TV stations: Using social media more, streaming newscasts less

April 15, 2010 · Filed Under Business Bytes, Future of Media

TV newsrooms are using social media more and increasingly becoming profitable, but fewer stations are streaming entire newscasts online now, according to the new RTDNA/Hoftra University study of television, radio and online.

Some highlights from the study related to online, via Poynter’s Al Tompkins:

Use of social media

It is no surprise that TV newsrooms are covering and using social media more. But the study found that only 20 percent of TV newsrooms have a Facebook page.

The study found that newsrooms with bigger staffs are more likely to be involved with Twitter. Here’s the breakdown of how actively TV newsrooms use Twitter:

Constantly — 36 percent
Daily — 35 percent
Periodically — 16 percent
Not at all — 13 percent

TV station Web sites

Papper’s study says that while TV stations are increasingly including audio and video on their Web sites, many are cutting online features that have not proven to be attractions. For example, far fewer stations are streaming entire newscasts online now.

“It’s maturing and not growing,” Papper said. “Every year we have seen TV Web sites get more and more complex, but this year that’s changed. It looks to me like a maturing. Stations have settled in on what they are doing. This may be that the stations are saying this does not work for me, it is not worth the effort.”

The most common online elements for TV Web sites are, according to the study:

Text, stills and video — 90 percent
Blogs, live cameras and audio — 60 percent
Streaming audio, recorded newscasts — more than 30 percent

Who works on TV stations’ Web sites

Overall, 2.8 full-time staffers and 4.5 part-time staffers work on TV Web sites. This does not vary much from market to market.

An estimated 71 percent of stations surveyed say newsroom staffers help with Web-related work. This percentage has gone up every year since the survey started tracking this data, and it increased by 10 percent in the last year alone.

Nearly half of all news directors don’t know what their Web site traffic is. “You’ve got to know the metrics of what you are doing,” Papper said.

TV Web site profitability

35 percent are profitable (This number has been rising even in the Great Recession.)
7 percent are breaking even.
14 percent are losing money.
43 percent don’t know.

Papper: Radio news does not make much use of social media

Only 1 percent of radio newsrooms have a Facebook page, while 37 percent say neither the station nor the newsroom has a Facebook page.

The study also found that 73 percent of radio newsrooms do nothing on Twitter. “This is all about staff size,” Papper said. “If you had a staff of three or more, you were involved in a number of social networking things. If you did not hit that magic number you were not involved.”

Almost all radio stations have a Web site that includes news, but a surprising number do not include newscasts or news story audio on their sites. The study found that 60 percent of sites include text, 20 percent include recorded newscasts and podcasts, and just under 10 percent include news video.

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