Seattle Times baseball webcast

Very innovative effort by Geoff. I'm impressed.

 

We do webcasts at my shop. They are a 2-3 man show depending on how tech savvy everyone is.

 

Any newspaper Webcast with a couple of people BS'ing behind a desk doesn't help anyone. The production values are horrible and a paper isn't likely to make any money off of the deal.

Once you bring a switcher into the equation, I could see watching something like that.

 

Thanks for assuming we were bs'ing behind a desk. When we do webcasts its all out.

The multimedia editor sets up the feed and records the feed on his computer before the event. He then takes pictures during the event and posts slideshows, galleries and videos to the web.

The sports editor broadcasts said event with the help of a volunteer co-host.

Myself, the web editor, monitors the feed throughout the entire broadcast. With one ear listening live to the broadcast, and the other listening to it from the web page to make sure we don't lose a signal. I'm also in charge of setting up the page to receive the feed for the broadcast.

 

That's interesting. So, some of your papers do this with three people in a studio (??) and others think Baker does it alone. But if one guy can do this thing, why aren't all newspapers trying it out with their beat guys? Yeah, it adds extra work, no question. But maybe you cut back on story space in the paper, which most places are doing anyway, so the guy doesn't have to write as much as before. I know, I know, I realize it won't even things out all that great, but it's better than having your paper eventually die from a lack of new ideas. For me, the thing is to see if this can generate revenue. And I'd really like to know if his paper has tried to cash-in on this to any degree. The places I've heard about, or worked at, keep trying to sell ads the old-fashioned way and know next to nothing about selling online. I mean, the radio and TV stations where I live have websites with print stories on them (mostly AP, but some staff blogs) and they sell ads. So, if the broadcast guys can go after ad money for print stuff, why can't a newspaper sell ads for doing its own live "TV'' stuff? I know it isn't HD quality I'm seeing, but I'll bet Baker's paper isn't spending a ton of money to produce these webcasts. Those are some serious page views on the one webcast somebody mentioned. Anyone know if Baker's blog is all that popular in Seattle itself? It just seems like there's an opportunity here someplace that the papers are missing out on.

 

Baker's blog is extremely popular. When he does these webcasts, the questions come at such a rapid-fire rate that he rarely has any time to pause before moving right on to the next one. His blog is more or less required reading for any Mariners fan, in Seattle or not.

 

You have to have an ad staff that can sell ads for video. And regular ads on most newspaper Webcasts won't pay the bills.

 

This isn't as hard as it should be. After all, many companies already have video commercials on hand - for TV. Of course, having a good sales staff helps, and I think many are clueless as how to sell online (or even what online products their own site has).

 

The problem is a 30-second commercial doesn't translate to online very well, with the exception of Hulu. Even then, it seems a bit much.

 

Not that this means anything, but I really like Hulu's option of watching one long ad at the beginning now.

 

Any intrepid beat reporter with a webcam can do something similar, interfaced with a chat function, thanks to Mogulus. (http://www.mogulus.com/)

We found that videos aren't as popular, at least as far as talking heads go. Instead, we shoot short videos within MLB's guidelines during BP or drills and post those. You have to consider that most people who watch this stuff are a captive audience at an office -- would they be willing to spend an hour watching a video on their computer? Probably not.

However, a chat or some form of interactive function like that is more easy for readers to use. No dead giveaway of headphones to listen to audio, easily minimized when the boss walks by. We've found the most success doing CoverItLive chats during Spring Training games when people can just pop in and ask questions.