KOHD, Bend’s fairly new ABC affiliate, debuted their new Web site. I like the clean look of it, but the content is still lacking compared to KTVZ’s. I also really hate the auto-play on the front-page video, as if I’m at work, I don’t want a random site to start playing sounds without me telling it to.
Full disclaimer: I haven’t actually watched KOHD’s newscast as I just am not home in time because of my commute (and I don’t want to get home and immediately ignore my kids and go straight to watching the news anyway), and by 11 I’m frickin’ exhausted. If I’m watching any evening news, it’s usually the KTVZ-produced 10 o’clock news on KFXO (and even then, not to often).
In other words, if you want me to read/link to your content, it’d better be online and easy to link and read as I’m not watching the newscasts.
Anyway, discuss your thoughts on the Bend TV Wars™ below.
Comments
To be honest I’m not impressed with either stations news offerings. There seems to be precious little investigation or any sort of questioning of authority. Everything is just taken as read. Hundreds more new houses going up? Fine, lets not question why. The Police want $500,000 to expand? OK, lets not ask is there really any need in a low crime city like Bend. Meth epidemic? What are the root causes? Why are 80% of the drug offences meth related in this area? Why is usage so widespread? What are law enforcement doing? What about prevention? Maybe it’s because I come from foreign lands but the local news here always seems to be one giant missed opportunity.
Going back to actual web design, it’s a pity that KTVZ’s isn’t really friendly to voice readers and the like. Certainly, they don’t appear to be w3c compliant.
Lastly (you’ll be glad to know!) at least KOHD’s site is hosted reasonably locally (Eugene) rather than the other side of the continent.
Those are good points you raise, but I think stories like that, stories that are that broad take more than one night to complete. The things you listed, meth problems, police expansion, hosing expansion…let me put it this way…Rome was not built in a day. KOHD has been on the air for just over two weeks. I think it’s unrealistic to ask for stories like that to air in their first two weeks. They save that stuff for sweeps in November, Feb and May, I think those are the months. I will say though, those are good issues to investigate….but they cannot be done in a day though.