There’s a new way to get your local television news and…it’s about time.
WRAL, the innovative affiliate in Raleigh, North Carolina has partnered or hired “News Over Wireless” to put their local morning and evening newscasts and individual stories on the iPhone.
WRAL was the first station in the country to put their local newscasts in HD and I imagine this innovation will be followed soon by other tv stations wanting to a: find or keep viewers and b: find a new stream of revenue.
Here’s how it works: iPhone users download the free application from the iTunes store. Clicking on the app brings you to a program that looks like the screenshot on the right.
The device gives the options of “home”, “video”, “News”, “weather” and “More”.
Poking around for a few minutes it seems the home, allows users to read the latest local news stories. “Video” obviously shows local news segments, “News” seems to be a combination of the new, posting the newest additions at the top.
The weather tab is very impressive as it gives not only the latest local forecast from WRAL meteorologists but also includes animated local, regional and national Doppler radar and satellite pictures. The “More” tab lists…well, more. Sports, traffic, features, school closings, StormTracker, entertainment and many other items.
It is very very impressive. I’ve got to run out now and I’ll check it some more. I’ll post something when I get back.
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