The photo is of a local TV station news car. The station issues this little buggies to reporters in the “cheaper, but more of them” idea of news gathering. I won’t argue the idea. I will, however, use it to point out a lack of forward thinking.
This car is a roving billboard advertisement that the station is paying for regardless. I know that the sides of the car have the stations call letters and the channel number. But let’s see what is missing.
The tag line “The Bay Area’s News Station”: this shows a limit right off the top. Why are they the news station of just the Bay Area? I want news from the whole planet, don’t I? “Station” tells me they are TV only. Again, limiting. Having an internet presence is cheap. Most stations already pay for it, they just don’t utilize it well.
What I recommend for this station, and stations like them, is to stop limiting their reach, their output and their potential audience. One person on the Assignment Desk could easily update a website during the day. It doesn’t have to be much but it would demonstrate to the audience that you are a news operation, not a TV operation. And when I say “update”, I mean give people news, not teases. “Heavy Rain expected in the next hour”, not “Boy is it raining! Skippy will have the numbers at 6!” In fact, if it’s a weather news day, Skippy should be doing the updating...hourly. It takes 5 minutes....the time it takes to read ShopTalk. And where will that audience go at 6, do ya think. And for the “nobody makes money off the internet” managers, two things: You are most likely paying for this already and just wasting the money. And stop thinking about today. It’s what killed the newspapers.
As far as being “The Bay Area’s News Station”, how about “The News Source”. The “Period” is implied.

FACTOID:
Since 2006, the proportion of Americans who say they get news online at least three days a week has increased from 31% to 37%. About as many people now say they go online for news regularly...as say they regularly watch cable news (39%); substantially more people regularly get news online than regularly watch one of the nightly network news broadcasts (37% vs. 29%)
Pew Research

Tags: Pew