Local TV stations are eager to step into closing newspapers' shoes

Closure of a newspaper means broadcasters in that market no longer have a traditional source of story ideas for later-in-the-day newscasts.

Hofstra University's journalism chair and former television journalist Bob Papper has been quoted to say, “There are any number of markets where newspapers don't set the news agenda.”

Instead, local television stations are stepping over one another to fill the newspapers' shoes.

Broadcasting & Cable deputy editor Michael Malone writes that Detroit's Fox-owned-and-operated WJBK station is sending out a 6 a.m. e-newsletter to inboxes hoping to replace the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News, both which have gone from daily home delivery to thrice a week.

As newspapers continue to ring up giant losses—Gannett, for one, saw its publishing revenue plummet 27% in the first quarter—it's the perfect time for stations to grab market share from their beleaguered print brethren. Some station sales staffs have been working local papers' demise into their sales pitches. . . .

“It's early to forecast, but we're already experiencing a revenue increase in broadcast,” says [WJBK general manager Jeff] Murri of Detroit's newspaper retrenchment. Retail outlets that relied on papers to promote date-specific sales, he says, still need to get the word out in a timely fashion.

Some CBS-owned stations have reorganized their creative services departments to help lure advertisers from newspapers. The departments pre-produce commercials featuring a potential advertiser to show the client how its goods look on television. “With newspapers shrinking, it's a good time to dig deeper in terms of where you get your accounts,” says WCBS New York President/General Manager Peter Dunn. “It's really helped us a lot.”

More here.

Also see: Detroit's newspapers cut home delivery from daily to thrice a week
And: Broadcast stations enlist college students as citizen reporters
And: Indian TV station offers prizes to citizen journalists for "news reality" programming

Can selling news via the Web save the newspapers?

Should selling news on the Web be the grail of America's newspapers?

Less than a month after Aspen president Walter Isaacson called on media organizations to stop giving away content via the Web, Michael Hoyt of the Columbia Journalism School expresses confidence that "the recession won't last forever."

Mr. Hoyt, who edits the Columbia Journalism Review, as quoted by CBS:

A complicating factor is papers offering their content on their Web sites — content they might want to charge for, but that people are used to getting for free. "About ten years ago," Hoyt says, "newspapers around the country made what amounts to an historic mistake. They believed it would be wrong to charge extra for online customers, and thought they could rely on advertisers for all their revenue.”

Now, he adds, the consensus is shifting. “You can sort of feel it moving toward, ‘Maybe we should sell our content.’ It’s an unknown (whether that could work). Content’s gotta be good enough to buy.”

The New York Times had been charging for online access to its columnists, but has stopped that, for now at least. Newsday is reportedly readying to charge readers for online content. If it catches on, it would create a model. But the jury's still out on whether people will pay for something they're used to getting for free. In the meantime, they have to hope the money will come from more traditional sources.

Also read, "Stop giving away content via Web"