Change in Internet Broadcasting Leadership Highlights Broadcast Network Growth
Important Details: Internet Broadcasting, an 11-year-old company that powers a network of 77 local broadcast station websites, announced a change at the top. David Lebow was named CEO, replacing Reid Johnson, a founder of the company. Lebow comes to the company from AOL Media Networks, where he served as executive vice president and general manager.
The move signals a certain maturing of the broadcast website marketplace. Johnson, a veteran of venerable Twin Cities broadcaster WCCO-TV, started Internet Broadcasting in 1996, focusing on getting verbatim transcripts on the air. Now it has grown dramatically, claiming Top 10 status among news sites and building out its business recently in a flurry of national partnership announcements. In recent months, it has:
- signed an agreement with Monster to launch it into the recruitment business;
- signed an agreement with Pluck to launch it into the user-generated content business;
- signed an agreement with CNN, to share both content and ad sales.
The CNN deal also creates a new “roll-up” traffic number, under “CNN Digital Networks,” including IBS websites. That roll-up has already enabled CNN to surpass MSNBC in May Nielsen//NetRatings standings and find itself within striking distance of the No. 1 site, Yahoo! News.
IBS hasn’t gotten a lot of publicity, but has managed to build a noteworthy business, working closely with owner broadcaster partners, including Hearst Argyle, Post-Newsweek, McGraw-Hill Broadcasting, and now CNN. The company has grown in three stages, Reid Johnson told Outsell. First, it built out a set of content, harnessing local news from stations and adding the basics of weather, sports, stocks – what Johnson calls the “daily minimum vitamin requirement.” Then, having built enough traffic, it built out local sales, enabling broadcast partners to do local sales. Third, it’s embraced the network approach, and now has a team of more than 50 selling and supporting those sales. “We didn’t see it coming, but the network revenue started to flow as we reached 70% of the country.” The key, says Johnson, is that IBS was able to get competitive broadcasters to drop their shoulders and agree to work together, using “an agnostic platform.” While IBS’ affiliates are mostly found one per metro area, Johnson points to Orlando, where it produces three sites, each separately owned, as a symbol of how the approach can work well.
Implications: TV broadcasters took more time than newspaper publishers getting online and investing substantial resources on the web. That made sense: they were less threatened by the internet classified revolution and had less content to put online. Now, with increasing attention to online video, broadcasters have a new reason to embrace the internet. Companies like IBS, as well as World Now and Broadcast Interactive Media, make that transition easier. Broadcasters don’t have to re-invent the wheel of content and ad management, as newspaper publishers have largely done company by company. As Reid Johnson sees it, talking of publishers, “The problem is that they haven’t been able to work together.”
For news publishers, the lessons here are clear. More than ever, it’s about scale, networks and efficient, shared platforms. That’s clearly where the Yahoo! newspaper consortium agreement fits, though it is in its infancy and only covers about a third of the industry. It’s worth watching what broadcasters are doing – in fact many of these outlets are owned by combined newspaper/TV companies – and remembering that the strides that they make today make them more formidable competitors for local readers and advertisers tomorrow.