University of Scranton journalism professor Matthew Reavy has been blogging about journalism in northeastern Pennsylvania. Read on for details of... The Office convention.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Check out the U. of Scranton journalism blog
University of Scranton journalism professor Matthew Reavy has been blogging about journalism in northeastern Pennsylvania. Read on for details of... The Office convention.
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24 comments:
I was waiting for the discussion of how the Times Tribune humped an event that it was also promoting. The newspaper stories went well beyond "reporting" and ventured into advocacy.
Gimme a break. Sounds like someone is pissed that the TS people created the most talked about and popular event to hit the city in decades.
In decades? Please!
I like the link under "Scranton News" to the story headlined, "Scranton Man Dies of Injuries Suffered in Crash."
That would be the Scranton in SOUTH CAROLINA.
http://tinyurl.com/24ookv
I still like the blog, though.
Yeah, the "Scranton" thing is just an RSS-style news feed from Google. It does a Google News search for "Scranton" and posts the results. It's probably 50/50 news and entertainment.
Most popular event?
From what I saw they sold about 3,000 tickets, fewer than your typical AAA baseball game or hockey game or most concerts that come through town.
I know someone will chime in about out-of-town tourist dollars, hotel rooms, restaurant meals, yada yada.
But amid all the reams of coverage, I haven't seen anyone detail how many visitors actually came from out of town and what was the real, not hoped-for, cash value of the event.
(Although Falchek did provide this truly amazing factoid: "Harrisburg’s WGAL-TV’s video of the event posted on its Web site was the second-most-viewed piece there.")
Most talked-about?
What with all of the acres of free advertising that the Times Tribune provided for its own event, it should have been. I was surprised that such an over-hyped event drew only 3,000 people.
That last post was mine, I forgot to sign in.
J.M.
From what I read, 5,000 tickets were sold. Approximately 70 percent of those were sold to out-of-town visitors. Thus, about 3,500 came in from outside the local area, including some from other countries (Ireland and Australia were specifically mentioned).
Scranton also got a ton of publicity, almost all of it positive. The publicity didn't surprise me. The fact that it was so overwhelmingly positive did.
Personally, I'm not a fan of The Office. But I do find it amusing that when I mention that I work in Scranton, many people immediately associate it with the television show.
I'm also interested to see how the show will reference Scranton in the future now that the writers, producers and many of the actors have had a chance to visit. I have no idea what to expect. But I'm curious.
"Sold" is not totally accurate. A fair number were freebies.
Lots and lots and lots of freebies went to Times Shamrock employees. I wouldn't say they papered the house, but there were not 3,000 paying customers, let alone 5,000.
Gotta say, I don't live in NEPA anymore, but heard about the event outside the area. Whether you like TT or not, it was a good event for the area. Be happy something is bringing folks to scranton, eveything doesn't have to suck
Great, now Scranton's claim to fame is hosting a convention of geeky creepy get-a-lifers.
Scotty, beam me up!
A nice event, but not worthy of the Office-gasms experienced by TS newspaper and radio people.
Or all the other media? (National Public Radio, Entertainment Weekly, PR Week, USA Today, LA Times, New York Times, KC Star, Baltimore Sun, International Herald Tribune, Philadelphia Daily News, San Francisco Chronicle, Raleigh News & Observer, Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Montreal Gazette, Newsday, etc.)
There was more coverage of this than any story I've seen out of Scranton since the Hazleton illegal immigration bill trial, and more positive coverage than I've seen in years... maybe even decades like the previous poster said. Heck, even The West Australian had a story on The Office convention in Scranton.
The TT would have looked much worse had they not covered the hell out of the convention.
Ya know what this board needs? Another good Iseman-bashing session. We haven't had one in a while. We're overdue. And it always generates about 70-80 hits!
Check out the Wikipedia article about the Times Leader for a snippet about Iseman.
For the record, TT employees were not given free tickets to the convention. Any TT/TS employee that was there for free was working as a volunteer. The sales numbers for tickets are accurate. Go back and look at the articles mentioning advance sales and you'll see. The 5000 sales number was out there before the event ever started.
Yeah, let's take our coverage cues from the "West Australian."
Plenty of freebies went to city employees and the TS. Unfortunately, the TS employees got screwed over. The free tickets went to advertisers and other assorted other bobo's.
Sales numbers were inflated, and you know it.
You're wrong. Sales numbers reflect actual sales. Any freebees were added to attendance totals, not sales totals. Of course you know everything though, right? I'm sure you work there.
The info is solid. This was a nice event, but be real.
I work for TS. I had a "press" pass. It was not a ticket. I don't go to the "let's see how many we got so far" meetings but I don't think the committee lumped press access in with ticket access. Say what you will about the TS coverage, the event itself, the type of people TV show conventions draw, whatever. There was a bigger than usual crowd in Scranton for three days and they all spent some money. There was huge press coverage, larger than anything that might go on in Scranton short of a UFO landing at Nay Aug Park. Not a single police incident and everybody seemed happy with the results. What's to shoot down here? I guess what I'm saying is if you have a problem with any of it, I guess it sucks to be you.
I'm not shooting down anything. I'm just saying the convention was not as big as it was made out to be.
Tell that to the hotels that were booked solid. You couldn't get a room in NEPA. Must have been all of the people with free tickets shacking up in rooms with the money they were going to spend on tickets.
Probably!
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