CNN.com inks local deal with IB, video will be free
Cory Bergman May 21st, 2007
Big news at CNN.com. The site is expanding into local news with a deal with Internet Broadcasting to post stories from 70 of IB’s local TV websites, reports the WSJ. In exchange, CNN is taking a minority position in the company, and IB affiliates can post CNN stories. NBC-owned sites are not included in the deal, as they’re pursuing a similar track with MSNBC.com (see our earlier story). CNN says the arrangement is designed to drive up traffic for both partners. Also, this summer CNN.com is planning on rolling out a redesigned site with all of its video available for free — a fundamental shift away from CNN Pipeline’s subscription model — and local video could be included.
In my opinion, both moves make strategic sense for CNN.com. There’s tremendous growth potential on the local level, and local TV sites are looking for more scale. On the video front, CNN Pipeline’s subscription model has always been a head-scratcher for me, although I think CNN.com has done a great job with Pipeline’s technology. A free Pipeline could become a competitive advantage for CNN.com in its battle with MSNBC.com.
Your thoughts, everyone? (Story is WSJ, subscription required. Thanks, Drake!)
24 Comments Add your own
1. CNN Pipeline | May 21st, 2007 at 11:34 pm
CNN Pipeline has always been free. Click my name for the URL, change stream.1 to 2, 3, and 4 to get the other “pipes.”
2. ABC News Now | May 21st, 2007 at 11:39 pm
ABC News Now is free, too, BTW. Although, as excited as I was to discover you could watch these services for free, I quickly realized they’re not really worth watching.
3. Rex | May 22nd, 2007 at 12:25 am
Judas!
(Heh.)
4. Rocker | May 22nd, 2007 at 7:22 am
Of course it’s a good deal for CNN! Same way they built their national TV business partly on the backs of local TV stations. But here’s a more complete scorecard on the deal:
CNN.com: Big win..tons more content, bigger footprint for sales. Pulled a fast one on the little guys here, aided and abetted by IBS (my guess how this came together).
IBS: Winner…mainly due to bigger footprint for sales/chance to participate in larger network packages.
IBS’ Stations: Short-term…boost to traffic and revenue (albeit low-CPM). Long term, dumb…dumb, dumb, dumb. Feeding the beast - partnering/banding together for scale is not a bad idea, but CNN is the wrong partner. Access to CNN.com national content for stations isn’t a bad thing, but national content is available from lots of sources to put on local sites, and in any event not really what local audiences are looking for on local TV sites. And if they can’t ultimately generate more money via local sales, they aren’t trying hard enough.
p.s. Someone should ask the CBS O&O’s how their Yahoo deal is coming along…short term traffic boost, but where is it taking them? How is it helping them better serve their local audiences and establish themselves as the go-to place for local news?
5. warren reid | May 22nd, 2007 at 7:45 am
national “caught on tape” and “must see” video is ALWAYS the biggest view on a local site…
everyone says local, local, local — and that is important — but how much LOCAL video is consistently *consistently* worth watching?
if you have two must-watch national video clips a day on your site they will ALWAYS be the most watched — by a mile.
only once or twice a month will the local video surpass it…
I’m a huge fan of local strategy, but MOST local video is just NOT a must-watch thing…
6. Safran | May 22nd, 2007 at 7:52 am
Locals need to focus on creating local content, not on bringing in more content people can get elsewhere, especially from a big-name news site.
This still feeds into the “maximize our pageviews” strategy, which has already been rebuked. The locals have a great opportunity - focus on your community, create niche sites, and sell those sites to local sponsors. The sites that do that are bringing in good money.
7. will | May 22nd, 2007 at 7:56 am
I’ve never been a fan of IB, so hopefully this will be an impetus for Hearst-Argyle to go their own way.
8. Aaron | May 22nd, 2007 at 8:11 am
I’m with Safran — great move for CNN, but I’m not sure what the locals get out of this. They could already post CNN video, and 95% of the articles on cnn.com can be found on AP.
The next 12 months are going to be about differentiation — what can you consistently provide your users that can’t be found anywhere else? That means more unique content, more video, more analysis. Simply recycling what’s already out there doesn’t add any value.
9. Tony Albo | May 22nd, 2007 at 8:13 am
I’d like to hear from a CBS O&O, too. How can links from Yahoo be bad? Anyone locally who happens to find links to your site over and over from Yahoo has a better chance of coming to you on their own.
For the same reason, this seems like a good deal for the Internet Broadcasting sites.
10. Tom Pasti | May 22nd, 2007 at 8:27 am
@Safran: Agree that the focus should be on local, and it sounds like that’s what IBS is doing here.
It sounds like they’re saying, “We never did national news that well anyway, so we might as well just let CNN provide it. We’ll focus on other things.”
11. thedetroitchannel | May 22nd, 2007 at 8:39 am
excuse me, but i don’t understand any of this.
there are links to cnn that have been dead for years still sitting on the bottom of ib homepages everywhere.
maybe from 2000? rex might know.
and if cnn is going this route they’ll need to partner with a helluva lot more people to actually cover the country. not even all 70 ib channels are in this deal.
i wish them nothing but success with this, but safran has it right….
LOCAL. before a pure play does.
12. Tim | May 22nd, 2007 at 8:52 am
I’m with Tom Pasti. Our crosstown IBS site has always knocked itself out, churning out way more national and world news than we’ve ever felt we’ve needed.
If they’re going to let CNN handle the national side, that’s going to free up a lot of people to do something.
13. Rex | May 22nd, 2007 at 11:04 am
Yeah, adding a couple points:
+ This doesn’t give CNN that big of a footprint. For instance, they only get one city in the top 10 markets.
+ What does IB get out of this? Well, capital for one. Who says no to money? But also: whoever said they don’t need the national content is right about news, but there’s always vertical areas to fill. Of course, the sites need to focus on local content, but for that network to grow revenue they need to push people into niche areas around the sites.
It’ll be interesting to see where this goes….
14. webfrank | May 22nd, 2007 at 11:26 am
The local sites will get more traffic as referral traffic to the sites from CNN will inherently increase since they are directly linking to the particular station.
15. Charles | May 22nd, 2007 at 12:27 pm
At least CNN.com will be moving away from paying for content. In another five-ten years, I’d expect competition on mobile platforms to move towards more free video as well.
With Pipeline to be officially free, all the content on MSNBC.com, it’ll be interesting to see if FoxNews.com beefs anythnig up. They already have some unique, original video segments and they stream their FOX News Talk radio network for free, but none of that stuff has the “bravada” as the other sites.
All in all, for the consumer, CNN made a smart move.
16. thedetroitchannel | May 22nd, 2007 at 1:24 pm
gotta give it up to the guys in boston, who all day long today held their ground on this announcement.
the early release at other sites left the impression cnn was in charge; “cnn teaming with this web site” the blurb read while in boston it read something like “TheBostonChannel teams with CNN”.
reckon a few affiliates didn’t care for the second fiddle and since then the blurb has been changed; “cnn, ib to share news”.
yea, boston
17. Just to be clear | May 22nd, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Well, geez, DetroitChannel, just to be clear, you’re not entirely correct about your last comments.
I’m not sure if TheBostonChannel did anything specifically locally, but the headline changed across all the IBS sites after a few hours when the story was updated.
Actually, I suspect that you saw “TheBostonChannel teams with CNN” in much the same way that all the local IB sites saw a headline with their local site name. (you’ve gotta love technology)
Of course, if even an experienced news veteran like yourself was fooled into thinking it was localized, then someone must be doing their job.
18. thedetroitchannel | May 22nd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
kindly do not tell me what i saw.
you are very much correct that every other site had the generic up there, but BOSTON customized theirs.
just to be clear.
19. thedetroitchannel | May 22nd, 2007 at 1:42 pm
the generic read “cnn teams with this web site” with no local affiliation.
just to be real clear.
20. Cory | May 22nd, 2007 at 1:43 pm
The devil’s in the details on these kinds of deals — and we don’t have those details here — but I’m not as quick as some people to declare that this partnership is bad for local stations.
TV sites have to start cutting distribution deals, because we can’t live on islands. Forcing people to visit your site for your coverage — without being able to get it anywhere else — is not a sustainable solution in a world where competition for local eyeballs and dollars is intensifying like never before.
21. Rocker | May 22nd, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Cory, all for strategic syndication…just believe CNN is a poor strategic choice. And granted, I don’t know the precise deal terms, but it’s hard to see how there isn’t ultimately far more in this for CNN.com than there is for the local stations. Even your intro kind of implies this…you it “makes strategic sense for CNN”. That much is pretty clear.
22. Cory | May 22nd, 2007 at 3:03 pm
True, from the perspective of story exchange, CNN is coming out ahead.
But in many markets, CNN’s traffic exceeds that of the biggest TV site in town. It all hinges on the details of integration and traffic flow.
23. Gord Alton | May 22nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm
I didn’t read anything about a story exchange. I read it as they would be linking back and forth.
There’s a big difference between a syndication deal (CNN gets PVs on IB stories, and vice versa) and linking to each other (IB gets PVs on IB stories thanks to increased referrals, and vice versa).
I would say IB is the big winner if it’s the latter. That’s a ton of new traffic coming in thanks to CNN’s reach, and they’re probably not losing much. Who was reading IB’s national news anyway?
24. Cory | May 22nd, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Update: I just spoke to someone who knows the details of this deal. It is indeed a link-back-and-forth arrangement. Sort of a preferred aggregation approach.
This suddenly became a much better deal for the station sites.
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