Sooooo

[lost]

Went to the Fan web site and saw this today, March 14th.

"Look for ESPN 106.7 The Fan March 9th and March 10th when Sports Brunch will broadcast live from 10a-noon and Sports Night will broadcast live from 3p-7p at the Sportsgrille at the Hilton Nashville Downtown.

The Fan will also have your opportunity to register to win a pair of passes to the Dr.Pepper SEC FanFare all week at the Nashville Convention Center and a weekend get away for two from The Cove at Doublehead!

Don't miss your chance to catch all the SEC Basketball tournament action on 25 plasma high definition TV's and enjoy over 40 menu items and 100 beverage selections. Only from The Sportsgrille at the Hilton Nashville Downtown and ESPN 106.7 The Fan!

Also they still have the Sports Bunch on the page. AND over on a billboard for WWTN they still have Phil with his old time. Kind of makes you wonder what is going on?

 

[NotSoSilentBob]

> Went to the Fan web site and saw this today, March 14th.
>
> "Look for ESPN 106.7 The Fan March 9th and March 10th when
> Sports Brunch will broadcast live from 10a-noon and Sports
> Night will broadcast live from 3p-7p at the Sportsgrille at
> the Hilton Nashville Downtown.
>
> The Fan will also have your opportunity to register to win a
> pair of passes to the Dr.Pepper SEC FanFare all week at the
> Nashville Convention Center and a weekend get away for two
> from The Cove at Doublehead!
>
> Don't miss your chance to catch all the SEC Basketball
> tournament action on 25 plasma high definition TV's and
> enjoy over 40 menu items and 100 beverage selections. Only
> from The Sportsgrille at the Hilton Nashville Downtown and
> ESPN 106.7 The Fan!
>
> Also they still have the Sports Bunch on the page. AND over
> on a billboard for WWTN they still have Phil with his old
> time. Kind of makes you wonder what is going on?
>


Sounds like the promotions director took the week off. I wouldn't look anything into it.<P ID="signature">______________
Bob
Moderator, Nashville board
Radio-Info.com--Always Tuned In

"I don't spread rumors, but I sometimes make outrageous speculations with no factual basis."</P>

 

[jetfli]

> Went to the Fan web site and saw this today, March 14th.

> Also they still have the Sports Bunch on the page. AND over
> on a billboard for WWTN they still have Phil with his old
> time. Kind of makes you wonder what is going on?

What's going on is that radio stations don't do the best job of keeping their websites up, and that's definitely true in this market. A lot of times I rely on a station's site for research and come up lacking quite often. This is especially true for schedule-intensive stations such as talk and sports stations.

Probably the one commercial schedule-intensive station in this area that does a good job with its website is WLAC. When schedule changes occur on 1510, most of the time the change is reflected on the site that day, and sometimes the night before.

The station that is in most need of doing a better job keeping its website up-to-date is 104.5 the Zone. With their heavy schedule of live games and the possibility one might be bumped for another due to their many affiliations, listeners and especially casual and non-listeners deserve to have an always up-to-date schedule online. But take a look at their online schedule. As of today, they still have the Vandy-UT game listed from a couple of weeks ago as being played on Saturday. They also still have the Speed Zone listed. This is not unusual for their schedule.

Why do radio stations do such a bad job with websites?

(1) Station employees know little about setting up or operating a website. Most often they give the job to an intern, a clerical person, or an employee's teenage nephew ("Here kid, have some CDs"). Those that do go to a web developer are looking for "cheap" or a one-time build.

(2) Because of (1), once a website is built, whoever developed it wants to keep milking the radio station, so they don't give the radio station the proper tools they need to update the site at the station. Often the station has to go back to the developer to update the site, and of course their site isn't the developer's #1 priority. And, since stations are cheap, they don't want to go back to the developer very often, so things really get behind. Those that decide they're too cheap to keep going back to the developer give the job to an intern, a clerical person, or an employee's teenage nephew ("Here kid, have some more CDs").

(3) Many radio stations don't understand how their website reflects on their image, brand, and professionalism. Clear Channel, love 'em or don't, is at the top of the radio game, and you'll find their stations' sites as a group reflect a lot of professionalism. You'll see it on their local stations' sites.

However, you'll quickly recognize the mark of an amateur on many other stations' sites. Those include:

1. Information on home page is not up-to-date.

2. Information on schedule is not up-to-date.

3. Paragraphs of text on black backgrounds.

4. Page might look okay when opened in one browser on one platform, but sloppy when opened in other browsers and other platforms.

5. Text and images not properly aligned.

6. Table outlines (which should be invisible) appear around items set off in tables. (Table outlines are only for data tables.)

7. Dead links.

8. Lack of scale for personality photographs. All heads should be roughly the same size. A head in a picture of an individual shouldn't appear way larger than the heads in a picture of a team of three. Especially if the team is your drive team.

9. Text should not butt up against column dividers. Give text some breathing room.

10. General sloppiness. Websites designed by teenage nephews are usually sloppy. Look at their rooms, for Pete's sake (free CDs all over the place).

A radio station should have a good website. It is part of the way the audience views who they are. The best way for a radio station to have a good website is to:

(1) Plug into the corporate web developer.

(2) Or if there is not corporate web developer, next time you hire a staff person, make sure that person has some expertise in web development and/or operation. And not just because they say they do, but because a professional at their previous position says they do.

(3) Or, hire a reputable developer to create a one-time build, but with the stipulation that the developer also provide you the tools and the initial training to update the site in-studio. They can do that in a way that is fairly easy. Always tell the web developer up front that you want them to give you the tools to update. And if they tell you they are going to develop the site in Front Page, go somewhere else.