Content area
Full Text
OKLAHOMA CITY'S DOWNTOWN HAS UNDERGONE A COMPLETE REVITALIZATION OVER the past several years that has spurred business development and economic growth in the region. The historic Bricktown in the capital city's downtown is one of the fastest-growing entertainment districts in Oklahoma, featuring a 20,000-seat arena, new art museums, hotels, condos and restaurants, including country star Toby Keith's new eatery-cum-music hall. The boom is now spreading to the city's riverfront, where work is getting started on redevelopment of a seven-mile stretch.
The activity in local media is similarly lively. On the TV station scene, the New York Times Co.'s NBC affiliate KFOR-TV is in a tight battle with CBS affiliate KWTV, owned by the Oklahoma-based Griffin family.
KFOR is the morning- and noon-news leader in the market, which ranks 45th in the country with 655,250 TV households, but the two stations are in a constant struggle for evening- and late-news supremacy. They finished the November book in a virtual dead heat at 6 p.m. and 10 p.m. in the advertiserfriendly adults 25-54 demo.
KWTV draws on its four-year-old newssharing partnership with The Oklahoman, the largest daily newspaper in the market. The unique arrangement, which unites two separately owned, unrelated entities in the same market, is one of only a few in the country. Shortly after the partnership began, the station and the paper shuttered their individual Web sites and jointly launched NewsOK.com, which has become the largest Web site in Oklahoma, says Rob Krier, KWTV vp/gm. "[The joint site] was a unique opportunity," he says. "We had 2 to 3 million page views a month and they had 5 or 6 million [separately]. Now, we have 20 million page views a month." KWTV also stands out with the market's only early evening news (4-5 p.m.).
KFOR-TV, meanwhile, is drawing viewers at 10 p.m. with a new interactive segment called "The Rant," which shares viewers' responses to a topic presented earlier in the evening. About a half-dozen of the 150-200 e-mailed comments appear as written text on the air during the 10 p.m. newscast, and the anchor sums up the overall response, says Luanne Stuart, KFOR vp and creative services director. "It's become quite popular because people love to express their opinions," she adds.
At 5...