Executive Session with Colleen Brown

Drilling Down To Find New Local Ad Rev

Fisher Communications CEO Colleen Brown explains how her company's TV stations are using hyperlocal websites to attract new advertisers -- over 1,000 so far -- anxious to reach customers on the neighborhood level. In fact, she's so enthusiastic that Fisher has invested in DataSphere Technologies, the firm that markets the online platform her stations use.
TVNewsCheck,

Last week at Borrell Associates' Local Online Advertising Conference in New York, Fisher Communications CEO Colleen Brown was honored as Innovator of the Year for the TV group's headlong plunge into hyperlocal online media.

Since last August, Fisher has launched more than 100 neighborhood sites in four of its TV station markets -- Seattle; Portland and Eugene, Ore.; Bakersfields, Calif.; and Boise, Idaho -- and brought more than 1,000 new advertisers into the fold.

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With her top online executive, Troy McGuire, and a capable online platform built by DataSphere Technologies, Brown intends to keep expanding the service to Fisher's four other TV markets and hundreds of more neighborhoods.

In this interview with TVNewsCheck Editor Harry A. Jessell, Brown talks about how Fisher hyperlocal got started, how it works and how nickels do add up.

(For NetNewsCheck.com's complete coverage of last week's Local Online Advertising Conference, where Fisher's Colleen Brown was honored for the company's hyperlocal online strategy, click here.)

An edited transcript:

Where did the idea for the hyperlocal sites come from and how long did it take to go from the idea to the marketplace?

It came out of our 2006 strategic plan. We identified that it would be hard to get bigger nationally, but that it would be easy for us to look inward and super-serve our markets. We didn't know what that meant yet. That was just an objective.

And how did you go from that objective to the launch last summer?

There were four riddles we needed to solve: The first was, how do we use more of the content that comes into the stations. We did a week's survey and we determined that approximately 80% of the material coming in couldn't be used because it was too narrow in scope. We were wasting a good portion of what we had.

In addition, we had all this long-tail stuff after 60-some years of TV broadcasting. We had a lot of information that we couldn't monetize.

The next point was how to use our existing staff to start moving into multiplatforming. So we had to change the mindset of most of our employees. You'd think it would be a big hurdle, but ultimately they've really embraced it and run with it. There has been a complete paradigm shift because they publish 24/7 now.

Then the last piece: In the past, we could not find a way to make these kinds of efforts monetizable, in part because the cost per sale was too great to dedicate any kind of real sales resources to it.

By working with DataSphere and its tele-sales operation, we've been able to solve these big riddles that were stumping us.

Tell me about DataSphere.

DataSphere is a three-year-old private company that developed technology for the global real estate market, for selling real estate through sites like LandWatch and ResortScape.

When I moved here, they asked me to be on their board and I joined to keep my Internet skills sharp. I wasn't in there very long before I realized their technology was a solution to our media problems. This is somebody that dealt with vast numbers of properties around the world just as we dealt with vast numbers of media stories from across our markets, not to mention across the years. They had found a way to bring order to it all in an affordable way, without a human touching it. So we just adapted their technology, applied it to media and we have been running with it ever since.

You mentioned that the advertising is sold through DataSphere's tele-marketing operation. How does that work?

They've got very informed sales people who are polished and respectful. They say they represent KOMO News and they're calling to talk to them about their Internet strategy and would they like to advertise on our neighborhood sites. The success rate in very high. Most of these advertisers don't even have a website. Many of these advertisers need help in developing their message.

It allows us to develop many advertisers who are clearly recognizing our brand, know we're not going anywhere and would like to do business with us.

You have more than 100 sites now. Are the sites profitable at this point?

Altogether, it is profitable. Some become profitable right away; others take a little more time. The hard thing is to understand when you come from mass media is that this is about literally rolling up the nickels. This is really about selling very small advertisers at price points they can afford, multiplied by more than 100 multiplied by 12 months. It's that exponential mass that makes it become meaningful.

What are the total revenues?

I can't say because we're a public company and I have not released that yet. We are certainly in the zone of profitability with no issue there. The size is meaningful enough that we have decided we are going to invest a small amount in DataSphere and participate more heavily in guiding the development of the product.

Continued on page 2…
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Comments (15) -

Brian Byrnes posted a year ago
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Colleen Brown is right on target with where all TV stations should be. Fisher has figured out how to have a product for the small local advertiser on the corner. While the small local advertiser doesn't mean much of and by himself/herself, when you compund their expenditure with several hundred like them, and then put a multiple to it, you have greatly enhanced the value of your operation.
heynow Nickname posted a year ago
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TV Stations are simply rearranging the deck chairs on thier own personal Titanic. Just like TV audiences, Internet audiences are getting more fragmented on a daily basis. TV station web revenue has been a disaster. Mostly it is reallocating money from Broadcast to the Internet to show an inflated revenue line. TV stations still mostly use banner ads and already antiquated Internet devices as their platform to advertisers. It is desperatiion and panic time in the TV Industry. Smaller audiences everyday, more accurate measurement, time shifted viewing, bad programming, more competition for the ad dollar and viewers are just a few reaons it will not recover. It is a mature business in decline, palin and simple. $25 Internet orders from a dry cleaner will not enhance the value or profitablilty of a large publicly traded media company.
Bonefish Nickname posted a year ago
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Sounds like someone has TV envy. I'll take my TV margin, growth and dominance over99.9% of others any day.
GoPrivate Nickname posted a year ago
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Interesting nothing referenced any success for the local advertisers. As mentioned above, the drill-down required for even a "noting" by a consumer is very deep and probably doesn't accomplish more than tactical goals. It doesn't take much for the local dry cleaner recoup a $25 investment, but it sure won't build the business exponentially. Broadcasters will always be in search of that additional revenue stream and bless them for trying to save the business but the internet is not the answer. In too many cases it is just robbing from Peter to pay Paul. While this plan doesn't do that it is focused in Ms. Brown's own words on nickles. I hope I am proved wrong, but don't count on it.
PSIPthing Nickname posted a year ago
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exponential growth on a $25 "investment"? sounds internally inconsistent
heynow Nickname posted a year ago
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What growth Bonefish? That is laughable. Almost every TV station In America has seen their revenues erode dramatically in the past 3 years. Media budgets are shifting their weight away from TV. Smaller advertisers can no longer donate to the cause. Your huge margins are losing ground and in the medium to smaller markets, it is a catastrophe.. How about stock values? Fisher was over $45 less than 3 years ago, now it is under $14. For so many years TV used inflation and the strength of simple supply and demand for their cartel as the catalyst for growth. Now LPM's are telling the real story. There is no longer a cartel and while TV was asleep at the wheel many others were taking a bite of their lunch. The party is long over. Businesses that go to their customers every year and ask for more money for less product usually don't have a bright future. Niche marketing and it's rapid growth will be the next huge threat to TV.
Bonefish Nickname posted a year ago
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Sorry pal, but you've been drinking the cool-aid. Television revenues have not dropped any more than other businesses in this economy and are now rebounding nicely. Stock prices suffer largely because many companies overpaid for properties, but they doesn't mean that the properties themselves are not producing nice returns. I'm sorry that you take such joy in the death of a great industry, but you ran to the obituary section too soon!
heynow Nickname posted a year ago
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I never ran an obituary or take any joy in anything. I just state facts. The business will always exist. It is simply overly mature and in rapid decline. The industry is constricting. Newspeople are being let go, there are shared service agreements and other forms of consolidation occuring all of the time. That will never reverse itself. Companies are overleveraged, audiences are shrinking and advertisers have new and more innovative choices everyday. Find me one market in America where the aggregate Broadcast TV ratings are higher now than they were two years ago. It does not exist. Face it, it is not a growth industry. The reason the stock prices are declining in the Industry is not what you stated but the fact that there is no growth. That is what drives stock prices. Just being profitable does not cut it for a public company. What does that tell you about the collective wisdom of the people running these media companies when they overpay for properties and had no idea what the future looked like? Do you think they are equipped to now face the intense challenges on the horizon? You obviously have a vested interest in the Industry doing well but pure emotion often times conflicts with critical, unbiased reasoning. Selling $25 Internet ads in a 140 billion dollar US Advertising Market does not even scratch the surface of the problem.
Bonefish Nickname posted a year ago
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See, that's the problem with the internet and why it will never be a believable medium. Any yahoo (ironic, isn't it!) can print anything without regards to facts and not have to answer to anyone for it. Yes, I can show you not just one market where the aggregate broadcast TV ratings are higher today than 2 years ago, but I can show you many. I'm retired now and because of the broadcast industry, I can afford to sit around and agrue with "niche" marketers who seem to have plenty of time on their hands, for some reason. The only statement that you make that is credible is in the first sentence: "I...take no joy in anything."
heynow Nickname posted a year ago
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Correction, I take lots of joy in many things, just no joy in seeing something fail.
heynow Nickname posted a year ago
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Do you always resort to name calling and trying to insult people? Are you incapable of reasoning with people that you simply disagree with? That is not exactly a sign of an intelligent person from my experience. You sound bitter, I hope you aren't. What market has higher broadcast ratings than 2 years before? I cannot wait to hear your answer.
AlwaysAdapting Nickname posted a year ago
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Bonefish, not only you are "Old Guard", you are what we call "CyberRoadKill". On today's multiplatform media and tomorrow's narrowcasting world, you would not have a chance.
Margie Albert posted a year ago
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What an interesting interchange. While television audiences are fragmenting it is refrreshing to see broadcasters taking steps to directly connect advertisers to users. We have a long way to go including focusing on the customer's success and developing ads that serve the users. Shifting Yellow Page $'s to a listing type ad online is not going to augment the user or advertiser experience but they are on the right track. I'd be interested in interviewing some of their advertisers and visitors and working with them to enhance their experience on these hyper-local sites. Cheers to Colleen for her efforts.
sdotraffic Nickname posted a year ago
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I’m glad to see that Fisher is at least going down that road. TV has the impact to move viewers to the web; and web video is the fastest category out there now. We just reviewed a new local sales program from Getty Adverting out of San Diego. Getty’s hyper-local sales initiative drives viewers to a local video portal that allows the drycleaner, salons and small business access to not just the station sites, but on air exposure. Keep up the good work Colleen!
heynow Nickname posted a year ago
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Exellent strategy, drive people from your TV station to the Internet so they can find a phone number for a dry cleaner. Trading dollars for pennies. No wonder why the business is in such trouble, it is because there are so many small minded, slow witted thinkers involved. "Leave our TV station right now, run to your computer and watch a small monitor so we can slap a 15 second pre-roll of Larry's Diner in front of you". TV sations have run from the challenges of their core business. Too much focus on the small stuff. Google, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft have not even scratched the surface of what they will do with their Internet Advertising revenue capabilities. Google and Craigslist were created in garages while major media conglomerates sat on their hands. Wait until Hulu and other Web TV sites start inserting local and regional ads. TV stations have really never embraced the fact that they are in the Advertising business. It has always been reactionary by nature with little or no vision at all. They used to be able to sit back and count the money. Those good old days are long gone and will never return. Creativity is not hiring a sub contracted sales force to sell $25 ads on secondary TV websites. I am still waiting for Bonefish to supply me with the names of the Markets where Broadcast ratings have grown in the past 2 years.

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