Transcript Moving Online: TV News and the Internet

Moving Online:
TV News and the
Internet
Sonya Duhe’, Ph.D.
Andrea Tanner, Ph.D.
and
Karen Zatkulak
University of South Carolina, Columbia
GROWTH OF WEB SITES
 1990s: Use of Internet doubled every year (Bucy 2002)
 2001: An average 4.6 million people a day visited
CNN.com during the first week of the Sept. 11 attacks
(Pastore, 2000)
 2004: Local TV new directors said Web is #1 choice for
convergent TV news operations (Duhe’, Mortimer, Chow
2004)

2005: 96% of all local TV stations had a Web site
(RTNDA, 2005)
PURPOSE OF STUDY
To provide a snapshot of what U.S. TV stations are
putting on the “splash” (front pages only) of their web
sites including:
 Types of news stories
 Featured areas, i.e., weather, health, science
 Use of ads on the sites and station promotion
METHODOLOGY
 Content analysis of sample of 140 local
TV Web sites (ABC, CBS, NBC and
FOX)
 Large market stations 1-50
Medium to small markets 51-210
 Web sites came from the master station
index at TVjobs.com
ADVERTISING
 91% had ads
 87% had a banner across the top of their TV news
front page to promo the station
 86% displayed their station logo or graphic within
the banner
 58% of the banners pictured on-air talent
INTERACTIVE
 Nearly 46% of the sites were
interactive, allowing viewers to offer
story ideas, send in pictures, or
participate in a poll
 74% of the sites did not refer back to
the TV station’s newscasts
BANNERS
 87% had a banner across the top page
 86% of the banners displayed the station
logo or graphic
 58% of the sites pictured on-air
personalities
TOP STORIES
 Defined as the top 2-3 featured stories on the site
 Majority of all top stories were crime
 Most of the crime stories had no pictures, video
or graphic
 Majority of crime stories linked to another site
STORY TOPIC
 38% of the sites had a section for local
stories
 38 % had a section for national stories
 26% had a section for international stories
WEATHER IS IMPORTANT
80%
76%
67%
70%
60%
61%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Wtr.
Image
Cond
76% of sites had a weather section; of those 61 had a
weather image or map; 67% carried current weather
conditions
HEALTH AND SCIENCE
 Nearly 20 % of sites had a health or medical
section
 6% had a science section
SUMMARY
 76% of sites had weather on splash page;
 Crime stories were the most popular stories on
the front page
 Almost half of the sites were interactive, an
avenue for feedback that TV doesn’t allow
 But nearly three out of four sites aren’t referring
back to the TV newscasts, thereby missing an
opportunity to cross promote