A bit off topic is the fact that I’ve been messing around with the new version of the USA Today website and I think it has some really innovative concepts that can be incorporated into local station sites. Has anyone else looked at it and if so what do you think of it?

One of the things Warley and I are always talking about with groups is how there is no magic bullet. There is no one thing stations can do to fix things overnight. It’s a combination of lots of things. Some can be started now, some take months, some need to be budgeted for starting next year, some are a longer-term plan.

Obviously they can’t all be executed now. What they have in common is that they need to be discussed now.

I recognize that, because LR is a day-to-day, moment-by-moment site, it can seem as though we exhort stations to do everything at that moment. We’re more pragmatic than that. We have all worked in stations and with stations. None of this is easy and none of it is fast.

However change is required and the more stations ignore it, the less likely they are to catch up.

So, I submit, we see things from the same side. Stations are crazy if they’re waiting for web money to flow in before they build a good site. That’s like waiting for TV money to flow in before you build a TV station. They’re equally crazy if they’re waiting to lose a ton of money on TV before they “try this web thing.” By then it will be years too late.

but it based on a premise that top brass actually wants the net to succeed.

i can’t wait for cory to add some “new media” stocks to that chart… watch how they act in tandem opposite

One thing is for sure … the problem can’t be solved with some miracle solution that will solve a single site’s internet challenges overnight.

It can take weeks up to months to get a news operation on board with all of the changes necessary to get where you guys feel web news operations need to be now.

The scary thing is by the time a news operation invests the necessary resources to get to where they need to be now its several months down the road and there’s a new benchmark being laid down they need adapt to in order to meet the needs of the viewsers.

tkp: you’re right about the chicken and the egg problem. To which I ask: “To what point does the ratings drop and the revenue drop have to hit before those stations realize they need to do more than throw a bunch of garbage on a site and call it a news website?” And since when is having a “web presence” a goal? It’s better to have a blog. In fact, free consultant advice here: why not have a blog? I’m serious: if there are no resources, wouldn’t a blog be more efficient? And more fun, besides? With so many horribly ugly and impossible to navigate sites out there, a blog news site would be a refreshing surprise.

I don’t understand why newsrooms continue to accept awful sites (unless I do). The sites reflect who they are as a station. They wouldn’t accept awful promos (which they spend perfectly good money on), so why accept an awful site that is the face of the station?

Rob: The smaller markets are the place where this is actually happening best. Look at Lawrence, Kansas. Look at local newspaper sites. It’s not about the staff - it’s about the workflow. If a newsroom just changes its workflow just a tad and everyone pitches in a few minutes - you’ve got a kickass site. As long as the newsroom sees a site as a secondary product to the Master Television Newscast, you’re right - not enough staff. But if contributing an item to the web is part of the job - which, sorry, but our jobs just changed and it has to be this way - then the site grows. And so does the revenue.

And thank you for using “viewsers” in a sentence. You deserve an LR T-shirt..

First of all most broadcasters see that traditional on-air broadcasting is their bread and butter and they are very reluctant to take any resources away from that.

Second is the difference in pay. You can hire an intern to create web content, not quality but enough to get by and have a presence, and pay them a minimal amount where as an on-air personality commands a much higher sum. Until the websites start to contribute more to the bottom line this will continue and until GM’s decide to make a concerted effort to increase quality on the sites you won’t see revenues rise. It’s very much a chicken and egg problem. It’s a big risk for a GM to throw too much money into the websites when it’s going against a proven money winner like traditional broadcast.

Stations need to have a little more fear of revenue bleed before they’ll be willing to make a real effort at original quality online content.

I use a lot of your guys’ suggestions and comments in helping tweak my station’s online presence but time and again I see suggestions that fly in the face of the small and medium market reality, that the majority of the news sites don’t have the resources I mentioned above and don’t know where to begin or how to get their web properties off the ground.

Some sites, not for lack of effort or lack of vision but lack of resources, just won’t be able to compete on the same level as a Top 50 market in terms of meeting the exacting standards of the ever-changing Internets and the demands of its viewsers.