Truncated, Repost by Melanie Sill and WRAL-TV

New and local long-form programming on a streaming platform is a brilliant idea and concept for testing viewer response and audience development potential.

WRAL’s recent five-part digital video series, “This is Human Trafficking,” is notable as a public service effort and also as an illustration of how the station is using long-form experiments to deliver new programming and learn from viewer response along the way.

The series “This is Human Trafficking” launched on WRAL.com and the response was amazing. It was the Number 1 most-watched video in that category for that first four-day launch period that was measured, then they pushed it to ‘over the top,’ meaning to WRAL’s streaming app for digital devices such as Roku and Apple TV.

As Nieman Reports reported in a 2018 feature on local TV news innovation, WRAL and corporate parent Capitol Broadcasting Co. are among the nation’s most ambitious broadcast organizations in pursuing what the industry calls “over the top” programming, delivered via the station’s streaming app and other digital platforms.

Read the full report by Melanie Sill and WRAL-TV.