What’s In A Domain Name? WNBC-TV Finds Out

On Monday, WNBC in New York launched a 24-hour digital news/lifestyle channel called New York Nonstop. Read the review from the NYPost here and here is the online forum from the New York Daily News.

The blog NewscastStudio also did some checking on the all-important Web domain of the new channel. There isn’t one.

NEWYORKNONSTOP.COM directs users to a Internet services company, while NYNONSTOP.COM is a DJ site. The domain NYNONSTOP.TV and NEWYORKNONSTOP.TV are both registered as well, but don’t have active Web sites assigned to them. A shortened version of the channel’s name, NYNS.COM is taken (no surprise here since short domains are an extremely rare commodity today). Of all the most immediately obvious domains, only NEWYORKNS.COM is available; and it’s really not that obvious of a domain.

WNBC recently revamped and renamed its Website from WNBC.com to NBCNewYork.com. The operation that runs NBC’s local stations is making a similar switchs in Los Angeles (NBCLA.com), Chicago (NBCChicago.com) and San Diego (NBCSanDiego.com).

No doubt, execs prefer users to go to one site. Still, NewscastStudio writes, “What’s even worse is that when one visits nbcnewyork.com there’s no obvious navigational element for the channel’s site, only a banner ad (which likely won’t be a permanent fixture).”

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