Broadcasters Focus on Challenge From Web

BROADCASTERS FOCUS ON CHALLENGE FROM WEB
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: Gary Gentile]
Local television broadcasters, seeing their networks potentially bypassing them in the rush to offer shows and other content online, will meet this week to figure out how to hang onto viewers and dollars. TV stations are already moving to provide their own video clips to Web sites hungry for content and insist they can use their strong relationships with local audiences to market network shows on their own sites in exchange for a share in the profits. It's not entirely clear yet they can cash in on the growing shift of advertising dollars and eyeballs to the Internet, but local broadcasters have no choice but to try. "The question is, do they partner with those new forms of content or those new providers? Or do they sit on their hands and become less and less relevant," said Jimmy Schaeffler, an analyst with The Carmel Group, a market research firm. Those challenges will be discussed at the annual gathering of the National Association of Broadcasters, which begins Sunday in Las Vegas. The show draws more than 100,000 TV and radio broadcasters from 130 countries as well as TV networks and technology companies that provide everything from cameras to traffic helicopters.
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