Fisher Communications, a big TV and radio group in the Northwest, has long made its embrace of new technologies part of its image. The publicly-traded company acquired Pegasus News, a city guide site; and prepared a major Web-based rollout of social services and small business marketing effort.
But then it seemed to retreat last year, selling off Pegasus to Gap Broadcasting, and apparently limiting its own plans to work with SMBs to partner with DataSphere, a vendor that would use Fisher’s brands and content, but supply its own technology and call centers. Retreat or not, the effort with DataSphere is among the most significant Internet efforts in the broadcast world.
Fisher CEO Colleen Brown, keynoting at BIA/Kelsey’s Digital Strategies for Broadcasters conference in Jersey City, NJ, said that it is all about being “scaleable and monetizeable.”
Pegasus’ City Guide model wasn’t the right solution for Fisher, she said, but provided useful lessons. “We learned that all of our digital efforts need to be interoperable” and operate on an “all-in-one platform.
The DataSphere partnership, which has sold ad packages to over 1,000 SMBs in Seattle, Portland and Boise, is a better fit. “There is a real desire for affordable advertising in our marketplaces that is attached to our brand,” said Brown.
Sales are made from a DataSphere call center, and offer subscription-based, turnkey solutions for rates ranging from $35 for a 6 month directory deal to $60,000 to reach all of Seattle. “We are rolling up the nickels,” she says, adding that KOMO-TV Seattle really didn’t have a product to sell to SMBs before.
Part of the appeal to SMBs is that the site reaches people at the hyperlocal, or “neighborhood site” level. There are now 124 neighborhood sites in its markets after less than a year. While promotion has been minimal as the kinks get worked out, advertisers are leveraging a full circle of information. This includes blogs, news content and vertical content from The Buzz, a Fisher-owned and operated site based in Orlando, Fla.
“The neighborhood sites have become our big “aha,’” says Brown, noting that the company plans to launch “real promotion” of the efforts this summer.