With Apple projected to sell 50 million iPads in the U.S. alone by 2012 and smartphone penetration rising sharply, the multi-platform, multimedia era is officially here. Traditional media have been transitioning their content and leveraging their brands onto new devices for years, but the struggle to monetize them significantly — and independently of their legacy products — continues.

Internet Broadcasting Systems COO Jeff Kimball told BIA/Kelsey that a true digital strategy calls for “inverting the model.” Simply shoveling content from on-air to online and beyond (mobile, tablet, connected TV) won’t engage consumers deeply enough to drive real revenue.

Traditional media brands must “think digitally,” a concept that carries several applications, from pushing digital assets to drive on-air viewing to digitizing unused video footage to capture its long-tail value. Fisher Communications’ neighborhood sites in Seattle (built by DataSphere) do just that and are profitably “rolling up the nickels” by recruiting a new breed of small-business advertiser.

Internet Broadcasting’s solution for those struggling to make the shift is a holistic suite of products: content management and publishing systems, advertising tools, a scaled ad network and even original journalistic content (including international news reporting and topical vertical feeds). It caters primarily to local TV stations, but also services radio, newspaper, magazine and cable.

The company has created a portfolio of ad products and formats to drive deeper advertiser engagement across local media Web sites. Foremost among them is the “hover ad,” which can be appended with live, streaming video, and has returned improved clickthrough rates and higher-premium CPMs.

Ad tools are coupled with the IB Local Network, serving 2,200 Web sites across all major DMAs. Advertisers can geographically and demograpically target. This allows for local message versioning by national and regional brands, a growing trend among leading retailers seeking a stronger local presence.

Cox Media Group, Hearst Television and Telemundo are among Internet Broadcasting’s leading publisher partners. World Now and Broadcast Interactive, among others, are also competing to offer digital tools to traditional media.

Tags: Internet Broadcasting, local tv

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