site was getting about 225,000 page views per day, and KWTV was getting about 60,000 per day," Dyer said. "In our first month as a combined site, we averaged about 325,000 daily page views, and we went over 10 million page views for the month."
Bridging the Cultural Divide "One of the big differences you see is the degree of energy," said Gentry. "TV news story meetings tend to be action-oriented -- people are pitching ideas, it's a free-flowing dialogue, very 'boom boom boom.' A newspaper story budget meeting, on the other hand, is usually more like a library -- much more orderly and reasoned." "There's a reason reporters choose to be writers -- they like to craft stories," said Ferrara. "We did a lot of work to reconcile the differences in approach," said Riley. "We brought in a university journalism professor, who facilitated a conversation between the print and broadcast journalists about how each side looked at reporting stories. The idea was to put aside the usual stereotypes about each other's media and talk about shared values and goals." Another challenge facing organizations mulling media convergence initiatives: economics. "This phenomenon of media convergence began in fat times," said Tompkins. The movement started gaining steam in the last half of 1999, "one of the biggest profit periods in media history. But experience has proven that convergence doesn't save money. In fact, there's a lot of evidence it actually significantly raises expenses. You need more people to move information from platform to platform." Consider TBO.com, where despite the shared facility and common web site, all three partners maintain separate news staffs. "Each side decides what to cover," said Riley. "We share resources as much as possible. For example, some of the TV guys will carry still cameras with them that can be used online or in print. And, we're using new techniques that allows us to pull newspaper-quality stills from videotape." Why have separate staffs? For starters, cross-ownership rules enforced by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) keep broadcasters and newspapers from completely melding news operations. Also, says Riley, there's the issue of audience expectations. "These are three separate products with three distinct audiences," said Riley. "Those audiences overlap, but their expectations for each medium are different. When readers go online, they want things fast and searchable. When they watch the news on TV they are generally more relaxed -- that couch potato stereotype. When they read a story in print, they expect more depth and perspective." "Let's say there's a plane crash. We would still send someone with a TV camera, still photographers and reporters for the TV station and the newspaper," said Ferrara. "It may not be the most cost-effective efficient way to cover a story. But it helps us meet our goal of getting the news out there as many ways as possible."
Future Revenue The newly christened NewsOK has seen a bump in online advertising, but Dyer said, the real potential for enhanced revenue is long-term. "We launched at a funny time," she said. "We went live in August. That's a time when companies are already planning their 2002 budgets and running out of money for 2001." She said part of the NewsOK business plan is laying the groundwork for future advertising budgets. "We expect there will be a lot of interest in multimedia, cross-platform advertising." Still, moving forward today with a media convergence initiative now presents a significant challenge for newspapers, broadcast stations and Internet sites already struggling with a soft advertising market. "The media economy is a tick worse than the national economy," said Tompkins. "As a result, not much will happen in terms of convergence until at least the second quarter of 2002. Right now, media management teams are consumed with just surviving." Ironically, the sorry state of the media economy may set the stage for the next phase of media convergence. FCC chairman Michael Powell has indicated he would like to see rules prohibiting newspapers from owning local TV stations modified or waived. "The precarious economics of media organizations may actually help make the case for the FCC to loosen cross-ownership rules," said Gentry. If that happens, the pace of media convergence will accelerate. But, for such initiative to succeed, they must heed the lessons learned from the first wave of media convergence. "Without a push, convergence won't succeed," said HeraldTribune.com's Ferrara. "There needs to be both patience and forcefulness from the top." The benefit, said Ferrara, is a whole new approach to reporting the news. "There's a new mindset here for a whenever a big story happens: GO! We have so many ways we can report a story, we know we have to do whatever it takes to have the story first." Mike Frost is a freelance writer based in Alexandria, Va. He can be reached via the web at www.goletapublishing.com. Copyright © 2002, Media Human Resources Association |
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MIKE FROST · GOLETA PUBLISHING 3004 Mt. Vernon Avenue Alexandria, Virginia, 22305 Phone: 703/346-3170 · Fax: 603/299-0351 E-mail: mfrost@goletapublishing.com AIM: mikesfrost · YIM: msfrost © 2003, Goleta Publishing, unless otherwise indicated. |