Local media should be compensated for exclusivity

Posted by Cory Bergman on March 10, 2008

I had a very interesting experience over the weekend tracking an exclusive story produced at my station, KING 5, which has quickly become a national phenomenon. But in the end, we’re only getting a fraction of the online revenue generated by the story. And that’s a challenge for the local media industry.

The story is about Casey Knowles, the Obama supporter who was stunned to see herself in the Clinton “3 a.m.” ad. It aired at 10 and 11 p.m. on Friday night, and it was posted on KING5.com about the same time, both text and video. We submitted the story to all the usual suspects: Drudge, Digg, Fark, HuffingtonPost and CNN.com (we’re a CNN affiliate.) Hours later, it was linked all over the place.

But not all the links were to us. A blog stole the copy, word for word, and managed to get linked prominently on Digg and HuffingtonPost. (The editor later removed it after we complained.) And a popular political blog stole the video, uploaded it to YouTube with its own logo burned over the top, and then embedded the player in his blog. Plueeze.

While theft is a problem, it’s not the core issue here…

Sunday morning, AP moved the story, and it subsequently appeared on news sites across the country. CNN.com and MSNBC.com posted the video via their affiliate feed services. If it were not a weekend, this would’ve happened much faster. Our “window of exclusivity” would’ve closed within hours.

Today (Monday), we’re receiving very little traffic on the story despite the fact that millions are reading it for the first time.

Now, I understand that exclusive stories don’t remain exclusive for very long. News organizations — including the AP — follow up with their own original reporting. ABC quickly rushed Knowles on GMA, and as a result, ABCNews.com has attracted a good deal of traffic. (The Today Show followed suit this morning).

I also understand that it’s impossible to own 100% share of eyeballs on a really good story. Stuff like this spreads fast.

The problem here is local media is paying AP to distribute our most valuable content to others who in turn pay the AP to receive it, therefore helping collapse our window of exclusivity. As this window collapses, our revenue generation goes with it. Since enterprise reporting is the most expensive to produce, in a way AP is disincentivizing local media companies from investing in original stories with national potential.

For example, most people are reading the Knowles story today via Google or Yahoo. As of this writing, “Casey Knowles” is the #1 “hot” search topic in Google. But if you search on either Google or Yahoo — two companies that pay the AP a big chunk of change — you’ll likely find an AP version of the story as the first search result. (On Saturday, KING5.com was the first result.)

There are many similarities with video. Affiliate services for all the networks take the best stories from local stations, distribute it to other stations, and post the best of the best on their own sites. For CNN.com and MSNBC.com, these video clips generate hundreds of thousands of views at high CPMs.

It used to be that TV stations and newspapers just wanted brand recognition. Now local media wants to be paid.

I propose the industry begin to examine a new model that compensates local media companies for high-value exclusive stories. CNN.com has started down this road by linking some of the most popular stories on its affiliate sites (for example, CNN.com has linked a KING5.com story on its home page today, and it’s sending us some serious traffic.) While this is a step in the right direction, it dilutes local advertising with a national audience.

The new model should provide targeted value to advertisers while compensating the source commensurate to the story’s popularity. This will require a complex solution, both from a business and technical standpoint, but it’s time we start working on one.

(Full disclosure: This blog post is my opinion, not necessarily the opinion of KING 5, which is an AP subscriber, CNN affiliate, MSNBC.com affiliate and Yahoo News partner. I believe in these partnerships. I just think there’s a better model.)

Joe

This is why I hated submitting content to Drudge, Fark, etc. There’s no justice with these sites. One minute they’ll latch onto some story that you wouldn’t even think would be a viral hit. Then, you’re caught unaware and have to scramble to get video links and more info on the page to beef up the story.

The next, you’re begging them to go with a big story that has video, a Flash animation, something that you’ve worked on for months. Then you go to Fark, and they’ve linked to the same story from AP on an IBS site.

And congrats to you, Cory, for actually being able to track down an editor to get them to change the link. Try finding somebody from Drudge, Fark, E-Baum, or the rest. You’re right, Cory, there is a better model. There has to be to help save local TV.
Contrarian

Of course, Cory, your station uses AP material from other outlets and fails to give credit to the originating organization.
Olsen

Let’s say you did get money or ads served for all the stories KING broke. Don’t you think that money would go right back out the door for all the stories you use that other sources broke?

Casey Knowles told her story on the Today show, do you think you should still get a taste because you found the story?
http://www.lostremote.com Cory

We give the same credit as everyone else: AP. Attribution isn’t the issue. It’s financial compensation.
http://www.lostremote.com Cory

@ Olsen: Sure, at some point, the story is no longer “our” story as others do their own versions of it. I’m less concerned about the Today Show clip than I am about the package that’s fed out earlier that’s posted for a good 24-hours before the Today Show interview. And I’m even more concerned about falling off the search map thanks to all the AP versions of the story.

What if the AP had a system that you could syndicate your story through AP network and get a cut of all subsequent pageviews? Sure, this has complexity written all over it, but we need to start figuring this out.
Olsen

re: Cory
It seems to me that no matter what the compensation system was, all sites get more than they give as far as content goes. This weekend, it was your turn to break a story for everyone else. Today, it was the NY Times turn. Tomorrow, it could be me.

re: Joe:
I agree that it really stings when you have that perfect gem of a story and the aggregators point to a blog post, but I wouldn’t sweat it. I actually think there is justice in the aggregator world. In the end, it’ll evens out. You’ll get links you didn’t deserve.

Those Zen-like responses sound a little to passive for me personally, but when it comes to sharing content, you have to let it slide off your back and believe it’ll even out.
http://www.lostremote.com Cory

@ Olsen
You need to draw a distinction between national-level sites like NYTimes.com and local sites like KING5.com. The value isn’t equal.

National AP stories drive very little traffic on local TV sites (people read them elsewhere). But popular local stories like the Clinton ad girl can drive hundreds of thousands of page views on sites like NYTimes.com.

The value in AP is its local coverage, which is a whole other mess.
Olsen

I think the NY Spitzer example was just fresh on my mind, and did not help make my point. Allow me to rephrase myself: This weekend was your turn. Tomorrow could be (any local site)’s turn.

I think it’s important to have national AP stories on local sites. Yes, people come to your site for local news, but while they’re there, why not give them some other headlines? It’s not like we’re low on bandwidth or server space. I don’t think it’s that unusual to see some national AP stories creep into a site’s most e-mailed or most clicked. I’m not saying that’s the cash crop (nor should it be), but the state and national AP wires do have value.

To set a price while other news organizations gets their own source would work against us as much as it would help us — especially against television stations — how many VOSOTs a day credit a newspaper? If we expect payment for our good stuff, would we have to pay the local papers to mention their stories in our newscast? And while there are lots of reporters banging out great stories every day, a lot of packages are just newspaper stories with nat sound and the occasional fresh angle. TV stations don’t have the staff members to break stories like newspapers do, so we’d be on the short-end of the pay-for-breaking news model.

I don’t want to be the crabby naysayer on this one, cause everyone could use a little profit shakeup, but we’re affiliates. It’s our job to kick content upstairs. I’m not saying we’re the minor leagues, but NBC let’s us wear their uniforms, take their nightly packages and sell advertising on their content.

We work for our local users, and while advertisers don’t usually care where the clicks come from, I think we shouldn’t bang our heads against the walls because larger fish in larger ponds are taking our content.
Mark

So why don’t you name the “popular political blogger” who took it for him/herself and even put their logo on it? That’s BS and they should be called on it.

One of the few ways to improve the situation is to call people out when you see it, in the hopes that the web will self-correct itself into a kind of watchdog for this kind of thing.
Anonymous

My guess is it’s Talking Points Memo, which puts its logo on their video clips.
Anonymous

Yep. And TPM credited and linked to KING5. The KING5 logo is also prominently featured in the video. KING5′s own video doesn’t appear to be embeddable, which would make it reasonable that someone would rip it and put it on YouTube. It looks like Cory got it pulled off YouTube anyway, though.

http://www.tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/report_girl_safe_and_asleep_in.php
http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/03/report_girl_safe_and_asleep_in.php My Name

Ok, click my name for the link.
Brink

Geez, Cory, just do your news for your audience and stopping worrying so much about who else is also using it after you post it. Unless there’s a copyright violation, that is. Otherwise, it’s just sour grapes.
Scott

Let’s be honest: this is a 2-way street. I know first-hand that it’s like pulling teeth for local TV to even give attribution or a link to local bloggers who break news that the station later picks up. Can you imagine sharing a slice KING revenue to a blogger for content you used? Seems unlikely…
Rob

Compensation for exclusivity? Sorry, but the second you publish your content on TV, radio, newsprint and the web you lose true exclusivity.

This concern about ‘exclusivity’ is what online journalists fight against with their news managers who want the story to break on TV or in print and not the web. It’s something that’s been getting preached / taught here for years, so you know full well what the repercussions are with posting exclusive content online.

I’m sorry, I hold KING5.com in high regard (Disclaimer: I used to work for KING5.com management.) but I have to ask:

Your video got pirated and put on YouTube … I ask why doesn’t KING5 have a YouTube channel and why didn’t you syndicate that content there before someone else did?

Why can’t KING5 videos be embeddable, and if necessary with a pre-roll worked into that video embed system so that whatever blog it gets posted to your advertisers are still getting eyeballs?

Why wasn’t your story syndicated across your company’s network of websites and referring people back to your site for more information?

Where’s the ‘big coverage’ of the story on KING5.com? I see the story, a separate clip from the Today Show not linked to your story, a couple links and a little red ‘First on KING5.com’ sticker inside the story.

Where’s the promotional push on your site backed up by the content you developed supplemented by everything you’re aggregating from other sources that have added perspective to your original story to show that not only was this an exclusive but you’re continuing to lead the coverage on this story?
http://www.thepomoblog.com Terry Heaton

Cory, this is a great piece. The only question I have is why would local advertisers care about all those impressions coming in from who-knows-where, or do you have some sort of fancy screening that only serves them “national” ads?
tdc

a certain web channel in denver has had a great traffic day thanks to a certain pink poodle. their online survey is blowing the top off the charts.

one would think a method of serving ads “local” to the user rather than the content would already be consider s.o.p. for stories that go viral.
http://www.lostremote.com Cory

Aaah! So.. many.. things.. to.. respond.. to

@Brink: This is an easy one. Cost-pressures in newsrooms will soon reach unprecedented levels, so it’s my business to find new ways to be compensated for our highest-value work. That’s not sour grapes.

@Rob: Lots of good points. We’re working on embedded video. To me that’s a better solution than a YouTube channel, which really yields very little money and is more of a marketing play. And we could do better at internal syndication.

@Terry: The advertiser dilution problem must be solved in the new model. Let’s say, as an idea, AP reduces annual costs for its member sites and switches to a per-story syndication model. Over a 24-hour period since a story is “syndicated” into AP, anyone who runs the story with their own local ads gives up a percentage of online revenue associated with it (which goes to the originating source and the AP). After 24-hours, this revenue share ends. Yes, this is a tremendously complex idea, but worth exploring IMHO.
Brink

“a certain web channel in denver has had a great traffic day thanks to a certain pink poodle.”

…and thanks to Fark.com, which posted their link.

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