ABSTRACT
Local broadcast stations earn much of their advertising revenue from the newscasts they create about their own communities. A body of research has been established on how stations promote these newscasts on-air. However, less work has been done on how stations can use their website to promote the revenue-generating newscast. To address that shortage a content analysis of the websites for each of the top four networks in the top 100 markets examined three sets of traditional promotional features-newscast availability, station/newscast credibility, past stories-to test hypotheses predicting that stations would use these well-researched features online. Overall, the hypotheses were not supported. There was little emphasis on these 372 websites of the newscasts availability, credibility, or quality. A set of interactive promotional features was also examined to test a hypothesis that stations would use interactivity on their websites to promote the newscast. There was limited support for this hypothesis, as well. Stations appeared to miss an opportunity to promote their most profitable programming and may have spent their technology funds unwisely.