Tuesday, August 21, 2007

The High School sports battle

On the heels of Hearst's announcement of HighSchoolPlaybook.com comes Belo's HSgametime.com and Emmis' IHSAAsports.org. From a naming standpoint I think Hearst is the clear winner.

From Mediaweek:

"Hearst-Argyle’s HighSchoolPlaybook, an online, on-air and mobile brand that combines social networking with high-definition video, stats, music and merchandising, initially launched on seven of its 26 stations; four also launched YouTube pages. The TV group also plans to syndicate the brand next year in markets where it doesn’t own stations.

Belo launched HSgametime.com covering football in six of its markets, with plans to complete the rollout to all 15 of it stations by September.

“High school sports is an untapped area,” said Chris Campbell, director of interactive media for Emmis and managing director of IHSAAsports.org, which is running the Indiana-wide site as a stand-alone brand with its own staff and sales. “We’ve found an overwhelmingly positive reaction from advertisers who are hungry to reach the multiple demographics that high school sports attract.”

“We’re treating high school sports as a community,” said Terry Mackin, executive vp of digital media for Hearst-Argyle. “You can talk to friends, talk to groups, move pictures back and forth, participate in contests about which school is the most spirited.”

From Lost Remote:

"Belo is in the middle of a multi-market rollout of HSGameTime.com, a national high school sports site with local ties to each of its TV and newspaper properties. Beyond the stuff you’d expect, the site features a social network for both parents and teens, as well as the capability for users to host their own blogs and upload video and photos. Much more later, but in the meantime, check out the Dallas version of HSGameTime, one of the first to launch."

From the old favorite Little Lost Robot!

"I’ve been busy lately, helping train up our small army of high school VJ reporters for football season - “sideline reporters”, we’re calling them. Of course, high schoolers are video sponges these days, with all their YouTubin’ and Facebookin’, so it’s actually been rather smooth going.

Anyway, I’m getting kinda excited about my station/company’s new endeavor and I can’t wait to see what the fledgling reporters come up with. The hardest thing about the whole process was learning the video editing software - after spending most of my career becoming an AVID master, it’s kinda frustrating to learn a $79 over-the-counter editing program that’s completely counter-intuitive. But there’s people smiling on the back of the box who look like they’re enjoying it, so I’m gonna give it another shot."

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