knowDigital Study Looks At News Media's Local News Websites

New Study

A new study by knowDIGITAL looks at the reasons local news websites of television stations and newspapers fail to succeed.  The "Quick Look" study, "Challenges in News Migration to Digital Media," interviewed news media users in PHILADELHIA, RALEIGH-DURHAM, and WASHINGTON and found, among other things, that most online news sites are not getting credit for "the images that matter most to the online news consumer"; Page views are the wrong primary metric to use to evaluate the sites, since it doesn't measure consumer engagement or brand image; Consumers want more from sites than reformatted stories from other media; The sites are viewed by consumers as utilities; and since users have not yet formed a "deep connection" with the sites, they don't form bonds with other vertical or sub-brands at the sites.

"Most online news sites have failed to take ownership of the images that are most important to online news consumers," said knowDIGITAL President SAM MILKMAN, author of the study.  "These sites would benefit from a greater understanding of the images that matter most to their target consumers--whether it's top headlines, traffic, weather, sports, deeper analysis, local events or some other offering--and greater focus on these attributes both on the sites themselves and in how they are marketed."

A summary report and a video presentation are available for free at knowDigital.com.

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