Nevada Newsmakers archived for live play online

The expansion of "Nevada Newsmakers" to the Internet, Sam Shad says, reflects the changes that affect everyone in broadcasting these days.

"People are creating their own programming," Shad said last week."It's got to be there when they want it."

The public affairs program this week launches nevadanewsmakers.com, a Web site where two weeks'worth of its shows are archived.New shows will be available for downloading at 4:45 p.m.

daily.

That's one more step for a television show that has been steadily increasing its exposure.

These days, it airs at 12:30 p.m.Monday through Thursday on KRNV-TV in Reno.

It airs on KVBC-TV in Las Vegas.

It airs numerous times a week on cable television in Reno and Las Vegas.

And it runs from 9-11 a.m.

each Sunday on Newstalk 780 KOH in Reno.

The Web site, Shad said, increases the revenue opportunities for his Sam Shad Productions.

Early advertisers on the Web site range from the Retail Association of Nevada to the Resort at Red Hawk and the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center.

But the additional revenue isn't necessary to keep the program afloat.

"We've been in the black for 2005, which is great," Shad said.

Encouraging his company's move to the Web site, he said,was dramatically falling costs in software and bandwidth to make the video archive possible.

Those costs today are about 10 percent of what they were just two years ago when the company first examined the possibility.

Sam Shad Productions has outsourced the daily downloading and delivery of the Web broadcasts.

If nothing else, Shad said the Web archive should reduce the amount that political consultants spend on DVDs and videotape to record the program.

Said one consultant, Las Vegas-based Jim Denton,"Not a week passes that someone does not call my office and ask if we can tape the show for them." That taping often is done on behalf of political figures in Washington, D.C., or elsewhere in the nation that's outside the broadcast reach of the Nevada stations.

The Web archive, Shad noted, allows for worldwide delivery of "Nevada Newsmakers." And busy lobbyists have said that the 12:30 p.m.

airings of the show have been virtually impossible for them to catch.

Shad hosted "Nevada Newsmakers" from 1993 to 2002 on Reno's KOLO-TV, Channel 8, and switched to KRNV in 2003.He added KVBC in Las Vegas last year.

That station, like KRNV, is owned by Sunbelt Communications.

Next up for the show? "In the near future, we'll make the show available to people on their iPods, PDAs and cell phones," said Shad.