"Where the News Comes First"

I was meeting with friends, and family over the weekend. It's always an opportunity to visit, and ask questions. It seems everyone I ask who's under 40 years old watches, or reads their news content on-line. That trend has been growing.  That's quite obvious. Now a recent survey from Frank N. Magid Associates finally puts some numbers to the issue. Researchers wondered if people turn more often to local TV news when times are tough.

The survey says people are turning to local TV news more frequently than in the past. However, the web experienced the most growth, and people are going to a local station's web address to watch local news. The survey says 17 percent of respondents said they are following local news "more" on the web.  That compares to a 16 percent increase for people following local news "more" on TV. Look out, by this time next year I would expect that number to grow into the 20's or to 30 percent.  The numbers also tells me more people are interested in local news during hard times like these. The economy is on people's minds, and local news is not dead.

More often those people are finding out about their world, or their local neighborhood, through mobile devices like I-phones or the blackberry. The issue that comes to mind is why doesn't a news site on the web have it's own brand of newscast? I'm talking about a "new" local news format. Something that's unique, and not a re-broadcast of a TV format. Let's look at a possible model. Create a web page with all the tools to program your own newscast. Much like loading up songs on their I-pod, and listening to them. This would be a user friendly set-up consisting of a menu of stories, and a moderator giving you the news you want to watch. Simply load, lock, and watch.

I'd like to hear your ideas. When we started this blog we spelled out a simple mission. We know the local TV news model is dying, or broken. Our question is "what's next." I've always believed a marriage of TV, and a web site is possible. There must be a way to interface whtat's broadcast, and marry it to a station's web site. Too many times a TV station's site is managed by 1 person. That manager simply cuts, and pastes content from the tube to the site. Just repeating the same TV news format on the web is not it, because that format has to be more dynamic than that, more interactive.  I hinted earlier of the I-phone and the way users easily manipulate the screen for applications, and information. Let's create a TV news format for the I-phone age. 

My friends at KCRA in Sacramento maybe on to something. They pioneered the phrase "Where the News Comes First." I talked to a manager there a year ago, and at that time they were gravitating towards the web. That means the priority is their website, and if breaking news happens they go directly to the web "first." Why wait until 5pm for the news, when people can just go to the website. I know the U-T often breaks a web version of a story a day before it hits the morning paper. I believe the next step is to actually make local news more accessible to viewers through a unique news format designed for the internet. The San Diego New Media Rights Forum is dedicated to finding that format.