Channel Five launches website
As the domains of computers, telecommunications and media merge under one all-encompassing digital umbrella, the world’s broadcasters are rapidly moving to cross the technological borders which had previously kept them in isolation. Belize is no exception and starting tonight this newscast makes its debut on the Internet. Patrick Jones, himself no stranger to cyberspace, surfed in for a look.
The Channel Five Website puts scripts and still photos of the entire daily newscast at the finger-tips of those cruising the information super-highway. For those whose business is news, it’s a matter of broadening the station’s market.
Stewart Krohn, Managing Director, Channel 5
“We put a lot of work into essentially what is one half hour newscast and we really need to find ways to make our work go further.”
And with the possibilities available on the Internet, the latest step by Channel Five fits well into the station’s overall plans for the future.
Stewart Krohn
“Well the site itself also tells about the company and other services that we provide, production, feature film, location management, tapes that we sell … that kind of thing. So certainly one part of the website is to promote our business and to increase cash flow; but I think the main part of the site that people will visit, will be the daily news site.”
According to its creator Demian Solano, channel5Belize.com, will go a long way in assisting the company to take its traditional quality service to more people, not only in Belize, but around the world.
Demian Solano, Managing Director, Netkom Internet Solutions
“The main feature of this website that sets it aside from the others is that the content is going to be very active. Text and images are going to be uploaded to the Internet everyday …
that is one of the biggest challenges that we faced when creating this project. We needed to make it easy for the Channel Five staff to get this material up on the Internet and so we developed a custom software package that makes it very easy for them to do this every night.”
Solano says that not only is the site easy to maintain, but that accessing it on the Internet requires no special software.
Demian Solano
“Its always good to be a step ahead when it comes to delivering news especially to a global audience, for example you have a large Belizean community in the states and around the world that like to be kept informed of what is going on.”
And that community also extends to other broadcasters around the Caribbean.
Stewart Krohn
“In the course of presenting a regional newscast now, all they need to find out what’s happening in Belize is when they get in in the morning, call up our website, see what our news is looking like and they might see something interesting on there, that they might then call and request, please send a tape of this story or that story. And if all of us in the region have this same kind of website, then it makes the job of the central news organization that much easier. So, this is a part of a larger regional plan to exchange news.”
In case you didn’t write it down, that address is www.channel5belize.com Students should note that each day’s newscast is archived and can be called up for research purposes. The site will be updated no later than nine o’clock each night.
