By: Mark Fitzgerald San Antonio Paper, TV Station Partner
The latest regional portal launched this week, deep in the heart of Texas. Hearst Newspapers' San Antonio Express-News and the Belo-owned local TV station KENS 5 launched My San Antonio at http://www.mysanantonio.com.
The portal replaces an Express-News Web site that consistently ranked among the nation's top 10 in penetration of its own market. The newspaper's unique flag is nowhere to be found on the new portal, with ?My San Antonio? serving as the major brand. A subhead reads: ?From KENS 5 and the San Antonio Express News.?
Express-News Publisher Larry Walker said the newspaper is switching to the portal because it is convinced that only by forging strategic alliances will it be able to compete with the Yahoo!s of the world.
?I think there are going to be a fair number of these strategic alliances in the future,? Walker said. ?I don't think you can take on the big guys like Yahoo! without having some firepower.?
Hearst and Belo were natural partners because of their big presence in South Texas, Walker said. Most of the day-to-
day news content comes from the newspaper, with KENS 5 providing late-breaking coverage. The TV station proved invaluable Wednesday when a tractor-trailer jackknifed on a downtown highway ramp and spilled 5,000 gallons of hydrochloric acid, Walker said.
The portal had a troubled launched Monday Dec. 6. Users calling up the old Express-News site at http://www.expressnews.com or the former TV site (http://www.KENS-TV.com) were automatically sent to the new portal, but a faulty program in the second router trapped many users in the home page. Those who clicked on news items were looped back into the home page. The problem had eased by Tuesday and the paper believes it is now eliminated.
Nevertheless, there were 400,000 page visits and some 47,000 to 48,000 unique visits the first day, Walker said. Users can personalize the site by registering but registration is not required. The site is built on AltaVista technology.
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Mark Fitzgerald (markf@mediainfo.com) is editor at large for Editor & Publisher magazine.
(c) Copyright 1999, Editor & Publisher
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