US: Florida paper to launch vodcast

Posted by Diana Epstein on March 29, 2006 at 3:03 PM

For the small community of Naples, very local news will be accessible on a variety of platforms including TV, the Internet, podcasts, PSP and mobile phones. The Daily News, in collaboration with Comcast, will debut a 15-minute Internet and TV news program titled "Studio 55” that will focus on local news.

Most TV news stations cover larger communities in their news broadcasts but Studio 55 hopes to focus their programs on smaller communities. It plans to break away from the traditional local newscast although the production value will be on “par with programming from national networks,” said Rob Curley, Director of New Media and Convergence for the Naples, Fla., Daily News. The program is set to air live at 4 p.m and again with updates at 6 p.m, with rebroadcasts at 4:15 and 6:15.

"Naples needs its own newscast. If you were going to grow a newscast from scratch, you might not do it the way it's been done for decades because you can take into account that the technology has changed and will continue to evolve," said Curley.

The newspaper has hired a team of graphic artists, producers and journalists, including multimedia journalist Denise Spidle, who will anchor the program. Programs will be made available on demand and will be archived.

"The show will introduce a new type of newscast on the Internet and a unique partnership with Comcast. We are also very excited because 'Studio 55' will provide more news and content about Collier County through video than any other source in our region," says John Fish, the Daily News' publisher.

As newspapers continue to lose audiences to other media platforms that are timelier and portable, the idea of Studio 55 is to give readers their local news how they want it, where they want it and when they want it.

Source: Poynter Online