Healthy content jumps category revenues at Paducah, Ky station

Market: Western Kentucky, 500,000 population, up to 5000 monthly unique visitors to WPSDLocal6.com

Key executives: Sara Droke, Manager of Digital Media and Business Development, WPSD; Michael Schuch, VP, Product Development, Broadcast Interactive Media (BIM)

Initiative: Creating GetActiveToday, a two sponsor turnkey multi-media health news channel, in addition to the existing Family Health initiative.

Challenge: WSPD already had successful medical-oriented "ask an expert" programing, Family Health, in which experts in knee surgery to colorectal cancer pay to participate in the interview segments and receive SEO-oriented profiles on the WSPD web site.

For GetActiveToday, station's team wanted to create new revenues from a program that had more frequent online news and trendier topics, focused more on staying healthy than on treating diseases.

Strategy: A soft-news "stay healthy"  channel is the kind of six-figure opportunity that broadcast sites are good at spotting and seizing. For this initiative, NBC affiliate WSPD contracted  Broadcast Interactive Media (BIM), to launch its GetActiveToday.com platform in May 2012. BIM's  GetActiveToday is a co-branded micro site that lives on the station's main site and integrates sponsor's and local content with turnkey health news. Here's how they did it:

Creating online and onair content

The original program, Family Health, is a one minute segment broadcast at noon and Wednesdays and includes a variety of disease-related medical experts from orthodontists to cancer specialists, "the good, the bad and the ugly."

Anchors begin the segment by saying, "We are continuing our commitment to Family Health" with an interview with the sponsoring specialist, who also recieves a profile on the site, intended not as news, but rather to improve search engine rankings (walk through images above). Droke says in many cases sponsors now appear at the top of results in highly search-oriented fields.  Twelve exclusive by category sponsors pay about $13,000 a year. 

The new initiative, GetActiveToday has a different focus, more online news content and just two major sponsors. The bulk of the health content for the web site is national health news provided by BIM and  focuses on building health and staying healthy, rather than on medical illnesses. This kind of content also fits new marketing trends at some hospitals as well as a variety of restaurant chains. 

The station also creates localized on-air segments.  A GetActiveToday report airs every Thursday during the evening news. The segment is breezy lifestyle news with practical tips that focus on staying healthy. The combination is typically an interview with an expert and a "real person."  This gives the station an opportunity to consult "experts" from a sponsoring hospital, and develop other relationships in the category. 

"We once interviewed a dietitian, who explained that the more meals you eat at home the fewer calories you are going to take in. We also... talked to a woman who said she makes sure to plan her meals before she goes to the grocery store, and around the family’s lifestyle. She notes, for example, what nights her kids have athletics, when she knows she needs to prepare something quick and easy,”  Droke says.

The weekly program – staying ahead of the need for content - is the most difficult part of the initiative.  Interviews are lined up well in advance, and the show is planned two weeks out. 

“We spent a lot of time working through the best time and way to shoot, write, edit and get the show on the air,” said Droke. In fact the first two months were spent streamlining the process so that "we used everyone’s time efficiently."    

The website, below, integrates  the onair video casts as well as a  GetActiveThisWeekend calendar of actiivities to help localize the site. 

In addition  the team solicited local solicitors using online promotions within the platform.  

In just a few weeks, prompted only by the online promotion, sixteen contributors signed on, with no compensation beyond the marketing of her or his face and bio. Community contributors now provide blog content on topics as varied as children’s fitness, common-sense motherhood, wrinkles, balance training for the elderly, hand sanitizers and  more. 

GetActiveToday is promoted on WPSD's Facebook page and in a quarterly GetActiveToday e-newsletter supplied by BIM, but branded as WPSD, with hyperlinks to WPSD’s GetActiveToday website.

Sponsorship sales 

The initiative is designed to be sold to one major and one minor sponsor. In addition to on-air mentions and display ads, sponsors receive  a custom "brochure page" with a video player on the site.  The sponsorship also  includes the opportunity to provide story content and social feeds.  BIM highly recommmends limitiing sponsors, in this case two hospitals were interested, encouraging one to sign on first. Exclusivity also raises the dollar value of the package. 

A BIM rep works with the team in the field to close the sponsorship sale and provides a customized slide deck for the purpose. WSPD's team secured Baptist Healthcare  as its lead sponsor and Subway as the secondary sponsor, each committed for the year. While Droke did not share the exact figures for the sponsorships the largest, with the hospital, was just short of six figures, she said. Subway’s was a little less. Baptist's position  on the site is shows in the second image to the right. 

The first sponsorship was sold in a matter of weeks, to a hospital that also participated with a Family Health profile. The second sponsor, Subway Sandwich's, signed within 30 days.

“We started soliciting sponsorships in the middle of December, but there was a delay because of the holidays,” said Droke. “We found out two weeks after Christmas that Baptist would be a sponsor. We pitched Subway closer to January. Baptist has a strong focus on healthy living and this project fit in very well with one of its ongoing annual projects with the local schools – a campaign against child obesity. Subway was a natural as well, with its focus on eating fresh.”  Both  contracts are in the process of being renewed for another year.

 Results

• LMI estimates that total revenues for GetActiveToday tops six figures, with the hospital alone close to $100,000. Since Family Health generates about $175,000, between both programs we estimate the station generates more than $250,000 in health category revenues. 

• GetActiveToday now has waiting list of other health-related firms, and in the meantime have become sources for news stories and on-air GetActive Today spots.

“We have had a number of other places talking about wanting to be program sponsors,” said Droke. “We try to make them part of it. The goal, after all, is to highlight what people can do locally to stay healthy, and a lot of firms can help facilitate that. So we interview these folks as experts where we can. We’ve interviewed fitness and other trainers, for instance.”  

•  Goodwill is a side benefit for the station. 

“From a station perspective and my personal perspective it aligned well with our mission as a station, and we’re getting a lot of positive feedback,” said Droke. “It allows us a platform every week to tell viewers how to eat better, for example. We can’t afford not to take up this cause and do what we can to talk about it. Obesity is an epidemic.”

Key elements and Lessons Learned

Takeaways from the formula that makes the new GetActiveToday initiative successful: 

• Limit the number of sponsorships to enhance the value and create urgency.

• Detailed structuring, planning and staying at least two weeks ahead of local programming content is crucial.

• Community contributors do not need to be financially compensated, many will contribute their time for exposure.

• While co-branding is tricky, having two health  separated related programs, rather than combining them, has allowed the station to increase revenues from the franchise by about $100,000, well over 50%. 

• Because of its high SEO value, the Ask An Expert format has now been replicated in additional categories, including legal, behavioral health and psychology.  "This Friday it's bullying, next its addiction, then suicide and depression because we have higher suicide rates in our area," Droke said. 

Many thanks to Sara Droke, Manager of Digital Media and Business Development, WPSD  for sharing these initiatives with LocalMediaInsider.com.