At BIA/Kelsey’s DSB ’10 conference, Fisher Communications CEO Colleen Brown emphasized that local broadcasters can utilize the “long tail” of content to create richer offerings and open new advertising channels. The Seattle-based media group already does this through clusters of hyperlocal community Web sites housed by its Seattle and Portland TV properties. 
Now, Fisher is unlocking a new multi-platform opportunity for …

The deal-a-day model thrives on the power of its e-mail list, sales channels, promotion, clever copywriting and vendor selection. Newspapers and TV stations should be especially well positioned to leverage these strengths, right? Many, in fact, are diving in to deal a day via partner relationships with Groupon and LivingSocial, or vendor relationships with the …

Two freshly released viewer surveys underscore the fragmentation of the TV marketplace, the surging demand for online video and time shifting, and the changing consumer attitudes toward traditional, live television. 
The most recent Morpace Omnibus study reveals that while 52 percent of viewing is live (linear broadcasting, whether prerecorded such as a TV series or movies, or actual live programming like …

High school sports have been the centerpiece of many hyperlocal efforts. They bring to the table highly passionate fans, families and players in the hard-to-reach 12- to 17-year-old demo.
But the economics of school-by-school efforts don’t always work, whether for branding, region-wide advertisers and advertising sales, production needs, data and content acquisition, or site infrastructure. Just …

Even though Hulu CEO Jason Kilar calls his service “incremental and complementary” to cable, the online video hub’s potential fall IPO is a testimony to the transition of TV across screens and the rapid growth of OTT (over-the-top) services.
OTT delivers IP video to end-users over third-party broadband using gaming consoles, set-top boxes, and other devices to connect the Internet …

The latest attempt to make hyperlocal a sustainable reality came today with Allbritton Communications’ launch of TBD.com, a hyper metro site for the Washington, D.C., area. Allbritton, which has sunk “under $5 million” into the project to date, hopes it will grab hold of the D.C. audience in the same way that its Politico has …

Gannett’s local newspapers and TV stations will begin selling Yahoo inventory, considerably boosting the size of Yahoo’s local sales efforts. The deal, which involves 81 newspaper organizations and seven of its 23 TV stations, is similar to the efforts of Yahoo’s 800-member Newspaper Consortium.
But Gannett, notably, is staying separate from the Consortium. In part, Gannett …

Some speculation (and new details) about Apple’s pending and well-expected reboot of Apple TV found its way last week into The New York Times just before the holiday break. My guess is that the new and obvious name will be iTV and the functionality will mimic other Apple devices running its OS — iPod Touch, …

Today we announced our revised forecast for the television industry. Previously we had been somewhat more conservative in our estimates because it was difficult to read which way the economic winds were blowing. And while the first half of this year showed that the winds were moving in the industry’s favor, we also feel that …

DataSphere, which creates hyperlocal blogs and sells advertising packages to small businesses on behalf of local broadcasters, will now do the same for Gannett Broadcasting,
The deal initially covers ten of Gannett Broadcasting’s 19 markets, including Atlanta, Washington D.C., Tampa, Buffalo, Sacramento, Grand Rapids, Little Rock, Portland, ME and Macon, GA. Gannett is keeping the …

Daily deals are one of the hottest new areas for local advertising and promotions, with Groupon, Living Social and more than 150 other players rolling out their own versions. At least two companies, Click-N-Shout and Deal Current, are targeting local media companies as partners. Basically, they’ll provide the technical and logistical know-how, and the media …

CBS Local has launched an auto shopping guide on the Web site of WCCO-TV Minneapolis, using vertical content and services from High Gear Media, a Palo Alto, California-based auto specialist publisher launched two years ago by Daily Shopper founder Hesky Kutscher.
The CBS Local deal marks the first local effort for High Gear, which has 90 …

Local radio and television stations are in various stages of extending the broadcasting business model from traditional over-the-air to an array of digital platforms. This allows both new inventory with different attributes to be sold and a critical revenue growth path. How these digital incentives by broadcasting firms get resourced, managed, executed and evaluated …

DataSphere, a hyperlocal enabler and sales agent for local media companies, says that Northwest TV and radio giant Fisher Communications has now sold more than 1,000 hyperlocal advertisers using Datasphere’s neighborhood-specific content and sales system. The system is now in more than 43 neighborhoods served by Fisher TV stations in Seattle, 40 neighborhoods in Portland …

Zvents, the events lister, is reporting 35 percent year over year growth with over eight million unique visitors, largely due to its powering events for 285 local media brands, including  major newspapers and the NBC owned-and-operated TV stations.
CEO Ethan Stock cites Quantcast data showing Zvents Media Network as the 250th most used net on the …

By Steve Passwaiter and Rick Ducey
For broadcasters, it is an article of faith that “localism” is a point of differentiation that adds value to their operations. Localism tends to mean local news, sports, weather, traffic, local events, coverage of local government, and other promotional and volunteer involvement in the community. There’s a lot of chatter …

Digital media is more cannibalistic than complementary and is seriously eating into the demand for traditional news sources such as newspapers, TV and news magazines, according to the third annual survey of news users done by Outsell Inc.
The survey findings are based on almost 3,000 consumers and are fully detailed in Outsell’s “News Users 2009” …

At The Kelsey Group, we’ve come to appreciate that our new owner, BIAfn head Tom Buono, is a major strategist. While Buono’s roots are in the finance of traditional TV, radio and newspapers, he’s mostly thinking about their next steps in the Internet era — and the next steps for local media in general.
In an …

Earlier this week I went to hear an economist offer his take on the current economy and how soon it would recover. Long story short, I believe the speaker, who had outstanding credentials, was overly optimistic. (I really believe he may have been on vacation on some secluded island for the past year.) In fact, his …

Interactive television once vied with the Internet (and dedicated online services) as the best conduit for interactive content. That fell by the wayside in the mid-1990s.
Today, ITV solutions are largely limited to simpler Internet-like apps like photo collections, Yellow Pages search, customized weather, real estate and auto search, games and electronic program guides. Almost all …