Last week after the fried squirrel incident, I went home to my apartment and told my roommates all about my exciting day investigating the campus power outage. One of my roommates said to me, "Oh yeah, I read about that on the KUJH web site." That was pretty exciting for me to hear because I had barely even ever talked to my roommates and friends about the website, and here she was checking it all on her own! I think it's a pretty cool site, I just think that most people don't know about it.
Right now I would say the audience for tv.ku.edu consists of those who work for the web site, like myself; some of the reporters for KUJH-TV news; some employees of the Lawrence Journal-World and Channel 6 News (who are only checking to make sure they have everything we do); and then those few KU students who are actually aware of the web site's existence.
So I think the first step in building an audience for tv.ku.edu would be to just get the word out about the web site. When I see the large amount of students that at least look at the Kansan each day, and that nearly every student gets on the internet every day, it seems like a website about campus news would easily attract an audience. We can start by telling our friends, and then maybe even look into advertising the web site in the Kansan or with signs around campus. What would be even better is to have a direct link from the main page of the KU web site. Whether that's actually a possibility, I don't know. But it would definitely be good for "business."
Something I keep hearing news people, like Lara Weber from Chicago's Red Eye newspaper, talk about in terms of reaching a younger audience is that you've got to have some "edge." This is kind-of difficult for a University news web site, but I think there's a little edge that could be added. Young people love the internet, and they love to interact on the internet. I know I've mentioned an idea like this before, but we could start by having some sort of discussion board or a place where viewers could leave comments about news. Or, to combine this with the advertising idea, we could add in our advertisements that "we want to hear your news" or something like that. Then there would be an email address listed or a place on the web site where people could leave ideas for stories.
But still, I think there is a lot to be said about word of mouth. I mean, I'm trying to do my part by having a link to tv.ku.edu on my Facebook profile. Well, I suppose I could make a little more effort than that. But anyway, in order to start building our audience, we just need to tell people about the web site and then get their feedback. And the next step depends on whatever they say. Afterall, this web site is not for me, it's for the general public to be informed and entertained.
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