NewsProNet provides premium video content for health and personal finance on local media sites
Local media sites looking for well-executed, generic, video content in areas like health and personal finance may want to look at NewsProNet.
The company launched both HealthDayTV and MainStreet Money Minute in 2009, and is partnering with local media sites who want to monetize the channels and include additional, localized content.
HealthDayTV, the first internet service, offers a five-day-a-week video program that is shown on 150 local media sites, mostly broadcast, through partnerships with large companies like Tribune and Belo.
MainStreetMoneyMinute is a slick three minutes of pointers like “how to cook a gourmet meal for a family of four for under $25″. By focusing on every daily consumer issues, the channel attract visitors--especially women--adjusting to reduced personal budgets, and the advertisers who cater to them.
The channel is co-produced by MainStreet.com, a consumer finance site owned by TheStreet.com, If that name sounds familiar, it should; that site is co-owned and heavily branded by MadMoney’s Jim Kramer, the Crazy Eddy of cable stock-pickers. TheStreet also owns RealMoney.com, Stockpicker.com, BankingMyWay.com and Rate-Watch.com.
“The show takes on consumer pocketbook issues with actionable tips,” said Kent J. Krizik, president of NewsProNet. A demo of the show covers stories like “6 tips to save $400 a month;" "how to cut your cell phone bill in half" and how to buy and care for a pet on the cheap. The video host is Alix Steel, a reporter for theStreet.
Miami-based NewsProNet also syndicates content for television stations the likes of ABC and NBC, claiming its shows reach 50% of U.S. households. It moved into local online video syndication last year, chasing a growing market of internet users who watch video.
The short video segments air several times a week; a revenue share model allows national ads on pre-rolls, overlays and display ads, as well as locally sold advertising and sponsorships. Both channels are already launched on 300 broadcast sites owned by companies including WorldCast and Broadcast Interactive Media.
NewsProNet is also looking for print partners (it was in talks with a regional newspaper chain that owns 40 plus dailies and weeklies, who called after reading a story on this site.)
On the philosophy behind the two channels: “The hot topics have always been consumer related. Health has been high interest on the consumer side followed by pocket book issues. Given the financial struggles this country and the world are going through, consumer finance is even more relevant,” Krizik said.
“Our target market is the same as HealthDayTV: Women in the 18 to 54 range. These issues are even more germane to them given the recession. We deliver stories with take-aways that consumers can do something with. It’s not about investing or picking stocks.”
The financial show covers everything from dry-cleaning at home to watching television free online (killing two birds with one stone). The "how to make a gourmet meal" on the cheap, sucked in this reviewer.
Krizik says the market for the personal finance site is more consumer than finance-oriented.
“Initially we thought local banks and financial institutions were going to be (our advertisers), but we market the show as a place for finding savings, so what really makes more sense is the local food store and local drug stores. It’s not about banking or stocks, its about day-to-day life and house-hold budgeting. And it’s the female making most of the purchasing decisions.”
NewsProNet markets and distribute the three-story-per-week “MainStreet Money Minute” video report to local websites — so far all owned by TV stations — for use online and on-air on a market-exclusive basis — as well as other online news sites and pure-play web portals focused on consumer finance news.
So what channels are next? Two more verticals are in the plans for 2010.
The author, Alisa Cromer is publisher of a variety of online media, including LocalMediaInsider and MediaExecsTech, developed while on a fellowship with the Reynolds Journalism Institute and which has evolved into a leading marketing company for media technology start-ups. In 2017 she founded Worldstir.com, an online magazine, to showcases perspectives from around the world on new topic each month, translated from and to the top five languages in the world.
Keywords
newspronet, review, jim kramer, kent j krizik, alix steel, newspronet, thestreet,
