WKRN blog views now out-traffic its main site
Steve Safran November 2nd, 2006
How about this for turning the model on its head? WKRN-TV in Nashville undertook a massive rethink of its news last year. Part of that involved going from a station-centric web model to one with a station site and 19 blogs - all with different URLs. Terry Heaton, the splendid brainbox who consulted WKRN on the project, says the blog sites are now exceeding the traffic to the “main” site, WKRN.com. Writes Terry: “…the station has doubled its reach and created niche “businesses” in the market at the same time.” As we’ve noted here before, even the station’s forward-thinking GM is part of the show - Mike Sechrist is at WKRNGM.com. He gets flamed plenty from his audience. And he also gets some terrific ideas.
10 Comments Add your own
1. tdc | November 2nd, 2006 at 3:11 pm
i’m amazed how civil the discourse is on mike’s site. he doesn’t moderate the comments, and rarely is there anything posted to make someone’s grandma blush.
tv news sites that feel if they let their guard down and don’t monitor each and every comment would do well to take note.
mike has invited his community in and they rarely trash the place.
the lone exception i recall was when he announced they were going vj. that topic must really touch a nerve in some people.
2. Allen | November 2nd, 2006 at 4:30 pm
Yet their ratings are still horrible. Why is that and does it matter?
3. Steve Safran | November 2nd, 2006 at 4:54 pm
I’m sure Mike would take issue with the characterization of the ratings as “horrible.” But let’s take KRN out of the equation for a moment:
The web is not in service of broadcast ratings.
The web is in service of news. It is taking over distribution and aggregation. It is its own business. Look no further than the huge success that is MSNBC.com and the disappointment that is MNSBC TV. The web is not a servant to the television master any longer.
4. db | November 3rd, 2006 at 1:01 am
I’m not surprised; it isn’t hard to beat your regular traffic when your regular traffic is relatively small to begin with. Take a look at their Alexa rating; it isn’t scientific, but it is obvious that they aren’t lighting the web on fire with their wkrn.com site.
Instead of focusing their energies on the latest buzz-words, they should start improving on what should be their core business: web-based news.
Or perhaps they should invest in a better software platform first; I can’t even see wkrn.com right now due to a “Fatal error” in their software. That’s a sure way to drive down traffic.
5. Z | November 3rd, 2006 at 6:22 am
Not to trivialize this, but how hard is it really for 19 blogs to exceed the traffic of one Web site?
6. Hussman | November 3rd, 2006 at 6:45 am
Not that hard when you look at it from a viewer’s perspective. Not knowing their market, but I’d wager a guess that if you gave a voyueristic viewer the chance to look into the head of a local celebrity, they will take it and take it and take it. Who wants to read the actual news story when you can read the local anchor’s perspective on it?
7. thedetroitchannel | November 3rd, 2006 at 7:01 am
man, can you give some credit where it is due?
we are talking about nashville. nothing against the fine folks in nashville, mike or terry, but had someone done this in ny or la it would be playing in peoria right now.
and please don’t call me a wkrn cheerleader… i too asked not long ago “they have tv in nashville???”
8. Steve | November 3rd, 2006 at 10:14 am
Regarding news and the discussion of current topics, what do you all think of Plastic.com? Is their model something that could be adopted by local TV sites?
9. Mitch | November 3rd, 2006 at 10:52 am
I could out-pageview WKRN in six blogs.
10. MOJO | January 18th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Wow, thanks for the excellent information!
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