NBC to use newspaper archives in supplemental education website

Posted by Mica Swyers on June 14, 2007 at 3:40 PM

NBC plans to incorporate newspaper articles chronicling important historical events in its projected website iCue, intended as a preparatory supplement to the College Board’s Advanced Placement exams in English, government, and US History.

Although the website will mostly focus on the network’s own film and video archives, print articles will be used to address issues and events from before the creation of NBC News. According to Chief Financial Officer, Adam Jones, The Washington Post has agreed to provide some of its content, and the network hopes to reach a similar arrangement with The New York Times.

Because iCue is eventually intended to be a source of revenue for NBC, which hopes to form a long-lasting relationship with students as media consumers, newspaper involvement in the website could prove both lucrative and advantageous for attracting readers from online.

“We recognize when we look at our broadcast platforms that teenagers don’t get their news from there,” said Jones. However, attempts to reach out to this fickle demographic such as iCue are not restricted to the broadcast industry. Time magazine offers articles for classroom instruction, and the New York Times runs a long-established newspaper-in-education program.

Source: The New York Times