• Forbes, Wednesday, August 5, 2009 9:57 PM

Last fall, NBC started revamping the Web operations at its 10 "owned-and-operated" local broadcasters -- assembling digital media journalists from sites like Thrillist and AOL City Guide, as well print media refugees from Lucky, the New York Daily News and other outlets.

So, how is it going? Not bad. In 10 months NBC's local Web overall audience has grown four-fold to 20 million unique visitors. It helps that the network has been promoting the local sites with commercials on "The Office" and "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien."

NBC's goal is to create city-specific Web sites more authoritative than personal blogs and user-generated directories, and hipper than a local newspaper's digital arm, says Brian Buchwald, NBC senior VP of Local Integrated Media. NBC's local reporters weave in editorial content derived from readers into a stream of easily digestible news pieces. The hope is to cater to upwardly mobile, free-spending 25- to 44-year-olds NBC has dubbed "social capitalists." "We need to fit into the community and do what isn't being addressed by traditional sites and Twitter and Facebook,'' says Buchwald.

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