Allbritton’s upcoming D.C. metro site, which will combine content from WJLA-TV and Politico, is arguably the most ambitious single-market online news startup in local TV history. They don’t have a name, but they’re hiring like crazy with a launch date of “June-ish.” Nieman Lab has a few details of their first hires, which will include a team of four “community hosts” who will be building relationships with “existing local bloggers, recruiting new ones, and building out a local audience around their work.”
Sounds like the beginning of a smart strategy, and it ties into a great write-up today by Ken Doctor about “content brokers” and “content arbitrage.” As Doctor explains it, “Obtain the highest quality content you can (or at least sufficient to what the market of readers and advertisers demand) at the lowest possible cost. Then, make sure you can make a profit over each set of obtained content.”
