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KOMU Ombudsman Study

 

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"Your View" Interview

Your View is an experiment in viewer involvement in the journalistic process. We solicit viewer feedback on the content of the news. We encourage viewer questions about the process. We promise a higher degree of transparency on issues of news decision-making. A top KOMU-TV anchor presents a weekly 2-minute report on a viewer’s question and the station’s answer.

RJI has sponsored KOMU-TV’s first of two viewer surveys (400 samples in the Columbia-Jefferson City television market; half a million homes). This survey established a baseline on the issues of viewer recognition of Your View and on the viewers’ sense of credibility of the news. We will conduct a second survey in late 2009 to measure change -- hopefully an increase in recognition and credibility relating to Your View. The Your View viewer ombudsperson project was presented at the 2009 Radio-Television News Directors Association conference at the annual National Association of Broadcasters convention in April.

(KOMU is the University-owned NBC affiliate.)

Executive Summary

In today’s new media environment, KOMU, a local station affiliated with NBC in the Columbia-Jefferson City market in Central Missouri, saw robust viewership in the local residents and recognition of its feature Your View, an ombudsman experiment for viewers to become more involved in the journalistic process of news production, according to a recent study funded by The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute (RJI).

To understand how KOMU would fare with its competition including the increasing popularity of the Internet as a source of information about local communities, and how its programming such as Your View would be perceived, Center for Advanced Social Research (CASR) completed 405 telephone interviews with local residents 18 years of age or older in February and March 2009.

The key findings are:

●    Seventy percent of 405 local residents randomly interviewed in the primary and secondary viewing areas of KOMU watched the local news coverage in the evening ranging from one to seven days in a week. This is in sharp contrast to the national average viewership of local television news at 52% in the United States as reported by The Project for Excellence in Journalism in 2008 in its 2009 annual report The State of The News Media;

●    Of all possible reasons, 54% of the viewers cited “local news and information” as their primary reason to turn to the station, seven percent cited the specific programs on the network such as The Today show, six percent liked the anchors,  another six percent said it was their viewing habit.

The strong viewership of KOMU was also evident in the survey participants’ responses to questions about competing stations such as KRCG CBS 13 and KMIZ ABC 17 in the same market.

●    When asked “which local television station do you watch most often for local news in a typical week?” 43% of the 358 respondents chose KOMU NBC 8, compared to 27% selecting KRCG CBS 13, and 20% KMIZ ABC 17. Similarly, when asked “if you had to choose between KOMU NBC 8, KRCG CBS 13, and KMIZ ABC 17 for local news, which would you choose? 43% of the viewers selected KOMU NBC 8, 29% KRCG CBS 13, and 22% KMIZ ABC 17, reinstating that KOMU NBC 8 was the most preferred local television station;

●    A combined 84% of the local television news viewers either “very often” (38%) or “often”(46%) found most of the local news on tehir favorite channels accurate.

Other key findings are:

●    Seventy-six percent of the respondents had access to the Internet at home or work. Of them, 47% would go online for local news ranging from everyday to once a month. This is in line with other research findings about the proportion of Americans going online for local news. For example, in a national telephone survey of 1,012 adults regarding online journalism credibility conducted by The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute in September and November 2008, 51% of those who had access to the Internt went online for local news. When seeking for local news, 34% of the online users in the viewing areas of KOMU-NBC 8 turned to newspapers’ Web sites, 32% television’s Web sites, and 25% used independent Web sites such as Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Google, and etc.; 

●    When asked “during the past month, which of the following local television Web sites have you visited for local news and weather?” and given KOMU, KRCG, and KMIZ as the three main local television stations, 43% of the online local news users visited the Web site of KOMU, compared to 22% for KRCG’s Web site and 30% for KMIZ’s Web site;

●    Forty-five percent of the local television news viewers were familiar with the feature of Your View on KOMU and its Web site. Thirty-eight percent of those who were familiar with the feature recalled who the anchor was every Friday during its six o’clock news;

●    When asked “how often do you find most of the local news on your favorite Web site accurate?” 33% of the online local news users answered “very often,” 42% “often,” and eight percent “sometimes;” 

●    A combined 69% of those who visited the Web site of KOMU thought the content of the Web site was trustowrthy, whereas 28% did not know or were not sure. This is consistent with other research findings. In a national study of online journalism credibility conducted by the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute, 76% of those who sought local news online reported the content was trustworthy;

●    Half (50%) of the 405 respondents were willing to send an email or make a phone call to a station to comment, compliment, or complain about local news coverage.
The average age of the 405 respondents was 54.7 years, and 49% of the sample were male. As requested by researchers of the Radio Television Journalism program, 75% of the respondents lived in the primary areas and the remaining 25% from the secondary viewing areas of the station.

The findings of the study suggest that local television stations can stay competitive in today's multimedia environment if they focus on local news and information. In addition to the descriptive statistics reported here, a good number of the viewers liked to watch KOMU because it had more coverage and more stories about what happened in the City of Columbia than its competitors.

Another implication is that local television stations should make better use of the interactive features on their station’s Web sites in order to position themselves both on the air and online as indispensable hubs for information about the cities and towns they serve. The findings that 45% of the viewers were familiar with the ombudsman-like feature Your View and 50% of all the respondents were willing to provide feedback to stations about local news coverage suggest that there are opportunities for stations to serve a wider audience than that of their broadcasts as well as to encourage more audience involvement in the process of local news production.  

For questions or more information about the study, please contact Kent Collins at collinsks@missouri.edu and Kenneth Fleming, PhD, at flemingk@missouri.edu.

Your View Video Clips
You need Adobe Flash Player 8 and javascript to view this video. Your View: Hickman Incident	You need Adobe Flash Player 8 and javascript to view this video. Your View: Gun Threat
You need Adobe Flash Player 8 and javascript to view this video. Your View: Ombudsman, decision making in KOMU	You need Adobe Flash Player 8 and javascript to view this video. Your View:KOMU’s Coverage on the Governor’s State of the State Address
You need Adobe Flash Player 8 and javascript to view this video. Your View: Free Satellite Interviews

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