Leveraging the power of the internet for broadcast radio’s use is something that the industry has been fighting for years. While the majority of commercial radio seemingly fears what the internet means to its way of life, a select few are finding ways to integrate on-air content with online content.
One such example is Bonneville’s Seattle cluster, which has merged the sites of News/Talk 710 KIRO, Talk 770 KTTH, and Classic Hits 97.3 KBSG into one site located at MyNorthwest.com. MyNorthwest has built a blog network out of the local on-air hosts of the stations, but the best feature may be the integration of KIRO’s on-air news reports into local headlines. They are also making archives of their talk shows available in MP3 form. It’s great to see a radio station (or in this case group of stations) make their content available so freely.
Unfortunately, It looks as though there may be a financial restructuring at the stations to bring the increased web staff onboard, as a number of staffers at KIRO were laid-off today.