NEW NAMES, NEW ATTITUDES: IT'S ALMOST A TREND

In journalism, it takes three to make a trend.

For instance, just this past Halloween in Talkeetna, Alaska, two women robbed a bunch of children at gunpoint, telling them to turn over their trick-or-treat candy or be killed.

That’s merely an “outrage.” It will take two more such incidents to become a trend—a “disturbing trend," of course.

I point this out because I think we are two-thirds of the way toward a bona fide broadcasting trend.

Over the past month, two well-established TV station groups have changed their names to reflect their belief that they are no longer only in the TV broadcasting business, but in the larger media business.

First came Liz Burns. Her Morgan Murphy Stations became Morgan Murphy Media. The change acknowledges the company's interest in such old media as radio and magazine publishing and well as its aggressive push into the Internet and mobile.

A couple of weeks later, NBC Universal Television Stations announced that it would henceforth be known as the NBC Local Media Division.

“Our stations produce local content for a multitude of platforms beyond their primary channels, including broadband networks in a variety of genres, multiple digital channels and various media platforms outside of the home," explained Division President John Wallace.

Unlike the Alaskan candy robbery, this is the start of a good trend.

The name changes may seem trivial. But they send a message internally and externally that management is determined to break out of its low-growth traditional business and embrace the potentially high-growth new media.

“NBC Local Media Division” may be ineloquent (could we drop “Division,” please), but it tells me exactly what the company is up to and what its role is within the sprawling NBC Universal empire. It also tells me that Wallace and his boss, Jeff Zucker, get it.

While Burns gets points for being first, NBC gets more for including “local” in its new moniker.

While it’s important to adopt the new media, it’s equally important to get tighter with the individual towns within the DMAs. And smart broadcasters are. Hearst-Argyle, Belo, Fox and others have begun paying attention to high schools as they never have before as part of their “hyperlocal” initiatives.

NAB President David Rehr likes to talk about the importance of words and names in making broadcasting’s case in Washington.

“One word ... is admittedly old-fashioned, yet continues to have power,” he said during his keynote at the NAB convention last April. “The word is local. It’s a word that policymakers immediately understand and definitely appreciate,” he continued.

“In this day when society is homogenized and globalized with international corporations, local broadcasters are the only means to keep people and communities together and informed.”

With the possible exception of the daily newspaper, TV stations dominate local media today. To continue to do so, they must operate and promote the best local Web sites and mobile services. If they don’t, others will. Have you been to Craigslist lately?

Broadcasters know this, but doing it is something else. Perhaps putting the idea in the company name will remind everybody in the organization just what the big game really is and everybody on the outside where to turn to reach the people in the community.

“Community.” That’s another good word to consider. I’ve noticed that newspaper companies often use the term for the divisions that publish those small-town weeklies. Journal Communications, for instance, has the Journal Community Publishing Group.

But the publishers don’t own the word. Broadcasters can use it too. How does Belo Community Media or Post-Newsweek Community Media sound to you?

They say that the passenger railroads failed in the 1950s and 1960s because they saw themselves as being in the railroad business, when they were really in the transportation business.

We’ve all heard that lesson many times, perhaps so many times that we've stopped listening to it.

But for broadcasting today, it’s apt. Those who see themselves in the local media business and act have a chance. Those who don’t will soon feel as if they had been hit by a train.

Liz Burns and NBC have made their announcements.