Local News Takes On the Web-And Each Other

Behold the sights, sounds—and sites—of Dallas-Fort Worth’s four major TV news providers. It’s a Web, Web, Web, Web world out there, they now all agree. Nary a newscast goes by without an anchor urging viewers to link up with myfoxdfw.com, nbc5i.com, wfaa.com, or cbs11tv.com.

“Years ago, stations kind of saw the Web sites as a competitor, fishing eyeballs away from the TV set to a different platform,” says Gary Schneider, executive vice president and station manager of KTVT-TV  (Channel 11). “Now we see it as a promotional loop.”

KDFW-TV (Channel 4) was the last to get with this program. Finally, last May, the station hired Kevin Boie away from KXAS-TV (Channel 5), where he’d been the Web’s managing editor. “They had kind of a fledgling Web site here that they didn’t do much with,” says Boie, who carries the newly minted title of senior Web producer at Channel 4. “Now we have two Web strategy meetings every week with management. That tells you how important this has become.”

“Really in the last two years it’s just boomed,” agrees Channel 5 Vice President of Content Development Susan Tully.

Viewers who miss a prominent story at an appointed newscast hour invariably can go to a station’s Web site to view it in its entirety. The price of admission usually is a 15-second commercial preceding the video. And the revenues are starting to add up. “It’s just like television. It’s a matter of demand,” says Channel 8 President and General Manager Mike Devlin. “We see more and more advertisers moving their money out of other media into the Web. And we need to be here to capture that.”

Station executives decline to discuss specific profit figures, but they will talk about the big picture. Web revenues are still a relative pittance compared to the ad dollars spent on newscast commercials, but Internet spending continues to climb while the TV profit prospects are more flat than fat.

“The growth is at a very fast clip. Each year it’s doubling, tripling,” Channel 11’s Schneider says of Web proceeds. In DFW, the money spent on radio, newspaper, and television Web site advertising has hit the $100 million mark annually, he says. “Five years ago it was probably about $20 million.”

Short-term at least, Internet revenues at Channel 8 aren’t likely to approach the TV arm’s profits, Devlin says. Then again: “Unless I was drinking the Kool-Aid, I’d say ‘No way.’ Even at 10 percent annual growth over 10 years, they wouldn’t exceed the TV money. But I could be wrong,” he says. “Whatever happens, this is a great way for a TV station to continue to be a growth industry.”

“It still isn’t generating the amount of money that it could or should be, considering all the effort that goes into it,” Channel 4’s Boie says of his station’s Web site. “But we keep making our operating budget.”

Devlin says that in October, wfaa.com had 750,000 unique visitors, the latest figure available at presstime. Boie estimates myfoxdfw.com’s traffic at between 17,000 and 20,000 visitors a day. The idea, of course, is to keep them coming. But what’s the best bait?

“We think we have the TV side figured out to some extent,” says Channel 5’s Tully. “There really are basics as to what you can present on television news. But what I love about the Web is you can experiment. And if it doesn’t have any stickiness to it, you move on. A year from now, there’s no way our Web site is going to look the way it does today.”

Both Tully and Channel 11’s Schneider agree that video is king on their stations’ Web sites. So far it’s also the most enticing lure for advertisers. Channel 4’s Boie, who hopes to launch a redesign this year, agrees that “it’s easier for the sales team to sell video.” He’s not convinced, though, that Web consumers automatically want more moving pictures.

“I’ve never had anybody tell me you need to put more video on the Web site,” Boie says. “Years ago I learned that, for the most part, a lot of people can’t watch videos at their workplaces. So they come to see new text stories and developing stuff, not what already happened. Ultimately most people are watching most of our video at night when they’re home.”

One unique video feature caught Boie’s eye, though. Myfoxdfw.com’s “JFK Video: The Dallas Tapes,” hosted by veteran reporter Richard Ray, is played in a variety of segments on a mockup of a vintage TV set. Heavy promotion on Channel 4’s newscasts has helped to drive “a surprisingly high number of views for that page,” Boie says. “It’s the kind of video that people can’t typically access somewhere else. So all of this is still a learning experience.”

Kent Chapline, executive Web producer for cbs11tv.com, says the eye can only take so much. “We feel like we’ve got a very clean design,” he says. “It’s not cluttered because there’s not a ton of stuff jammed into every corner of the page. We’ve got a lot of white space, and it’s deliberate, because it helps the eye navigate.”

All four stations have no qualms about posting local stories of import on their Web sites before they eventually make their way to the newscast motherships. Channel 8 still runs wfaa.com in partnership with The Dallas Morning News’ Web site, with both entities owned by Belo Corp. Devlin says that’s a big plus when they can link back and forth on breaking news stories. But the station also strives to differentiate itself from its print cousin, Devlin says.

Channel 5’s Tully says it was an eye-opener for her when Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens overdosed on prescription medications early in the 2006-’07 football season. Viewers complained about Channel 5 interrupting regular daytime programming for Owens updates, she says. And there were no ratings spikes, according to the daily data stations receive from Nielsen Media Research.

“But on our Web site, it was crazy,” Tully says. “Traffic exploded. It was one of those ‘aha’ moments for us. In bad weather situations, they’d rather come to the TV set for updates. But with something like the T.O. overdose story, they really don’t want it affecting their programming.”

All four stations now have separate staffs devoted solely to the care and feeding of their Internet arms. But one hand still has to know what the other is doing. “It’s important for the Web people to integrate with the news operation,” Boie says. “We have to make sure that what’s being promoted on the air is actually on the Web site. It can be a struggle. A lot of times, people in the newsroom don’t even visit the Web site.”

Newscasts, in turn, can’t become what Tully calls “tease-fests” for the Web. Viewers won’t sit still for that. “You’ve still got to keep the core newscast business going,” she says. “You can’t hurt that because you’re infatuated with this fast-growth potential of the Internet. And that’s the kind of tightrope we’re still walking right now.”