WILM-TV and CBC New Media delivered Election Night results on digital billboards in Wilmington on Tuesday, November 8, 2016.
Travelers along Wilmington’s busiest thoroughfares kept an eye on North Carolina’s gubernatorial race on Election Day powered by Capitol Broadcasting Company’s WILM-TV and New Media Group.
On November 8, Fairway digital billboards in six Wilmington locations displayed the percentage of votes for the Republican and Democratic candidates alongside the WILM-TV logo and website URL, where full election results were available. This was made possible through a continuously updated feed of election data from the N.C. State Board of Elections.
The feed looked for new results from the Board of Elections every minute and a half. The billboard then fetched new data from the feed every minute.
“When we were presented with the unique opportunity to deliver live elections results to passersby, we were eager to harness the opportunity,” said Jake Seaton, digital product manager for CBC New Media Group. “This was a huge election in our state and interest was exceptionally high. We were able to reach and accurately inform an audience that was not sitting in front of a television, computer screen or phone.”
CBC New Media Group also powered national, state and local Election Night coverage on WILM-TV.com, WRAL.com and WRAL News apps, including multiple live video streams, an interactive map and live election results in more than 300 races from the president to the register of deeds. Live video streams were all available on Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV devices via apps launched earlier in 2016.
WILM-TV and CBC New Media delivered Election Night results on digital billboards in Wilmington on Tuesday, November 8, 2016.
“This is not our first experiment with digital signage, but this is the first time we’ve used it to share election data and drive traffic to our website,” said WILM-TV’s General Manager Connie Knox.
Knox said Fairway approached the station with the idea to display election results on their digital billboards, and she turned to CBC New Media Group to help execute the idea. The billboards began to show results the night of November 8 after polling locations closed at 7:30.
“We primarily use billboards to drive viewers to television programming, rotating graphics throughout the week to highlight shows we’re promoting,” Knox said.
WILM-TV also uses digital signage in on Thursdays and Fridays to promote upcoming football games airing on the station during the weekend.
“Wilmington has several very busy streets that provide us with a unique opportunity to reach many viewers with different messages throughout the week and at different times of day,” said Knox. “Anything we can put on our website, we can put on digital billboards.”
Thanks to NMG’s Laura Worthington for this capcom story& for these capcom graphics.
