14 Comments Add your own

• 1. Rex  |  June 4th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

  Oh, no. That one [whatever-city]channel.com dude is gonna rant here in 5… 4… 3…

• 2. "one[what-ever]citychannel"  |  June 5th, 2007 at 5:27 am

  nope, only if it were an affiliate of a GOOD network.

• 3. Mike  |  June 5th, 2007 at 7:01 am

  I like “KNBC.com”. It’s short, easy to remember, and easy to type.

• 4. Lance Venta  |  June 5th, 2007 at 7:16 am

  Wouldn’t NBC be better served by having a splash front page at NBC4.com directing viewers to the proper affiliate, since that’s what they brand all the stations on-air as?

  If I were to type NBC4 into Google I get WRC Washington as the first two results, followed by for two for KNBC Los Angeles, then one for Media General’s WCMH Columbus, OH, then two for WNBC New York, then individual results for WDIV Detroit and KBTV Beaumont, TV. That’s three O&O’s and three affiliates. I’m sure even if you limited it to just NYC, LA, and Washington you’d be helping the viewer find the proper site a little quicker.

  You can also extend this argument to CBS on 2, ABC on 7, and FOX on 5 to get viewers to the proper market’s site.

• 5. !  |  June 5th, 2007 at 7:25 am

  it certainly is all those. no question there whatsoever.

  but the general public doesn’t “know” these calls like you tv people do.

  it’s been the argument all along.

  coupled with the recent revelations of those who wish to remain nameless that their content has value ‘beyond their broadcast boundries’ and knbc.com gives me no reason to visit if i’m looking for information regarding los angeles.

  there, rex, i said it…. kinda.

  but, given it’s nbc we are talking about , my guess is they are happy to simply move their existing tv audience to the net and call it a day.

  speaking of “calling it a day”.. any word on what nbc will be CALLING that video jv it announced over two months ago?

• 6. 5w50  |  June 5th, 2007 at 7:32 am

  Makes it simple and easy to remember.
  The ones I feel sorry for are the old stattions where a radio and tv entity share the same call letters … e.g. WCBS, WLS, WABC, KABC, KYW, KDKA, WBZ, etc.
  then it can become confusing to those who don’t have the sites bookmarked.

• 7. jake  |  June 5th, 2007 at 7:42 am

  Users aren’t as dumb as many people have thought all along. I think this is a good move by KNBC. I can’t imagine how many people in the past few years have typed in http://www.nbc4.com instead of .tv, ended up at WRC, became frustrated and then typed in latimes.com

  WNBC.com has worked in NYC… why can’t KNBC.com work in LA?

• 8. !  |  June 5th, 2007 at 8:04 am

  everyone here makes very valid points.

  sure beats the fist fights that use to break out when this topic was mentioned.

  so it works in la and ny? lots of valuable real estate left to cover.

  lots and lots of VALUABLE real estate.

• 9. Mike  |  June 5th, 2007 at 10:03 am

  5w50: WOAI’s entry page (www.woai.com) only has links to the sites for its radio and TV side.

  An easy solution would be for each site to have a link to the other site in a prominent (above-the-fold) position.

• 10. mike jones  |  June 5th, 2007 at 11:41 am

  The argument that only users in your home demo will visit if you use call letters is outdated.

  I’d guess that most people from other demos find their way in with google.

  As Safran says, just go keyword shopping

• 11. Bill  |  June 5th, 2007 at 2:17 pm

  .tv domains IMO are stupid anyway. They were intended for the island nation of Tuvalu, not television. .com is what they should be. I applaud the major (English language) TV stations in Chicago for keeping the .com suffix: nbc5.com, abc7chicago.com, cbs2chicago.com and http://www.myfoxchicago.com

  Just my .02

• 12. Dan  |  June 5th, 2007 at 9:14 pm

  Call letters are great brands. They are unique to every
  station in every market. They are extremely local
  and that’s what you want today.
  In the case of the markets were the calls for the TV
  and the AM is the same, when they are co-owned,
  put very clear links to the station you want to go to
  on the home page, but go to the TV station page first.
  Is this that crazy an idea?

  I notice in Seattle, KING forgot to buy king.com when they should have, so it doesn’t go to KING TV.
  You have to type in kingtv or king5. That’s their fault.
  So should the whole marketing universe decide call letters suck just because management of a few stations dropped the ball?

  Dan

• 13. Anony Mouse  |  June 5th, 2007 at 10:49 pm

  Yawn. KNBC.com means about as much as nbc4.tv. It’s great for the echo chamber in Burbank so someone can say they are extending their branding online. Now what would be daring is if they started Newsraw.com or lanews.com or stepped out with a new brand online and a new strategy online. Oh, but what TV marketing person, you’ll have to use so much on-air marketing power to make a new brand online viable. Yes, you’re right, after all, look at all the on-air references that Google, Yahoo, AOL, MySpace, Facebook, eBay and every other successful site got from the broadcast stations in their media groups… oh, wait….

• 14. calwatch  |  July 21st, 2007 at 8:01 pm

  The other thing, though, is that KNBC made a big deal about “getting rid of all the K’s” ten years ago when they followed the trend of stations going with network-call letters: NBC 4, CBS 5, etc. Now they are bringing the K’s back.

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