Nexstar Broadcasting Group has announced an agreement that will brings news, video and content from its 33 local community Web portals to mobile users through LSN Mobile’s Local Wireless media-to-mobile platform.
Nexstar’s community Web portal strategy, launched in 2007, extends the reach of its 63 local television stations by leveraging the brand, content and local relationships into an independent business. The service will not utilize the ATSC A/153 standard for mobile video that many other local stations are pursuing.
Nexstar’s mobile expansion puts local content on Web-enabled mobile handsets and delivers video clips to video-enabled mobile phones, either within a news story or through a video menu. Nexstar will also be offering local wireless apps for the iPhone, BlackBerry, Droid and other smartphones as well as SMS/text messaging delivering geo-targeted mobile alerts for breaking news, weather and sports scores.
Since its launch, Nexstar has recorded 12 consecutive quarters of revenue growth from its e-Media community Web portal strategy, and in the first nine months of 2009, Nexstar’s e-Media revenue rose by approximately 13 percent over the comparable 2008 period.
Last year’s 15 percent growth in online revenues put Nexstar in the top 10 fastest-growing local online advertising companies. Nearly all of their broadcast TV peers experienced negative growth in 2009. Overall, 61 percent of the local media companies saw negative growth.
Nexstar Broadcasting Group currently owns, operates, programs or provides sales and other services to 63 television stations in 34 markets in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, Texas, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Arkansas, Alabama, New York, Rhode Island, Utah and Florida. Nexstar reaches about 13 million viewers or approximately 11.5 percent of all U.S. television households.
