Learning the innovation of American cable TV website

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With the development of Internet and new media technology, the current competition in the Global TV field has entered into the era of the pursuit of real-time news and interaction with audiences. After 2006 years of overall audience decline, CNN began to pick up its audience since 2007, and competition from CNN, Fox News and MSNBC has been extended to the Internet to continue to attract audiences in new areas, To achieve the operating breakthrough.

In traditional cable television, Fox News has been the ratings champion in recent years and CNN followed and narrowed the gap, with MSNBC ratings being third but larger. Three cable news channels have established a highly developed web site, these sites have developed into a real multimedia terminal, have a video database, RSS subscription function, can log on through mobile devices, but also provide streaming media content.

However, due to the different competitive features of the Internet and traditional viewing areas, their ranking in the Internet field is inconsistent with the traditional ratings, and MSNBC and CNN have an advantage over the amount of site visits, while the fox is slightly behind. Although MSNBC ranks third in the medium and long term for television ratings, MSNBC has been the most popular web site in the area of cable television, providing the most video content and blog content. CNN has the most podcast providers in the Web. Fox has the most exposure on social networking sites because its parent owns MySpace sites.

Basic situation of three big cable TV websites

1.MSNBC

MSNBC, which has positioned itself as an exclusive online channel with original news, has been one of the most visited news sites since its inception in 1996, surpassing the Web sites of all other cable networks. With the help of Microsoft's technical power, NBC integrates various news reporting resources including NBC network, Dateline NBC, and maintains the management architecture independent of Microsoft and NBC News.

2008 MSNBC established its new website tenet: "A more comprehensive news vision". Driven by management, MSNBC has made two major redesign of the layout and appearance of the site since November 2007, adjusting the layout of the home page several times. The direction of multiple adjustments is to emphasize the promotion of video and photo content, and to make the navigation function of the site more convenient and practical; however, the characteristics of its classification organization essence has not changed, content categories including sports, weather, politics, entertainment and other, breaking news are prominently displayed at the top of the page.

In terms of content sources, about half of MSNBC's content comes from external sources, as well as a small number of news outlets from major countries, with only a handful of reports produced by NBC News or the MSNBC team. Like other major cable news Web sites, MSNBC offers mobile devices a moving version of the site.

2.CNN

CNN is also an entity that operates independently of television channels, and as CNN's main web site, CNN is one of three websites run by CNN for American audiences, and the other two are ireport and CNNMoney, The ireport is a newly-split website from CNN dedicated to users sharing original content.

In May 2007, CNN contracted with internet broadcasting BAE (IBS) and, under the agreement, IBS provided CNN with local news and event information (linked to local television stations) in return for CNN provides domestic news and political news to IBS websites. The deal is seen as a way for traditional media to gain online advertising on the internet.

Most of CNN's content is made by its own team of employees. On the basis of the original CNN team, in November 2008, CNN formed a new CNN news agency, which provides content primarily for local and regional newspapers. CNN news content can also be obtained by mobile phones and PDAs, and in March 2007, CNN Mobile started operating independently of the site, providing news tips, photos and streaming video to users in breaking news events.

3.Foxnews

Fox's network access has been relatively small because of the backing of powerful portals, such as Microsoft MSNBC, or strong brands such as CNN, whose growing number of visits can be seen as a boost for its original audience. In keeping with Mr Murdoch's strategic revaluation, News Corp has begun to focus more on digital content over the past three years, including Hulu and Fox News groups, which compete with YouTube. Fox News Digital Group signed an agreement with the Marvin Network (Maven NX) in September 2007 to improve the quality of broadband video; Marvin Web links more videos to its web site, linking the Fox News TV Library to the web for users to browse.

Fox also provides a mobile version of its Web site where users can get live video or edited video content on a mobile device. Like CNN, Fox consolidates user submissions on a page called "Ureport." Fox's layout, in many ways, looks like a tabloid, similar to the New York Post, an American newspaper under its parent company News Corp, which is also a combination of external feeds and employee originality.

Market performance of three big cable TV websites

CNN and MSNBC are at the forefront of the list of Web sites with the largest number of visitors to the big three cable networks, all growing in 2008. The following table is the monitoring data of three research institutes for the three major cable television sites in 2008.

Table: The audience status of the three major cable TV websites in 2008

MSNBC has been one of the most visited news sites in the United States. According to Nielsen Online, 2008, the site's monthly independent visit (unique visitors per month) reached 39 million, leading all other news sites as sources. Fox in the audience size is significantly behind, almost the first two one-third. Hitwise data does not compute the amount of traffic, but to the Web site attracted by the internet flow ranking; According to Hitwise rankings, CNN surpassed MSNBC as the second most popular news class site in 2008, after Yahoo News network.

MSNBC looks stronger in terms of the number of visitors to the site at the peak of news events. In addition, in a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center in August 2008, 10% per cent of respondents mentioned that MSNBC was its most recognizable online news source, with 7% of the most recognised fox, indicating that although the latter was lagging behind, it had reached a higher level of visibility. ①

Leveraging social networking sites to expand impact and interact

Since 2008, CNN has benefited a lot from the outbreak of social-networking sites. MSNBC, CNN, and Fox all open pages in social networking sites like Facebook and derive benefits from them. Although only about 10% per cent of people claim to have access to news information via social networking sites, the number has been growing, especially among the young people who are coveted by broadcasters and advertisers. In the 2008, 10% or so people claimed to have been getting news from social networking sites, listening to or watching late-night comedy shows. ②

Like its competitors, MSNBC expanded its network business in 2008. Although its Facebook page is less profitable than other sites, MSNBC attaches great importance to upgrading its digital technology. On Facebook, MSNBC promotes news-themed games and Plug-ins to its users, catering to users ' different habits of receiving news. In addition, MSNBC has collaborated with News Corp's MySpace.

Fox has been in the lead for years in a new round of integration with social networking sites to catch up with rivals. Fox's Facebook page is one of the most popular pages on all of the cable news Web sites. Its profile page provides video clips from Fox News channels that users can share and paste into their own pages. ③ in August 2008, there were more than 20,000 "fans" online on Facebook's Fox page, when CNN was 6700 people and MSNBC had only 600. ④foxnews average user age of 23 years, is in line with the value of cable news channels and advertisers have a valuable demographic characteristics; This is particularly important for Fox News Channel, which has a larger audience than the other two competitors, and it needs to attract younger audiences. ⑤

When rivals were "settled" on more sophisticated social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace, CNN's TV names collaborated with Twitter, the new website, in 2008. TV celebrity Rick Sanchez used social networking tools on one afternoon in the "Go to Rick Sanchez" program. He encourages users to contact him via Twitter, and he has repeatedly read Twitter comments on the show and encouraged people to engage in communication. The introduction of Twitter produced some two-way reaction, "it seems too radical for me," said former CBS News producer Sam Roberts, "but the news industry has to continue, which may be the way it might go." "⑥ is a popular feature among technology enthusiasts, and in a few months, Sanchez has been able to reach more than 10,000 viewers on Twitter," he said.

Heavy quantity and technology, compete for online video leader

For the cable news website, how to use its large number of video products to establish a new value growth point, become an important topic of website operation. All three cable news networks use their Web sites as the second broadcast platform for television content, and there are a significant number of copyrighted videos behind each website, but it is not easy to move them online. MSNBC has a leading edge on the number of video-on-demand videos on the site, but CNN and Fox are more successful on live video.

For online video-on-demand, MSNBC has a leading position in the number of video links and the number of times viewed. In the December 2007, MSNBC, which attaches importance to web technology development, pioneered a video-playback plug-in that can be implanted into users ' blogs and websites, quickly exceeding all competitors in the number of videos. According to Nielsen's data, the video on MSNBC hit 125.7 million watched records in March 2008. ⑦

But on the online streaming media, MSNBC has relatively few content, and CNN and Fox provide live video links all day.

Fox has almost as much video content as CNN, including streaming live content, but it cannot lead the way in the adoption of new Web applications, and therefore has not been able to perform more prominently.

In early 2008, CNN opened the exclusive web channel CNN TV, including some original content and some exclusive signing of the host hosted the program. In the same year, MSNBC and Fox collaborated with Hulu, a joint owned by NBC Universal and News Corp, to bring more video users to the site via Hulu, a video-sharing platform that CNN's parent company does not have on Hulu because it does not hold a stake in Hulu.

Functional modules such as podcasts (Podcasts), micro-sites (microsites) and blogs all appear on these three sites. Television sites can use podcasts to publish audio or video based on TV content online. Podcasts allow users to tune in to a customized news or video clip. CNN, which leads the way, has three times times as many podcasts as its rivals, with a full podcast area on its homepage, and audio and video are easy to find. CNN Night host Anderson Cooper's podcast has been among the top of itunes's download rankings.

Make good use of content submitted by website users, pay attention to real-time broadcast

The main pages of the three cable news websites highlight the words "breaking news" to show the features of live news coverage and live news. Live TV clips can be seen from the site on the same day or on the other days, but most TV news is not live news, and some TV news programs, even when aired on the Internet, are somewhat outdated, which is a modest embarrassment for online news channels. Some unexpected incidents, television network personnel can not be rushed to the scene shooting.

Therefore, the online news channel to users of original video is particularly important. The video produced and submitted by website users appears prominently in the TV news website, and has become a common phenomenon. TV News websites use the original video frequently in the time of breaking news, for the website can obtain the competitive video content, and do not need to spend their own human and material resources. Of course, these original videos must be reviewed by a professional editorial staff before they are released or aired to prevent problems.

The three cable news sites offer different labels for the videos that the public uploads, allowing them to display and archive them on the appropriate channel or location of the site. The ireport from CNN allows anyone to upload a video, keep getting all kinds of bursts of news video, and then the editor picks up the video, places it on the appropriate area of the site, and some of it is recommended to the homepage of the site. Some of the most interesting content will also be chosen to play on TV channels. In April 2007, the Virginia Institute of Technology shocked the entire United States campus shootings, CNN from a student in the hands of a video of the incident, so that the channel has a first-hand image of the incident, the event became a landmark event in the civil news debate. According to CNN, the incident has made it three times times as much traffic as it has on weekdays. Thereafter, MSNBC's sister media NBC News claimed that it had taken a video from the murderer that he had prepared for the shooting, and NBC News aired an edited version of the video in its evening news section and posted the full version on MSNBC (including television channels and websites). After the TV channel stopped broadcasting, the video could be viewed online and eventually appeared on the video-sharing site.

In addition to the video submitted by the user, users can submit text content to the Web site, but the attempt is likely to be challenged by the transformation of citizen news into a trusted news brand. October 2008, CNN's ireport was uploaded a prank report, said Apple CEO Steve Jobs heart attack, the spread of the report led to Apple's shares plunged. CNN quickly deleted the report and issued a statement stressing that the ireport report was not made by CNN employees. The user submissions from MSNBC's "One" and "Ureport" of Fox are only appearing within their respective websites, ⑧ managers tend to be cautious about managing user submissions after the Apple Computer incident.

Summary

Three U.S. cable television sites in the Internet has appeared in the field of different competition with the traditional viewing area. Based on the importance of video, MSNBC attaches importance to the development and application of advanced technology, coupled with the effective use of social networking sites, it is lagging behind in the traditional viewing area to become the Internet field of the strong. MSNBC, CNN, Fox three websites although each have short but each yang its long, their nearly three years of competitive development is to show the TV media website in the Internet and new media technology rapid development of the new era, and constantly adapt to the drastic changes in the new communication environment, continuous innovation, continuous breakthrough process.