Current Online

WTTW's Network Chicago: brand for the digital future

Originally published in Current, June 5, 2000

By Karen Everhart Bedford

Call it bold, call it brash. Call it visionary, crazy or ambitious. WTTW, a public TV station already recognized widely among Chicagoans, is about to create a new multimedia identity for itself—"Network Chicago"—while increasing its local production by nearly half and deliberately outspending its annual revenues by millions. After nearly two years of planning, the new venture's on-air launch date is July 10.

WTTW 11 logo: Your Window to the WorldFaced with the uncertainties over how and when consumers will adopt digital technologies, and doubts about public television's viability in the increasingly competitive media landscape, the licensee Window to the World Communications has charted a gutsy plan for the next five years. It aims to invest heavily in creating local content that can be distributed across traditional and emerging media platforms—TV, radio, the Web and, eventually, print—by targeting an audience engaged in civic life, partnering with other community groups, and marketing multimedia sponsorships to underwriters.

"We're positioning the institution as a community portal, and saying, 'We want to be a multimedia home and gateway where our engaged, inquisitive audience can connect with the world of greater Chicago,'" says Dan Schmidt, president of the nonprofit that runs commercial classical FM station WFMT, as well as PBS member WTTW.

The strategic concept of digital public TV stations as "community portals" is by no means original to Chicago: Schmidt credits Connecticut Public Broadcasting for developing the model. The key difference, he says, is the pace at which WTTW is proceeding to make its gateway model a reality. "We're doing it in July with existing technology, and positioning ourselves with content."

Network Chicago is many things, and, in all truth, a work in progress. At its most basic level, it's a fluid business plan, a local multimedia brand, and a new line-up of local television programs. More broadly, it's market-oriented strategy for carving a niche for public television in the shifting media environment.

Is this excitement or panic?

When Network Chicago goes on the air July 10, WTTW will be its launching pad. The station, which already produces "somewhere around 200 hours" of original, local content per year, will increase its output by another 100 hours, estimates Anders Yocom, senior v.p. of broadcasting. "What we're trying to do is underscore the importance of local programming and make a statement to the audience here that we're providing local programming that's interesting and most of it is important," says Yocom. WTTW needed to create new strands of programming across the week to "have enough critical mass to make it a big deal for our city."

WTTW will originate at least an hour of original local programming four nights a week. Its signature local program Chicago Tonight, which in the original business plan was to have expanded to an hour-long format, will instead be the lead-in for a new weeknightly strip of differentiated half-hour shows airing at 7:30. These include:

Earlier plans had called for WTTW to create another two new programs--on sports and business—but the costs of producing something distinctive in those two genres were too high. "We can't do everything we'd like and bring the same quality to it," explains McAleer.

Hence "The Cheap Show," which was added to the line-up after the high-end programs were postponed. "It's a reaction to not having quite the financial resources we'd hoped to do what we wanted to do," says Yocom. "We're trying to make the best of that."

The goal is for the television shows to "drive people to the Web," says McAleer, where WTTW also plans an expanded and more dynamic presence. "But it's important that these succeed as TV from the beginning."

WFMT, a prominent classical music producer and syndicator, will retain its fine arts format and participate in cross-promotions of other Network Chicago events or programs. When appropriate, it will air 60-second news spots tied to content developed for the Web or TV.

Schmidt also is looking for opportunities to create "synergies" through other programs, such as the periodic local performance series, WTTW Presents. In producing a one-hour jazz special that featured Herbie Hancock and Ramsey Lewis last fall, he says, the station created "cool" content for the Web, organized two special events, and established a cross-promotional partnership with a "smooth jazz" commercial outlet.

To meet its launch target, WTTW recently began hiring 18 new full-time positions, all involved in producing new content for TV and the Web. "We'd like to get the Web up at the same time [as the TV launch]," says McAleer, "but that will depend on getting the right Web producers and getting them in pretty short order."

As it is, the TV shows will be going "straight on the air," after a week or a few days of rehearsals, he adds. "You can call us crazy." "It's really an unprecedented commitment," continues McAleer. "I either awaken in the night out of pure excitement or pure panic. Somehow, I think it will all come together and come together well."

"Pick a target"

While it may seem like a hurly burly sort of endeavor at this juncture, the station has been building up to it for about two years. The Network Chicago concept was borne of a research-based strategic planning process that established "core values" for the new enterprise and identified its target audiences. Staff members from all across the company later were assigned to content teams that developed concepts for the new service.

The core values, articulated in the company's new business plan, are to be: "the place to engage the rich cultural life of Chicago; the place to discover and learn about Chicago's diverse community life; and a safe place for all Chicago families for learning and fun."

The primary audience for Network Chicago is a demographic group described as the "do-alls": educated folks, over 55, "who go to the opera, ball games and town meetings," as Schmidt describes them. Secondary audiences are the "active culturals," with a similar, slightly younger profile but no interest in sports; and the "active sports," or "soccer parents who value us for our kids programs."

Those groups together represent 9 million households and 40 percent of the Chicago market, Schmidt says, making them a "very broad, very diverse target." Currently, some 2 million households tune in to WTTW in a week, and the station reaches over 80 percent of the TV households in greater Chicago on a monthly basis, according to broadcast manager Dan Soles.

"We believe that in any viable media strategy for the future, you have to pick a target and serve them in some way better than anybody else does to have a really thriving and growing strategy," Schmidt says.

One key element of the Network Chicago plan that won't be launched in July is a weekly newspaper, a prototype of which is now being shared with potential advertisers, according to Katherine Lauderdale, senior v.p. of legal and business affairs. In late fall or early 2001, the paper will replace the monthly program guides of WTTW and WFMT, and be distributed to their combined memberships of some 200,000 subscribers. The concept is for the paper to be "not a listing service" of cultural events and other activities in the city, but to report on "what's going on, talking about it in a way that's relevant," says Catherine Braendell, v.p. of marketing.

WTTW is launching Network Chicago with the early proceeds of its $55 million capital campaign. With the campaign still in its silent phase, fundraisers have lined up $22 million of the total, one reason that Schmidt feels confident that his company isn't on a quixotic quest with its new venture. "There's a growing list of people who are putting real resources and dollars behind the idea right here in this community, and they see it as something that is a welcome and exciting prospect for our region."

Not that WTTW execs don't acknowledge the risk involved in implementing their plan. It will take five years and a 29 percent growth in revenues for Network Chicago to become self-sustaining, according to budget projections. In the early years, the initiative will be sustainable through the proceeds from the capital campaign, but in 2005 the cumulative deficit will top $23 million. Youch.

But the bigger risk is "doing nothing," says Lauderdale. "We had to find some way to reestablish our relevancy. The cable competition can't compete with us locally."

"As an industry, TV is losing audience to the Web as well," she continues. "We had to find some way to focus on what is important to our audience and deliver a service that meets their needs and expectations."

To enlist commitments from major donors, WTTW's fundraisers also found that they "needed something new, something that had vision, that would make us a player in the new media world," said Reese Marcusson, executive v.p. Network Chicago gave the station something new to talk about with its traditional donors, and is "opening up new doors" to contributors who wouldn't have been interested in the same old-same old.

 

. To Current's home page
. Earlier news: The core of WTTW's nightly hour will be Chicago Tonight, hosted for years by John Callaway.
. Outside link: Job openings posted on WTTW's web site.

Web page posted June 3, 2000
Current
The newspaper about public television and radio
in the United States
A service of Current Publishing Committee, Takoma Park, Md.
E-mail: webatcurrent.org
301-270-7240
Copyright 2000