ID Radio: Riverbend Com Launches Local News Website

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Riverbend Communications, which owns five radio stations around Idaho Falls, launched EastIdahoNews.com last week to square off against the local family-owned daily, The Post Register.

Riverbend stations are Talk KEII 690 AM / 92.7 T-FM / 101.1 T-FM...AC KLCE 97.3 FM Classy 97...Active Rock KCVI 101.5 FM. N/T KEIR 1260 AM 97.7 T-FM...Top40 KFTZ 103.3 FM,...Country KTHK 105.5 FM The Hawk.

Its mission is to zero in on local stories and become “the community place where people come for music and news,” says Nate Eaton, its news director.

For Riverbend, the site is also an opportunity to broaden a digital business that started several years ago with digital marketing services, especially building websites for area businesses.

Steve Paulsen

Steven Poulsen, the site’s general manager, tells TV NewsCheck it made sense to tap the company’s in-house pool of designers and developers to build a custom content management system for its own fledgling news enterprise.

“We had the resources and the people to do it,” Poulsen says, adding that the company also had its eye on diversifying revenue opportunities beyond spot ads on air and display ads on its station sites.

“There are  a lot of things that the digital world offers that the traditional [media] world doesn’t,” he says.


Among those potential revenue streams are business profiles, sponsorships, pre-roll on its video content and possible community events that Riverbend would pair with an in-house events company that already puts on nine annual events.

For now, all of those expanding advertising opportunities will be handled by its radio sales staff, but Poulsen says that a separate digital sales force will be necessary as the business grows. Poulsen won’t disclose East Idaho News’ budget or revenue goals.

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On the news side, Eaton, who got his own start locally on KIDK-TV, is starting small. In addition his news director role, he’s also serving as anchor/reporter for the site joined by a managing editor/reporter and five interns and a handful of freelance columnists and contributors rounding out his crew. He says plans are to hire one to two more reporters as the enterprise grows.