Backchannelmedia

The Washington Times

By Dan Caterinicchia, The Washington Times

Dec. 9--Washington-area television stations are enhancing their Web sites to stay competitive as more viewers surf the Internet for news.

The upgrades include everything from streaming video and Internet-only broadcasts to custom forecasts for weather junkies.

The recent Web site redesign at WUSA-TV (Channel 9) includes more live video streams as well as unedited sports interviews, said Rick Garner, the CBS station's Web site manager.

"Our goal is to continue including as much video as possible on our site," said Darryll Green, president and general manager of WUSA.

WUSA was the first local station to offer video "podcasts," programs that can be downloaded to Apple Computer Inc.'s IPods or other digital media devices. The station has recorded more than 11,000 video downloads since it started the service Oct. 27.

WJLA-TV (Channel 7) began offering video podcasts Nov. 2, followed by WRC-TV (Channel 4) Nov. 29.

WUSA started a unique webcast more than three years ago. It is usually about two minutes long and made available after the noon broadcast.

Mr. Garner said WUSA's "By the Way" stories, which are offbeat news items, have proven popular online. So has its new CustomCast service that provides weather updates twice a day for up to four different places.

"Weather is the most important driver of news in any market," said Michael Jack, president and general manager of WRC. The NBC station's Weather Plus digital cable channel offers live online updates throughout the day.

WRC also recently introduced a three-minute, Internet-only newscast that runs at noon, and the station encourages viewers to send in appropriate video and pictures that can enhance those Internet-only stories.

"It's about brand extension," said Vickie Burns, vice president of news and operations. "We're not an Internet operation, we're a TV news operation," but a short-term goal is to update the Internet webcast throughout the day.

A complete Web site redesign should be complete within two months, Mr. Jack added.

Robert Forsyth, director of operations and engineering at WJLA, said the ABC station does not do Web-only broadcasts because it has been putting the first 11 minutes of every newscast on the site for more than three years.

Looking ahead, WJLA has deals with cell phone providers Verizon and Sprint to begin offering enhanced video offerings to those carriers within the next month.

Both WJLA.com and NewsChannel 8's site will be redesigned next month to incorporate more video for IPods, cell phones and other portable tools. "Our whole focus is video for these handheld devices," Mr. Forsyth said.

While the other stations are enhancing their video offerings, WTTG-TV (Channel 5) has yet to start, although that should be changing soon, said Duffy Dyer, the Fox station's vice president and general manager.

Fox's parent company, News Corp., has plans to enhance its Internet offerings companywide. Mr. Dyer could not say when that will happen at WTTG, but he did say the changes would be dramatic: "This will not just be a redesign of our Web site."

WJLA's site appears to be the most popular with 18 million page views per month compared to roughly 10 million at WRC and more than 1.5 million at WTTG, according to station representatives. WUSA would not divulge any Web site statistics; none of the stations would say how much it cost to maintain their sites.

The District's TV sites struggle to attract users because numerous online media outlets already cover every niche in Washington, said Al Tompkins, a specialist on broadcasting and the Internet who teaches at the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Web users are looking for an experience they can't get from watching a two-minute TV news story.

"They're looking for raw video they can experience on their own terms and make their own decisions about," Mr. Tompkins said, adding that raw footage of the tsunami disaster and of singer Janet Jackson's Super Bowl "wardrobe malfunction" were hugely popular online.

WUSA-TV (Channel 9) was the first Washington-area station to offer video "podcasts" and has recorded more than 11,000 video downloads since it started the service Oct. 27.

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