August 10, 2007 New York, NY – Broadcast Interactive Media announced today that it has now successfully launched YouNewsTV in over 25 markets in conjunction with TV station partners, including markets such as Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Milwaukee, and Buffalo.

KCRG, the ABC affiliate in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, reported record website traffic following the launch of YouNews™ on their website in June 2007. Severe weather in Iowa in July drove record weather-related content submissions such as videos of tornados and photos of thunderclouds (examples can be seen at http://www.kcrg.com/younews?cid=71571&cat=Weather). KCRG in turn used several user submissions on-air during their evening newscast. In all, July showed a 166% increase in YouNews pageviews over June for station site www.KCRG.com/younews.

Shannon Booth, KCRG Executive Producer, notes “We previously had a section on our site where users emailed photos in to the station. The difference now is that we can take video, the content is reviewed by Broadcast Interactive, and we’re directing them to YouNewsTV with on-air promotions and mentions in our newscast. They’re really tuning in to see the YouNews photos and video on-air. It’s proven to be a great way to engage the community in the news cycle, especially with weather.”

KVAL (CBS affiliate in Eugene, OR), and WTMJ (NBC affiliate in Milwaukee, WI) have seen similar results running YouNewsTV. KVAL’s YouNews pageviews jumped 262% from June to July, with the key element being a “Three Rivers Casino & Hotel” photo contest. The casino will permanently install the winning photos as artwork in the hotel rooms, and feature the nature photos in print and online.

Dino Francois, KVAL Promotions Manager, says “Our account executives love this revenue program. It offers tremendous value for our local advertisers, while being remarkably easy to execute in terms of promotions.”

WTMJ’s YouNews pageviews tripled from May to June, and then doubled again from June to July. Time Warner Cable partnered with the station to sponsor “Forecaster 4 a Day”. Entrants recorded their own “weather forecast” at one of three live auditions, with the video featured on YouNews. Winners are selected by online voting and the winning “Forecaster 4 a Day” will record their own weather forecasts throughout the day, with the video airing on WTMJ’s WeatherPlus channel, and streamed online.

WTMJ Sales Manager Mark LeGrand is “thrilled with the results. We took time early in the process to produce a “How to YouNews” video that we promoted heavily both online and on-air. It’s clearly paying off in the early increase of registered users and YouNews submissions.”

Timur Yarnall, CEO of Broadcast Interactive Media, states, “We’re very excited to see YouNewsTV paying dividends in terms of revenue and traffic to our clients so early in the product lifecycle. We will continue to aggressively enhance the product as Broadcast Interactive rolls it out nationwide – and we should have over 50 sites live within the next 90 days. Our recent feature enhancements include the ability for users to submit comments on all YouNews photos and video, ability to better handle cell phone and mobile submissions, and automatic generation of ‘related content’ links on any YouNews content on our client sites. We also anticipate launching our first few newspaper sites, through our partnership with MediaSpan Group, shortly.”


About Broadcast Interactive Media

Based in New York City and Madison, WI, Broadcast Interactive Media (www.broadcast-interactive.com) is the leading provider of locally-focused Web solutions for more than 110 television and radio broadcast station websites. Offerings include a comprehensive suite of revenue-generating programs and national sales support, video streaming, content feeds, and technology development. Customers include groups such as Fisher Communications, Journal Broadcast Group, Granite Broadcasting Group, Meredith Broadcasting, Schurz Communications, and Freedom Communications.

Contact:

Marivic
Marketing Director
Broadcast Interactive Media
Ph: 608-255-2802
mvalencia@bimedia.net