Moving Online: TV News and the Internet

1
Moving Online TV News and the Internet

• Sonya Duhe, Ph.D.
• Andrea Tanner, Ph.D.
• and
• Karen ZatkulakUniversity of South Carolina,
  Columbia

2
GROWTH OF WEB SITES

• 1990s Use of Internet doubled every year (Bucy
  2002)
• 2001 An average 4.6 million people a day visited
  CNN.com during the first week of the Sept. 11
  attacks (Pastore, 2000)
• 2004 Local TV new directors said Web is 1
  choice for convergent TV news operations (Duhe,
  Mortimer, Chow 2004)
• 2005 96 of all local TV stations had a Web
  site (RTNDA, 2005)

3
PURPOSE OF STUDY

• To provide a snapshot of what U.S. TV
  stations are putting on the splash (front pages
  only) of their web sites including
• Types of news stories
• Featured areas, i.e., weather, health, science
• Use of ads on the sites and station promotion

4
METHODOLOGY

• Content analysis of sample of 140 local TV Web
  sites (ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX)
• Large market stations 1-50
• Medium to small markets 51-210
• Web sites came from the master station index at
  TVjobs.com

5
ADVERTISING

• 91 had ads
• 87 had a banner across the top of their TV news
  front page to promo the station
• 86 displayed their station logo or graphic
  within the banner
• 58 of the banners pictured on-air talent

6
INTERACTIVE

• Nearly 46 of the sites were interactive,
  allowing viewers to offer story ideas, send in
  pictures, or participate in a poll
• 74 of the sites did not refer back to the TV
  stations newscasts

7
BANNERS

• 87 had a banner across the top page
• 86 of the banners displayed the station logo or
  graphic
• 58 of the sites pictured on-air personalities

8
TOP STORIES

• Defined as the top 2-3 featured stories on the
  site
• Majority of all top stories were crime
• Most of the crime stories had no pictures, video
  or graphic
• Majority of crime stories linked to another site

9
STORY TOPIC

• 38 of the sites had a section for local stories
• 38 had a section for national stories
• 26 had a section for international stories

10
WEATHER IS IMPORTANT
76 of sites had a weather section of those 61
had a weather image or map 67 carried current
weather conditions
11
HEALTH AND SCIENCE

• Nearly 20 of sites had a health or medical
  section
• 6 had a science section

12
SUMMARY

• 76 of sites had weather on splash page
• Crime stories were the most popular stories on
  the front page
• Almost half of the sites were interactive, an
  avenue for feedback that TV doesnt allow
• But nearly three out of four sites arent
  referring back to the TV newscasts, thereby
  missing an opportunity to cross promote