• Advertising Age, Tuesday, October 14, 2008 9:15 AM

NBC Universal's local stations' Web sites will stop being "adjunct" to the TV stations and will be redesigned as local portals, to try to snag more local ad revenue. The sites will downplay the station call letters and focus on particular cities. For instance, in New York wnbc.com will become nbcnewyork.com.

In years past, station identification has been seen as key in promoting local media. Online, however, media outlets are often secondary to the information they provide to users who search on Google or Yahoo for specific events or products.

The new sites will still offer information from local TV stations, but will add info about the cities from bloggers and print and online publications. The NBC Universal unit is comprised of 10 TV stations that reach 27% of U.S. households.

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