• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, April 8, 2008

What a world. The Internet has so jumbled up traditional media that a newspaper company is now hiring radio executives to manage its video strategy. And it's probably going to work.

Over the last week, Randy Michaels--the new CEO of the interactive and broadcasting unit of Sam Zell's Tribune Co.--has been poaching executives from his old employer, Clear Channel Radio, including CC's vice president of programming Sean Compton, vice president and chief financial officer Jerry Kersting, senior vice president of programming Marc Chase, and vice president of technology Steve Gable.

At first glance, the sight of a newspaper company poaching on radio turf might be confusing, given that such mature industries have rather different business models. But Tribune wants the radio executives to manage an immature part of the business: online video.

At Tribune, Compton will serve as senior vice president of programming and entertainment for the company's TV division, consisting of 23 stations--working closely with Ed Wilson, formerly president of Fox Television Network, who was appointed president of the division in February.

According to Ken Doctor, an analyst with Outsell Inc., it's quite likely that Compton will also have responsibility for integrating professional video content from the stations more closely into Tribune's online operations, including newspaper Web sites for the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times and Baltimore Sun.

Likewise, Chase is reportedly set to take over Tribune's interactive division, helping to coordinate the flow of online video between Tribune's various properties, among other tasks. And Gable's tech background suggests he will also play a major role in getting content to flow more efficiently.

"What Tribune is doing is making its overall Web presence more video-forward," Doctor summarized, "and that makes sense, given user and ad patterns." CPMs for regular news video can run from $25-$50 on the Web, with a great deal of variability: Hearst-Argyle's local TV sites are said to charge anywhere from $15-$100 CPM, while NBC's charge $40-$75, according to a survey by WebVideoReport.com.

Business video fetches $50 on average, and up to $90 at premium properties like The Wall Street Journal.

The move especially makes sense when viewed alongside its push for scale and efficiency in local news operations, Doctor said. Here he pointed to the announcement in December of a partnership between Tribune and Local TV to create a broadcast management company that will provide shared services to both Local TV and Tribune Company stations. That was followed by Tribune's decision in March to consolidate the broadcast and interactive operations of its Miami television station, WSFL-TV, with the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, based in Fort Lauderdale.

For his part, Clear Channel CEO John Hogan seemed to take the poaching in stride, or even as a compliment. Under the leadership of Evan Harrison, the executive vice president heading its online music and radio unit (whom Clear Channel poached from AOL), the company has aggressively rolled out new video products, including Stripped, a series of live in-studio performances, and Video Six-Pack, where celebrity hosts get to play their six favorite music videos. According to the company, the recent performance by the Jonas Brothers on Stripped accumulated over 370,000 plays in the first 10 days, while the entire Web package (including user-posted photo galleries) attracted over 1.1 million views in the same period.