Just An Online Minute... Katrina and the (Destructive) Waves

by Tobi Elkin, Aug 31, 2005, 1:01 PM

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Now if you're wondering about all those poor people down in Mobile, Ala., Biloxi, Miss., and New Orleans, well, many of us checked up on them via the Web. We monitored online news reports and video and for all intents and purposes, the coverage was superb. The television reports were also very, very good. We wondered if we would hold up as well as some of the correspondents that were battered by rain as sharp as nails.

Online news leader MSNBC.com reported that by end of day Monday, Aug. 29, it had racked up 9 million video streams, including 2 million live streams. MSNBC.com's site traffic was double the weekday average. While most online news operations delivered solid video and editorial packages on the hurricane, MSNBC.com appeared to go above and beyond the call, covering the category 5 storm from every conceivable angle. Its partners (you know who they are), delivered home runs. The video was striking, lucid, and heartbreaking.

By the way, the 9 million streams was a single-day video record for MSNBC.com. The site's live video coverage (2 million streams worth) began at dawn on Monday and went throughout the day.

"When an event like Hurricane Katrina occurs, we want to offer our consumers a news experience with sight, sound, and motion in addition to written word," said Charlie Tillinghast, general manager and publisher for MSNBC.com. "The great technology upon which we have built our site allows us to deliver our best -- comprehensive reporting, one-of-a-kind video, updated slideshows, and interactive features -- along with the confidence that the site will be easily accessible during the most critical moments at the peak of demand."

MSNBC.com featured photo slideshows, an interactive hurricane tracker, and reports from citizen journalists who brought eyewitness accounts to the news coverage. It is also worth noting that the Minute noticed CNN.com's citizen reports as well. On another note, as gas prices soar and vacation travel looms, ad spending jumped 5.7 percent in the first half of this year, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus, which attributes the rise to solid growth in Web advertising, Spanish-language, and cable TV.

Nielsen said Web advertising increased nearly 13 percent, while Hispanic television grew 15 percent and cable rose 13 percent. And guess what? Network television showed just a 5 percent increase and national newspapers saw a 1.1 percent increase. No surprises there. Spending on network radio advertising fell nearly 1 percent.

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