Lose the anchor photos on home pages
Stephen Warley August 10th, 2006
At a Texas Broadcasters Association session about the future of television, Don Perry of Clear Channel Television, cautioned broadcasters to be more understanding about how consumers use websites. In particular, he referred to the anchor photos at the top of broadcast homepages as “Mount Rushmore”. No one has been more outspoken about losing the anchor photos on homepages than Safran. I know this may be hard to believe, but many of the people using your websites probably don’t even know who your talent are or don’t care. The design of your website should be focused on deep local content. Getting one of your anchors to use a blog to report on local issues is far more powerful than any press photo in terms of driving traffic to your site.
15 Comments Add your own
1. Steve Safran | August 10th, 2006 at 9:16 am
It’s not an argument you can win easily. The debate is usually along the lines of “But it’s such a great place to promote our anchors!” Without understanding that doing that is also a great way to 1. Look like every other anchor site and 2. Dilute the importance of your site itself as a news source. Warley’s right: you want to promote your anchors? Have them promote themselves by adding their words to the site. Homogeneous sites are the enemy of local news.
A hint: sometimes it’s easier to forget a design element than win an argument. I’m just sayin’, is all…
2. Clay McNeill | August 10th, 2006 at 9:22 am
“A message that does not change, contains no information.”
3. thelosangeleschannel | August 10th, 2006 at 10:01 am
wasn’t this a throwback to when sites were merely promo tools of any given station.
kinda like using your call letters as a domain name.
when you concede that your local information has value to those beyond your broadcast signal both approaches are then spent.
4. Jeff Bailey | August 10th, 2006 at 11:32 am
If people looked at the header graphic and recognized who their local anchors are, I probably would not get the e-mails from “News Channel 8″ viewers in Florida, Indiana, Washington D.C., Texas and Oregon that I occasionally get.
5. Cory | August 10th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Amen, Warley! As we keep saying, THE WEB IS NOT TV.
Putting anchors across the top reinforces the fact that your website is primarily a reference and promotional vehicle for the TV station, not a standalone source of news and information.
6. Rocker | August 10th, 2006 at 3:26 pm
I can’t believe we’re still having this conversation.
7. Tybois Uphold | August 10th, 2006 at 4:57 pm
Just my opinion, but the less of a connection a viewer feels with the anchors, like not being able to read up on who they are, email them if they like (I email WJLA Meteorologist Doug Hill once in awhile with weather info), and stuff like that…will drive views further and further away from local and broadcast news and continue pushing them toward cable.
Leave the anchor photos (and bios) up….just please, don’t run them clear across the top of the screen.
Rock on,
Tybois Uphold
8. Frank Magid Rickel | August 10th, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Listening to Don Perry of Clear Channel reminds me that one of the best local anchor blogs out there is by Cameron Harper of the CC Memphis station. It’s local, topical, often funny and Harper says what’s on his mind. It’s very un-anchor-like.
http://www.myeyewitnessnews.com/blog/cameron/default.aspx
9. Jeremiah | August 10th, 2006 at 6:43 pm
Hear, hear!
Sacramento’s local offender:
http://news10.net
Shiny happy white people!
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