Albany Sites Ride Politics To Online Success

Online media is booming in the marketplace

Albany is the capital of the Empire State, so it’s a company town where politics are always hot and where government workers are deeply interested in what the legislature and governor will do next.

According to Linda Moss at netnewscheck.com, that’s why newspaper and TV stations feature politics and spotlight blogging pundits on their Web sites to lure local online audiences -- and booming ad dollars -- in the 58th largest media market.

“All the state workers are looking at our site Monday,” said Paul Block, executive producer of TimesUnion.com, which is part of Hearst Newspapers. “We’re definitely more in politics than a lot of other areas.”

YNN.com (Your News Now), the Web home for Time Warner Cable’s local news channels in Upstate New York, including Albany, last year launched a companion site, CapitalTonight.com, for its nightly political show.

“It’s quite popular, as you can imagine, with our crazy New York State politics,” said Susan Bock, executive producer of online content for YNN.com.

CapitalTonight.com had one of its videos go viral last September, when it was the first media outlet to post a clip – taken with a cell phone -- of gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino threatening to “take out” out New York Post state editor Fred Dicker.

Albany-Schenectady-Troy, N.Y., is a booming marketplace for local online media and is especially robust in terms of local online ad-dollar growth.

Local online ad spending in Albany was $71.9 million last year, according to estimates from Borrell Associates. The research firm forecasts that Albany’s local online ad revenue will increase 30%, to $93.9 million, in 2011, according to Larry Shaw, Borrell’s vice president of research.

That growth rate paces well ahead of overall local online ad revenue, which is expected to climb almost 18% from last year to 2011, to $16.1 billion.

In fact, Borrell ranks Albany-Schenectady as No. 2 among markets for top growth rates, at 22% or greater, from 2010 to 2011 for local online advertising. The market trails only Monroe, La.-El Dorado, Ark., and places ahead of Des Moines-Aimes, Iowa.

And for the Capital Region during the five-year period from 2010 to 2015, local online ad revenue is expected to increase 100.7%, to $144.4 million, according to Borrell.

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