Tornadoes Carry Topeka TV Into New Age

It's not often that a station in Kansas gets a thank-you letter from a viewer in Georgia.

Then again, it's not often that a TV station saves someone's life.

From Savannah, the Rev. John Hopkins wrote to WIBW "to commend you on your tornado coverage that was carried over the Web last night."

It seems that Hopkins' son, a student at Kansas State in Manhattan, heard warning sirens just as the power went out. Left with only a cell phone, the younger Hopkins called home, where he reached his dad who was watching WIBW's storm coverage with radar on its Web site.

Hopkins warned his son that he had 20 minutes to take cover, which he did in a nearby basement.

"Because you carried it on the Web, I was able to keep my son safe," Rev. Hopkins concluded. "Thank you ever so much for your excellent coverage."

This was just one of hundreds of compliments received by Gray Television's WIBW following a series of emergency weather alerts that kept the news team on the air and online around the clock.

On the day the tornados hit, wibw.com pulled over 1.1 million page views from 136,000 unique users — an amazing number since Topeka, the 139th market, has only 117,000 TV viewers.

The station's previous one-day record was only 251,000 page views.

This was no sudden success, according to WIBW General Manager Jim Ogle. "This has been three years in the making. We've been experimenting with different features. For the past two years, we've streamed live weather coverage and just this year added live interactive weather blogs to the mix."

The station's Web site and video servers are designed and maintained by WorldNow, while coveritlive.com provides the software for the interactive blogging.

At the height of the storms, the station supplied more than 34,000 simultaneous streams to online viewers. During one storm, over 20,000 unique visitors joined in the live, two-way blog with station meteorologists. (Read some of those dramatic exchanges by clicking here.)

While the average visitor to a station Web site checks out 1.1 page views for a mere 30 seconds, WIBW has lately been averaging seven page views over a four-minute span —- numbers no doubt lifted by the high percentage of visitors who lingered to post messages and photos of their own.

Predicting the unpredictable Kansas weather is serious business in Topeka and the forecast has been a mainstay of WIBW news since the station signed on in 1953. Ogle intends to maintain that lead and extend it to the Web.

"I always tell my team that we're now many different channels, not just one TV station. To drive home that point I modified the big metal set of call letters in front of our station and covered over the word ‘TV' with a banner that says ‘channels.' And that's who we are — the WIBW Channels."

While Ogle has been running WIBW for only four years, his emotional ties to the station go back to childhood. Though he grew up in Kansas City, Mo., his parents, both native Topekans, brought Jim back often. (Once he even appeared in the audience of WIBW's popular WIB the Clown Show, starring a pre-Maytag, pre-WKRP Gordon Jump). Ogle's attachment to the local residents is even stronger.

"Kansans are stunningly resistant. After a tornado, they don't wait around for help. They pitch in and dig their neighbors out of the rubble," Ogle says. The station pitched in too, teaming with the Dillon supermarket chain to allow customers to "round up" their total grocery bill by whatever amount they wished to donate.

Ogle is lavish in his praise for his staff's nonstop efforts. He's quick to compliment World Now and coveritlive.com for the flawless performance of his station's servers during peak demands on video streaming and blogging. Ogle's even has good things to say about his competitors, as Topeka's TV forecasters put public safety first by posting their latest information on the National Weather Service's own blog pages.

While altruistic, this also reflects a practical business strategy that comes directly from the parent company. "Gray Communications believes that success isn't always measured by the dollar you make today. We'll make even more money by helping to make our community successful," Ogle says.

In the short term, WIBW's weather-driven windfall will benefit current online advertisers more than the station. But will the huge surge in page views create a lasting boost to the station's Web presence and concurrent revenue?

"It's too soon to tell," says Ogle, who concedes that Web-based ad dollars are still a long way from replacing dwindling national spot buys. "But we see some very encouraging signs." For example, just two years ago, wibw.com grossed just $640 per month. Last month the Web site captured $33,000.

"So things are definitely moving in the right direction."

Market Share by Arthur Greenwald showcases successful local marketing, promotion and sales efforts every Monday in TVNewsday. Tell us about your winning efforts by writing to Arthur at greenwald@tvnewsday.com.