Local focus called key to media success

Belo CEO says traditional broadcasters must find creative uses for content LAS VEGAS - Quality local programming and community marketing will allow traditional media companies

Wednesday, April 12th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Belo CEO says traditional broadcasters must find creative uses for content

LAS VEGAS - Quality local programming and community marketing will allow traditional media companies to succeed as cable and the Internet alter the marketplace, Belo Corp. chairman, president and chief executive Robert W. Decherd told the nation's top sales and marketing executives Tuesday.

"We all know ... that local content is what our viewers value the highest. It's what we do best. Our task now is to find creative, profitable new uses for this content," Mr. Decherd said in a speech at the Television Bureau of Advertising's Annual Marketing Conference.

Over the last 50 years, television has seen revolutionary changes in transmission, Mr. Decherd said, but one thing hasn't changed for traditional media companies.

"We're still the experts at producing local news and informational content and selling it to advertisers in our markets. Local TV is a great, public-spirited and profitable business," he said. "It has proven to be one of the most durable businesses of the 20th century."

But traditional television stations need to change to meet the versatility of new media competitors, Mr. Decherd said at the conference, held as part of the National Association of Broadcasters' convention.

"At Belo, we've thought a lot about these issues and arrived at the conclusion that as a traditional media company we've acquired an arsenal of resources over time. Employing these resources in novel ways makes us exceptionally well-equipped to succeed in the new media marketplace," Mr. Decherd said.

Belo's core businesses of newspapers and television stations qualify it as a traditional media company.

The company publishes The Dallas Morning News, seven other daily newspapers, four regional cable news operations and 18 television stations.

Traditional media companies also have to learn to handle the Internet, Mr. Decherd said.

"In just a few years, a medium that was originally thought to be little more than a novelty has radically reshaped the entire telecommunications business," he said.

More than 100 million people now use the Internet regularly, and the number is expected to grow to 177 million within the next three years.

That growth is a great opportunity for content providers, Mr. Decherd said.

"As technology further advances and the quality of video streaming improves, the Internet will become a significant delivery system for our local content," he said. "Coupled with appropriate copyright protection, we see this as a positive development."

Another challenge for traditional companies, he said, involves the corporate consolidations that have merged new and traditional media.

"It began with Warner Communications merging with Time Inc., and the proposed AOL-Time Warner merger is now the most dramatic example of this consolidation," said Mr. Decherd.

Smaller companies can compete by refocusing their programming, sales and marketing efforts, he noted.

"Our strategy focuses on becoming like our new media competitors ... developing multiple revenue streams and using digital capabilities," Mr. Decherd said of Belo's effort.

"We ... form strategic relationships with local media, develop our interactive businesses and employ new digital technologies - all to increase revenues," said Mr. Decherd.

"The strategy is simply an updated version of localism that combines both traditional and new media. It is essentially 'digital localism.'"
The company has created a new unit, Belo Marketing Solutions, to capitalize on properties clustered in three regions: Texas, the Northwest and Arizona.

"The objective is to bring in new accounts, as well as to cross-sell multimedia advertising to current accounts," Mr. Decherd said.

As Belo bridges the gap between traditional and new media, the company can't lose sight of changes due to digital technology, he said.
"This digital capability is, in Belo's view, the bedrock for our becoming a significant new media competitor," said Mr. Decherd.

"Those who see us as 'old media' miss the point that we're transforming ourselves into new media, focusing on our exclusive programming assets and a digital technology that will continue to improve and refine itself over the years."