Weeters 1981 Posted February 17, 2018 Posted February 17, 2018 As part of the splitup of CBS Local TV and Radio, the Television properties are getting redesigned websites. They still appear to be running the same software under the hood, but they've been redesigned and look a little nicer than they used to. KOVR and WBZ are the first two to get it. CBS13.com Boston.cbslocal.com
MichiganNewsGraphicsJunkie 983 Posted February 17, 2018 Posted February 17, 2018 These sites are so much easier to understand and navigate... wish they'd get rid of the city.cbslocal.com domains though
Georgie56 3350 Posted February 17, 2018 Posted February 17, 2018 Eh, it looks alright. It looks much simpler than the CBSLocal websites.
Rusty Muck 4428 Posted February 17, 2018 Posted February 17, 2018 Yup, it’s still Wordpress, but that makes it easier for CMS purposes. KOVR and WBZ-TV could make the switch immediately as their radio sisters already got separate websites. (KSTW and WTOG should be next, if they haven’t switched already.) I guess it’s all in when Entercom actually finishes building out the new websites for the former CBS Radio spoken-word radio stations as to when the rest of the O&Os get this new look.
Amra 172 Posted February 17, 2018 Posted February 17, 2018 Nice improvement, but I liked the oooold website better.
Viper550 294 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 Header could use some color like the old design, but the layout seems like an update to the old one, nothing too revolutionary
tjt24 315 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 These sites are so much easier to understand and navigate... wish they'd get rid of the city.cbslocal.com domains though I also think they need to get rid of those city.cbslocal.com domain names. I've never been a huge fan of them.
RGSJenkins 435 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 KCNC has the new site, they were the only station without a radio partner.
C Block 1574 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 It's amazing how far behind the CBS O&Os are on digital/social. I think tying up the radio and TV stations into the unified CBS brand really hurt them in the long run. Flipping through all the markets on SocialRank and CBS O&Os are almost always dead last in social engagement in all of them. I don't know why they're so bad at it — getting social engagement isn't hard as long as you have a strategy down. It's interesting they're sticking with the subpar Wordpress CMS too. I'm sure they've probably customized the back end of it to death, but at the end of the day, Wordpress is still glorified 2000s blogging software. I'm speaking as someone who has set up a handful of smaller customized Wordpress websites, which is the extent of my web developer skills.
rkolsen 1697 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 I'm speaking as someone who has set up a handful of smaller customized Wordpress websites, which is the extent of my web developer skills. True. But what other blogging software that is hosted is out there? There's Blogger and Tumblr - the former is just as ancient if not worst and the latter is basically used for porn.
DonDonP1 118 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 The CBS Seattle website was slightly updated; only the logo for KSTW CW 11 is seen below the CBS Seattle logo.
AJClementeFan69 477 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 It's amazing how far behind the CBS O&Os are on digital/social. I think tying up the radio and TV stations into the unified CBS brand really hurt them in the long run. Flipping through all the markets on SocialRank and CBS O&Os are almost always dead last in social engagement in all of them. I don't know why they're so bad at it — getting social engagement isn't hard as long as you have a strategy down. Agreed. The CBSLocal websites were clunky. I will say, though, that a lot of the social woes could have to do with the fact that a lot of the O&Os have historically been also-rans in their respective markets.
nathannah 2537 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 It's amazing how far behind the CBS O&Os are on digital/social. I think tying up the radio and TV stations into the unified CBS brand really hurt them in the long run. Flipping through all the markets on SocialRank and CBS O&Os are almost always dead last in social engagement in all of them. I don't know why they're so bad at it — getting social engagement isn't hard as long as you have a strategy down. It's interesting they're sticking with the subpar Wordpress CMS too. I'm sure they've probably customized the back end of it to death, but at the end of the day, Wordpress is still glorified 2000s blogging software. I'm speaking as someone who has set up a handful of smaller customized Wordpress websites, which is the extent of my web developer skills. It's about time that CBS finally decided to stop 'portal' sites. Ever since ABC/Disney ditched the 'everything goes on Go.com' mandate, their sites have been a lot better, and that pre-Facebook NBC local effort with 'story makes me (smile/angry/annoyed/overjoyed) reactions' and no newscast streams is thankfully a long-forgotten memory. I do wish Fox would have picked a better name for their sites in the past than MyFox, but they were generally fine and still are. I still loathe that CBS has pop-ups in both old school and on-site forms though. Hearst does it too and it drives me batty (and now they have a 'oh, you should use ad blockers on your iOS device' message of shame). All of them are still better than the 'autoplay' everything nightmares of Gannett/TEGNA, though.
NEOMatrix 1308 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 Agreed. The CBSLocal websites were clunky. I will say, though, that a lot of the social woes could have to do with the fact that a lot of the O&Os have historically been also-rans in their respective markets. Plus, CBS stations generally skew older in ratings compared to the other Big 4 stations, affiliate or network-owned.
Guest Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 As part of the splitup of CBS Local TV and Radio, the Television properties are getting redesigned websites. They still appear to be running the same software under the hood, but they've been redesigned and look a little nicer than they used to. KOVR and WBZ are the first two to get it. CBS13.com Boston.cbslocal.com I'm not sure why people don't like these. I love the new site layout, it's very clean and easy to follow. It's how TEGNA should have done their site redesigns.
Journalist 894 Posted February 18, 2018 Posted February 18, 2018 [quote name='rkolsen']True. But what other blogging software that is hosted is out there? There's Blogger and Tumblr - the former is just as ancient if not worst and the latter is basically used for porn.[/QUOTE] Blogger and Tumblr are online blogging tools. Neither of those services support any CMS integration unlike WordPress CMS (what @C Block was probably referring to), though there is plenty of frameworks one could use, like Drupal or Bootstrap. Despite this, isn't CBS Local using [URL='https://vip.wordpress.com/']WordPress VIP[/URL] (which is cloud-based - programmed on Javascript) and not the [URL='http://wordpress.org']WordPress CMS[/URL]? (programmed on PHP) Besides, the CBS Local sites uses DNS redirecting from the WordPress.com domain, e.g. [URL='http://cbsbaltimore.wordpress.com']cbsbaltimore.wordpress.com[/URL]...
Rusty Muck 4428 Posted February 19, 2018 Posted February 19, 2018 KCNC has the new site, they were the only station without a radio partner. Don't forget WTOG in Tampa. Despite this, isn't CBS Local using WordPress VIP (which is cloud-based - programmed on Javascript) and not the WordPress CMS? (programmed on PHP) Besides, the CBS Local sites uses DNS redirecting from the WordPress.com domain, e.g. cbsbaltimore.wordpress.com... Yes for both the new and old layouts. Tribune stations also use WordPress VIP.
mre29 1588 Posted February 19, 2018 Posted February 19, 2018 It's interesting they're sticking with the subpar Wordpress CMS too. I'm sure they've probably customized the back end of it to death, but at the end of the day, Wordpress is still glorified 2000s blogging software. I'm speaking as someone who has set up a handful of smaller customized Wordpress websites, which is the extent of my web developer skills. So, what would you say is a better CMS to use? I've used a few different enterprise-level CMSes, and none of them would work for news sites without some major work. (A few of them could even be considered user-hostile.)
Rusty Muck 4428 Posted February 21, 2018 Posted February 21, 2018 KCBS/740-106.9 in San Francisco has a brand new website on the Entercom Radio.com platform ready to go, making a website flip for KPIX imminent. Note, too, that the legacy CBS Radio stations that shared the callsigns with their TV counterparts have to use “radio” or their frequency (or both) alongside their call letters in digital branding - domain name and social media for both the station and their employees. It’s interesting in that Entercom owns the stations with the base callsigns (an AM station has always been seen as the “base” among stations that have the same calls, thus “WJZ-AM” is not technically correct, the actual callsign for the 1300 AM facility in Baltimore is WJZ), but CBS has rights to the callsigns as a brand that they leased out to Entercom.
Kenneth Kissel 285 Posted February 21, 2018 Posted February 21, 2018 KDKA-TV is Still in the Old CBS O&O format as of February 21st but i have heard ads on Former sister KDKA-FM that they are now using rival WPXI for the stations news updates.
rkolsen 1697 Posted February 21, 2018 Posted February 21, 2018 KDKA-TV is Still in the Old CBS O&O format as of February 21st but i have heard ads on Former sister KDKA-FM that they are now using rival WPXI for the stations news updates. Wow. That was quick. How integrated were the two?
Kenneth Kissel 285 Posted February 21, 2018 Posted February 21, 2018 Wow. That was quick. How integrated were the two? It happened January of this year.
TSSZNews 1053 Posted February 21, 2018 Posted February 21, 2018 Wait KDKA-FM is using WPXI for news?! They literally have a newsradio sister station--with the same calls! That has to be PXI paying for the privilege...right?
rkolsen 1697 Posted February 21, 2018 Posted February 21, 2018 Wait KDKA-FM is using WPXI for news?! They literally have a newsradio sister station--with the same calls! That has to be PXI paying for the privilege...right? Or they were the lowest bidder.
C Block 1574 Posted February 22, 2018 Posted February 22, 2018 Agreed. The CBSLocal websites were clunky. I will say, though, that a lot of the social woes could have to do with the fact that a lot of the O&Os have historically been also-rans in their respective markets. That may be true, but it still doesn't explain the really low engagement numbers. KCNC, KPIX, and KCBS will all usually be at about 5% of its share of engagement for their respective markets while all the other stations will usually be at or above 10%, including throwaway stations like KRON, KMGH, and KTTV. They may not be close to being market leaders on air, but it's undeniable that they're all market laggards when it comes to having a web presence and social media strategy. As for all the CMS stuff, I'm certainly not as well-versed in all the tech stuff as some other people, but I can't imagine Wordpress is as versatile as a lot of other platforms like WorldNow, Clickability, or many others. Is Kinja available for TV stations? That would be cool if a station group could figure out licensing for that one.
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.