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Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 19:30:05 -0800 To: From: Dave Del Torto Subject: (HOL) TV News on the WWW Sender: owner-Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net LOCAL TV NEWS ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB By Alice Main (AJMain@aol.com), Producer, WKRC-Cincinnati The World Wide Web is either a brand-new network, or a point-and-click newspaper, or an interactive information source, or a vast, colorful, entertaining, expensive, and utterly pointless waste of time. Or perhaps it's all of the above, depending on where you point your browser. Local TV stations are following one another onto the Web, but the information quality, timeliness, depth, and presentation they offer are as unique as the stations themselves. At WFAA in Dallas-Fort Worth, producer Walt Zwirko maintains the station's home page. It began mainly as a repository for scripts and information relating to my weekly Computer Corner news segment, and is still not a "full-service' website, Zwirko explains. The page, accessible at http://rampages.onramp.net/~net, can link the user with weather and lottery information, the Computer Corner files and with two sister stations' home pages. You can send e-mail to the station, or to ABC. But there's no news...yet. There are ongoing internal discussions about what the future will hold for our place in cyberspace. As the World Wide Web becomes more and more visible (especially with the impetus of the Windows 95 and the Microsoft Network attracting new users), the home page will be seen as something more than the one-person, very part-time operation it is right now at our shop, says Zwirko. The cost for the account with the local server is less than $40 per month. Still, even a part-time operation means commitment. Zwirko says he spends several hours a week maintaining the page and adding new features and answering electronic mail. In Detroit, investigative reporter Mike Wendland started WDIV's home page about six months ago. Point your browser to http://www.wdiv.com to find live Doppler radar, updated weather checks, news headlines, entertainment links, a virtual tour of the station, and supplementary special reports on some news investigations and consumer segments. When the two daily newspapers went on strike, we dropped everything and added all sorts of news links and new data to help our viewers find alternate sources of information, says Wendland. Thanks to Wendland's expertise, the cost invested so far has been under $1,000. He is getting a lot of positive feedback on the page. I've had a dozen or so other organizations ask me if I'll help them with theirs. Maybe I should start a freelance web consulting biz! Also on the Web for the past six months: KPIX TV & radio in San Francisco. Tony Russomanno says its most popular feature is the weather camera shot, automatically updated every five minutes. A remote-controlled camera on the top of the Fairmont Hotel offers great pictures of San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge, downtown and Twin Peaks. Our logs show the page has been accessed by users from every nation on Earth that has Internet connectivity, says Russomanno. The station recently added a message board, and two weeks ago a live chat area debuted, which is being used to run conferences during radio call-in shows. TV news scripts are due any day now and Russomanno says the scripts will be presented in a very different way. The home page can be accessed at http://www.kpix.com KJRH in Tulsa has been on the Web for less than a month at http://www.kjrh.com You can see live updated pictures of the city, the newsroom and Doppler radar. There is an impressive list of links to other sites of interest to Tulsans. And there is easy access to news scripts. News Director Peggy Phillip says getting it online was a team effort. "We had somebody in every department who was interested in the whole Web phenomenon. So we set up a Web task force. We wanted to make sure it didn't have too many graphics so it wouldn't be too slow, or too few so it wouldn't be too boring." Station engineer Steve Epps put it all together in about 60 hours. For more on what works well in a home page, see Josh Greene's article below. And Skip Wood writes about the regional network his station uses, instead of the Web. One last note: KHON in Honolulu is at http://www.khon.com/news/menu.html This website has a fantastic search page. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ MORE ABOUT TV STATIONS ON THE WEB by Josh Greene, (JoshGreene@aol.com), Greene Productions There are two major reasons your viewers will look at your Web site. These reasons are information and curiosity. A viewer will look at the page because they have seen promos on the station or heard about it from someone. If your page consists of pretty pictures of your anchors and some programming information, they'll probably look at it once. They know what the anchors look like, so while on-line pictures are cool, they aren't worth the time it takes to download at 14.4. If they want programming information, and yours is bland, they'll just look in the paper instead. What will keep bringing viewers back to your page? News, news, news. If every time a viewer looks at your page, there is up-to-the-minute news, they will keep coming back. I've got the ESPN page bookmarked (espnet.sportzone.com), and during the day, I'll occasionally check the page to see developments in sports. It's a lot quicker than waiting 30 minutes during a newscast, which may be on at an inconvenient time or may not be something I have time for. It also lets me stay on top of breaking news. If you're going to have news on your Web page, make sure you can cover breaking news. The other week, a Binghamton cop got shot. At 6:30, the newscasts went off the air with a live picture of the house where the gunmen was holed up. And, there was no way to find out what happened till 11:00. Four and half hours with no way to find out what was happening in the biggest news story (we're market #133) of the month. A producer typing into a home page could have had updates posted every ten minutes for the next four hours and earned a lot of loyal viewers in the process. I'd like to make an offer to readers of the newsletter. As a former TV person, I'm willing to answer your questions about the Web and the Internet through e-mail. I'll e-mail you an answer, and also post the questions and answers ( without the name of the questioner) on a web site (www.binghamton.com/tv) which will be available starting September 1. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ WEB, SCHMEB By Skip Wood, KXJB, Fargo (Skip@pol.org) Our station only has a mention on the WWW, but better than the Web, we're on a slick regional network. After all, we don't need national reach. The local net has all the local governments, schools, colleges, social service organizations, employment agencies, charities, and many businesses participating as providers of information. The presentation is almost as slick as the national on-line services. It also supports message boards and e-mail. Best of all, basic service of half an hour a day is free to the public, so participation is blossoming. For about $5 a month, users get 30 hours a month (two hours a day) and Internet e-mail and newsgroups. For our station, the cost as provider is only $100 a month. The size of our area is essentially unlimited. We have countless files that include FAQs, reception problems answered, show information, network addresses and phone numbers, staff profiles, station news, promotions, station history, etc. We also have message boards on home video and sports talk. We may add an advertisers' club as a "value added" service that gives a spiel about our advertisers. Once all the files are in, maintenance time hasn't been too bad. Best of all is the Internet e-mail -- phone and fax expense savings, fewer phone calls, and it gives us the chance for a warm exchange with the public when we're not harried with other matters. In other words, good PR. If anyone wishes to learn more about this net, they can log in by calling 701-234-0067. This won't be the slick graphical presentation, but it still works, and you can always download the fancier software. You can also e-mail inquiries directly to prairie_online@pol.org. I think such regional nets will catch on big. The ability to e-mail the police, the city and businesses is really useful. ############# # This message to Hungary-Online@hungary.yak.net # was from Dave Del Torto # # To unsubscribe, # send "unsubscribe" to # An announcement-only subscription (less volume) is available # at # Send mail to for more information, # or to if you need human assistance. #############