This is the seventh section of the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection.
Entertainment has always been an underrated part of newspaper content. But every editor who changes crossword puzzle syndicates or drops a comic strip knows that entertainment is a valued and essential part of newspaper content. And, of course, entertainment remains an essential consumer use of television content, though not on the local level.
As the Complete Community Connection develops our network for the future, we need to keep entertainment in mind in a variety of ways.
Traditional entertainment
For all our commitment to news, the first thing lots of newspaper readers turn to is the comics. And some of them spend more time with the crossword or Sudoku than they spend with the whole rest of the paper. We should explore ways to deepen the digital experience with this sort of traditional entertainment content. We should watch for opportunities to feature new syndicated visual and interactive content, such as computer animations or animated comic strips. Puzzles have already migrated online, but we might see how they can be enhanced. Can we list the 10 fastest people to solve today’s Sudoku, for instance, or let users record and graph their own individual times each day, or post a widget for people who want to tweet their Sudoku time each day?
We might aggregate some syndicated humor columns or find a local humor blogger (or a few) to feature. This might be primarily an audience-builder, supported by general advertising. But of course we should explore opportunities for alternate revenue streams.
Entertainment news
Entertainment news will operate on multiple products: Hoopla, The Gazette’s Accent section, KCRG and Iowa.com. We need to provide previews and reviews (staff and user) of local concerts, comedy clubs and plays. We need to offer frequent user polls, identifying best entertainment opportunities of the coming weekend, best shows of the weekend past, etc. In addition to archiving reviews from our staff and freelancers, we should build a strong section of user-generated reviews of new movies, books and music, far beyond what we can review with our staff. We might have a running contest or drawing that selects the featured user to review each new release or show.
We also could feature MP3s of local bands, both free as promotions and opportunities to buy whole albums. This could be modeled after the local MP3 catalog at Spokane7 or the central Minnesota Jam.MN site of the St. Cloud Times. This will have strong revenue possibilities, not just with entertainment-oriented advertising, but with opportunities for direct sales of tickets and fan paraphernalia.
User-generated entertainment
Of course we’ll want videos to be a big part of this, probably with a YouTube interface (so you can be one of the zillions of videos on YouTube, but possibly be the featured video locally). We need to make this dynamic, letting users choose the video of the day, with prizes sponsored by advertisers. Maybe we develop a model where advertisers post pre-roll and post-roll ads that users can choose to add to their videos. The user gets a small share of the ad revenue (to encourage them to use the ads). We could encourage advertisers to develop different kinds of ads – funny, touching, dramatic, inspiring – and let the users rate the ads.
We also want to feature other kinds of user creativity — creative writing (fiction, essay, poetry), humor writing, cartoons, computer animation, photography, fun with Photoshop.
We might launch some local “reality shows” that would be a combination of videos, local events, online interaction and user voting. For instance, an “Iowa Idol” competition could select the person who will sing the national anthem for the July 4 home game of the Kernels or for a Hawkeye football or basketball game. We start with online videos of contestants, then the finalists compete at an event in a local auditorium. This might provide some local programming for KCRG, especially with the opportunities provided by the conversion to digital.
Games
We need to explore the possibilities of online games at the community level: Tournaments of local players of national games are certainly a possibility (funded either by entry fees or sponsorships or both). We could feature locally developed games. Eventually we could have a game developer on staff, so we could feature games such as Sim-CR, a virtual Iowa version of Monopoly or sports games featuring the Hawkeyes.
We could host local fantasy leagues during various sports seasons. We could host online games and tournaments for Boomers and retired people using more traditional games such as chess, Scrabble or card games.
In addition to featuring our staff’s predictions each weekend during the football season, we could have a contest to find the best local prognosticator, with a prize at the end of the season.
Continue reading the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection with C3’s business connection opportunities.
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