Late last week, Media General finally made a big move in Richmond's little online pool with the acquisition of the long-standing Richmond.com -- lock, stock and barrel.
And while Richmond.com's content peaked a couple of years ago -- at least from my vantage point -- I agree with our friends at the804.com that it's all in the name. Richmond.com comes with an ad staff, some writers and an awful lot of content. It has snappy partnerships with a variety of Richmond organizations. It has a reasonably solid content management system and architecture. Media General doesn't need any of that.
As Richmond BizSense reported earlier in October, what Media General needs -- in particular, what its primary Richmond property, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, needs -- is to continue to build its site traffic. The future is not in newsprint, you know.
Revenue dropped 11 percent to $194 million from $217 million a year ago, but the websites are growing. They make up around 5% of the company's business. Several interesting stats from Media General’s third quarter conference call:
- across all the websites the company has, local online advertising is up 29% compared to the same quarter last year
- The interactive division, which runs the websites, is almost breaking even. It lost around $1 million in the third quarter of 2007. Pageviews in Richmond, which I’d assume is InRich.com, are up 38% from last year
- Unique visitors at the company’s websites are up 18%.
Back at the804.com, suppositions abound about how MG will incorporate Richmond.com into its holdings. I'm curious about whether the acquisition of a very Richmond domain -- perhaps the single best Richmond domain available -- will sit beneath MG content, or Times-Dispatch content.
If you make a habit (and I know most of you don't) of visiting both sites throughout a typical afternoon, you know that the news and information treatment of the MG and TD sites can be widely varied. And while MG is the purchaser of Richmond.com, it seems to me that the domain could be best utilized by the TD. I guess it depends on how well the two web teams are working together these days.
The other big question is how this acquisition changes the landscape. The804.com puts it all together so the rest of us don't have to:
- I’d like to see the one-year old RVANews take it to the next level. Already, their article on this purchase
has engendered the best reader dialogue/gossip. Having followed the
mayor race closely, I think their coverage has also been a real asset
for Richmond voters. The RVANews group (which includes the
neighborhood blogs) is truly independent, lean (ie, built to last), and
very likable.
- Style Weekly recently
re-modeled themselves with a new website design (this has been in
“beta” for way too long). They will be an even bigger player now that
they’ve finally added reader comments and cleaner RSS. Of course,
Landmark’s on again-off again fire sale needs to be resolved.
- The Richmond blogosphere is fairly healthy. Once January 1 rolls along, expect River City Rapids (whose voice has been missed) to return with a vengeance. Weekly Rant is a great calendar option/alternative now that Richmond.com will be folded into Things to Do.
- Richmond BizSense is
doing yeoman’s work on business news. I think they’re actually doing a
better job with business news than the TD itself. Once the economy
picks up, I can see a phase 2 pulp weekly for this outfit (like the old
Richmond Inside Business).
- Don’t overlook the television and radio stations. CBS6
under Mark Holmberg has turned around their website with solid,
original newsreporting (their VCU scandal coverage is a standard). NBC12 is doing fantastic work with politics. WRVA wants to be a player.
- The darkhorse (or sleeping 800 pound gorilla) in all this is Richmond Magazine. On November 24, they will be re-launching their website. I’m crossing my fingers and hoping they open up their articles and archives vault. In terms of original reporting and stories (especially Richmond lifestyle), they are elite. Of all the players, they have the content infrastructure to fill the Richmond.com void right now.
In order for any of the businesses mentioned above to gain traction online, they're going to need to dramatically bolster their daily content. There are three ways to do that in this town -- hire more writers; syndicate; create partnerships with other local web-based content providers, presumably weblogs.
For instance, if RVANews/RVABlogs was able to ink a deal with Jon Baliles and his Weekly Rant on the calendar side; push Chris Bopst to boost his online radio output, and work with RVA Magazine and WRIR Radio to boost online audio and video options; enhance the quality of its community weblog content; and redesign itself, it could own much more of the local online real estate.
Style Weekly or Richmond Magazine should be chasing down a select handful of local bloggers -- providers of content focused on food; politics; music; fashion; shopping.
The coming year will prove to be one of continued growth and consolidation in Richmond's online community. I suspect we'll have at least three solid portals for news and entertainment in operation by the time we ring in 2010.
