WCCO the CBS affiliate in St. Paul MInnesota also had their website re-designed much like KUTV.
Apparently this will be the new look for most all CBS station websites, which of course means WFOR’s .com will get remade in the near future. And hopefully that stupid promo video they have in the middle of the page that plays automatically, whoever thought of that needs to take Web Design 101 or something.
Lost Remote has interview with Andrew Lindenauer, executive director of Viacom Television Stations Digital Media Group (phew talk about long name) about the new website look, check it out at the link below.
Local stations better take notice very fast, the new CBS site is not only great it will have lots of video which according to Lindenauer IS made a priority by all of CBS’s sites. Soon just copy/pasting the transcript of your story without video won’t do. Unless of course you don’t want any visitors to your site.
Lost Remote
WCCO-TV launches redesigned site
I might be alone here, but I like the Viacom sites the way they are. The best one is clearly http://www.cbs2chicago.com — definitely SHOULD NOT be changed. Yes, it has the shell, but they make it work differently (and it looks different) than the others. The best local tv news website hands down in terms of being up-to-date, and consistently following breaking news, not to mention it’s organization is http://www.wcpo.com. It’s not super sexy, but you’ll see why it doesn’t need to be. Of course, they do have a full time staff of 7, so that’s probably part of how good it is. CPO actualy won an Edward R. Murrow for the site.
It looks like no one bothered to think that color was actually important to look at on these new sites. COLOR (but not clutter) PLEASE!
I hate the new design. CBS2 Chicago and CBS4 Miami have the best ones, in fact CBS2 has won the AP award for best tv news website for the last 2 years in both Illinois AND Indiana (Pissed off the Indianapolis stations for sure).
Too pale and dreary for my taste. Look like little or no effort was put into it. I could have done a better job. I dont know about anybody else but color draws my attention. It wouldnt be my favorite site at all. I like the others the anonymous person mentioned. WCCO is just gray. Kinda have the gray sky concept. Redesign. Please!
NOTE TO WFOR: When you redo your site this way, please find a way to include some GRAPHICS and some COLOR!!!!!!!!!! Please!!!!
Thanks for the compliment, anon. It’s nice to get props like that!
One correction: we have a staff of 2.5, not 7. We used to have 7, but not anymore…