Barrington Broadcasting Group has rolled out a new design to 26 station Web sites around the country.
The new design, based heavily off of its previous layout, has a much cleaner look, dropping the different colored news categories.
The new site design was also built heavily around search engine optimization.
Overall though, the homepage lacks any big bang.
The radar image on most of the sites are bigger than the main headline and image. Many new sites use very large images and media players, but these seem to lack much of that and rely more on headlines. One part of the site that does work is the multiple news tabs on the homepage, you can quickly see different categories of news.
Some examples of the new look:
http://www.connectmidmissouri.com/
http://www.toledoonthemove.com/
http://www.cnycentral.com/
Barrington is a cheap operation. They fired many, laid off some, then rehired people so they could avoid paying their health insurance. This new website design looks 10 years old already, and is a clear reflection of the cheapness of this equity firm pretending to be a television company.
Now if only Barrington could pull WNWO out of the ratings cellar.
These are really poor designs…no flow….little logic…ad positions not optimized….obviously designed by someone who is not up with the latest research etc.
I wanted to let you know that WGXA TV FOX 24/ABC 16 has gotten a new set, new graphics and has rebranded itself NewsCentral. It is the same as what KCAL/KCBS was trying to do with same NewsCentral logo. I was wondering how to find out who did their set and if there are pics anywhere?
The new sites may be a bit bare, but (at least for UpNorthLive.com, WPBN TV 7&4’s web site) I think the new look is a huge improvement over the old one.