Organizations don’t change overnight, but they need to at least keep pace with trends. I have completely stopped regular viewing of local news. Why? It’s content is pre-formatted for me. I can’t choose the stories that interest me the most. It’s of very little value. The web offers TONS of value. Which is why it’s important to link to relevant information in your stories. Let your viewers see how you did your research. Provide them with resources to learn. Encourage them to communicate. Learn from them (ALLOW COMMENTING ON STORIES!!!).

Marriott’s CEO allows for all kinds of comments on his blog — basically it’s called a “warts and all” strategy. Good or bad, the company wants to hear what you think.

Life is not lived in a vacuum. I’m willing to bet that if TV stations were more transparent as well, the advertising bucks would improve. . .I can think of a whole handful of ideas to use this transparent approach to increase revenues.

Happy being a dinosaur? Stay the course. Otherwise learn how to walk upright with the rest of the digital universe.

42% is nearly 1/2 where i come from.

As for libel, I’m not sure that is what happened here.

Merely expressing an opinion that someone is perhaps unqualified or questioning experience of someone is not enough to get one sued successfully — which seems to me to be what you’re begging to have happen (go running to the lawyers — a salesman and consultant’s best friend).

Although, I guess if you can prove this hurt your business (or just that it hurt your feelings) I am sure you will find a sympathetic jury (who loves your smooth delivery) to make up for whatever pittance you’ve lost as a result.

I do love your facts you cite Steve and wish there were more of them from you and Terry more often. Instead, it is smooth talking buzzwords laced with endless I-have-the-ultimate-answer slickness.

I am sorry if I accidentially got a couple of details wrong. It was just an innocent mistake. But, I did use an important qualifier “enough to understand the realities” which is a subjective statement — not a fact, thus making it not pass the libel test. (It would be as if I called you a dork or something — an opinion, not passed off as fact.)
Still, I guess I should brace for the lawyers. Now all we need are a ton of GMs claiming my stunning post caused them to stop signing a deal with you at the last second…

I guess playing the virtually unknown (and luckily for AR&D becoming hidden more and more everyday) WKRN card brings out the real person underneath all the sales gimmick.

TV Web sites on average receive 17.17% of their traffic from search engines. We as an industry are 4.76% below the industry average for News and Media searching. So yes there is room for improvement across the industry but the impact is not as strong as those that suggest.

25.37% of TV website traffic is from other news media sites which are a 4.33 % advantage over the news and media category.

We believe that your true impact is growing your ability to create deep digital roots with your community and that this will vary from station to station based on their strengths and the communities in which they serve.

The question is do you have tools to go after these relationships and can you do it in an efficient manner?

Oh - and since you decided to libel me, “Jason”:

- I ran a station website for six years, up until 2006. Please tell me where you get your information that says I did not.
- We get data from many sites, including those for which we consult and from our research.
- Cory does not give out competitive information about his work. Not even to us. Kindly show the evidence that led you to write your insulting slur.
- We don’t call anything “king.” We try to give lots of ideas. There is no silver bullet.
- Absolutely nothing in my essays requires my help. In fact, I know of no consultants who offer as much free advice as we do.
- There is no masquerade. I am completely upfront about who I am and what I do. I research everything I do and stand by the best practices of journalism.

It is apparent by your writing that you are unburdened by the need for facts. I hope your audience feels otherwise.

you just sold some stupid GM on your product through your coolness

“look he doesn’t even need to argue with the guy. that is how cool he is. no excuses or information even necessary. I need to pay him to help make me cool too. where do I sign up? forget the cost ($40k THIS year — $20k next year)… just sign me up!!!!”

yes. that thinking does happen.

I wish I could have seen the printing press operation of proposals that was in action at NAB this year. every sheet of letter-sized paper must have been sold off the shelves in Vegas… desperation time…

oh well…

what is the sales pitch this year? let me guess? search

what an asshole.

Can we please, please stop hearing from Steve and Terry Heaton that “Search is king”?

Or for that matter that ____ is king?

The successful sites on the web in our medium are successful because they do a lot of things (but not a ton) VERY well. And, it’s not because of search. Period.

Of course, this all helps create the *image* of AR&D’s online group (two people) as being “hip” and “getting it” when, in fact, neither of them have really worked at TV station websites for long enough or in a key position enough to understand the realities. Really.

In fact, neither of them would know the real data behind some of the most successful TV station Websites if they didn’t have an inside link to King5 — no offense Cory, but it’s true.

In complete truth, the snake oil salesman who try and try to constantly tell us that ___ is king (and they have a great way to make sure you get in for the low, low cost of …. half of whatever it was last year) are ruining this for all of us who really know what we are doing.

I am amazed at the amount of completely stupid GMs and publishers who hang on every word of these obviously self-egrandizing self-important (and UNBELIEVALBLY motivated by selling their own “formula” and software) salesman.

Let’s finally call them for what they are: salesman! (who masquarade as consultants who seemingly have every answer — including what is “king” this week).

The internet is never as simple as these people claim it is and its never as difficult as they want to make it seem either. Plastics.

The local newspapers that are run from the top down can’t seem to grasp the multimedia aspect of the Web or the concept of sharing across the Net.

We’re tiny yet we consistently beat them to the top of the Google Local news search and the feedback we get is very good.

That said, I agree with several of you above who say they already know where to go for their news. We’re only a few years old; the newspapers have more than a century in name recognition. Of course, a lot of their readers won’t be around in a couple decades.

And looking at where and how people are reaching our site, search engine refewrences are abysmally low when compared to direct traffic.

Or are we talking about different things.

Perhaps the problem is that his Google queries are as unintelligible as his comments.