Wilmington is close enough to Philadelphia (and even Baltimore) that it doesn’t have its own local TV news broadcasts. So the smart folks at DelawareOnline, the website of the Wilmington News Journal, decided to create a twice-daily local news webcast that’s roughly three minutes long.
The production qualities are good; the delivery is by a TV news veteran, and the camera work is done by print photographers or freelance video videographers. “We thought it was very important to hire personnel with a broadcast background to ensure a high degree of professionalism,” said Michael Maness, online services director at DelawareOnline.
Each webcast is produced in a little more than an hour (excluding some background production work). An online producer coordinates the video clips, manages the anchor, and coordinates with the newsroom, Maness said.
“We chose Flash as our presentation format due to recent advancements and that it allowed for interactivity with the viewers,” he said. “Our goal was to exceed the expectations of our online users and provide a news stream from the future today.”
Incredibly, he added, “90 percent of the users during the preview watched the entire webcast. We will have a much better idea of the use after the next two to three weeks.”
It’s also worth noting that each webcast has several brief commercials. The advertisers aren’t necessarily the same businesses that advertise with the printed newspaper, either. Some are businesses that traditionally have advertised on TV. Selling ad spots to those businesses is easier, Maness said, because the advertisers understand the video format, and already have ads prepared for broadcast.
