Former Nashville Scene Publisher Puts Some Details To His Nashville Banner Revival Effort

Bruce Dobie, former co-owner of the Nashville Scene, is starting new local news site. Credit: Eric England/Nashville Scene

Bruce Dobie has an old name for a new startup. The former Nashville Banner reporter is using the name of the defunct newspaper for a digital news site focused on local politics, sports, music and whatever else strikes the fancy of Dobie, the former co-owner of the Nashville Scene.

Emboldened by a recent round of layoffs at the Tennessean, Dobie purchased the domain for the Banner while lying on his couch one Saturday, but the glib gesture quickly morphed into a business proposal.

He’s now lawyered up and in the midst of creating an LLC with Forrest Shoaf, former general counsel for Cracker Barrel, and attorney Chris Whitson. Dobie and his partners plan to elbow their way into the local news landscape with 20 contributing writers and enough capital to make a splash. How much money, exactly?

“I don’t really want to lift the hood on that type of stuff,” Dobie said. “Suffice it to say, we’re going to be well-funded, and we’ll have enough money to put out a good product.”

Dobie defines the product as something without precedent. “There are not a lot of blueprints for what I’m doing,” he said. It’s going to be absent of snark, for the most part. “The tone is not going to be smart-alecky at all,” he said. Yet something like the Texas Tribune, the online-based investigative news startup, is too sober for him. News site Politico is close in terms of harnessing multi-media platforms to tell stories, but still not what Dobie has in mind.

“It’s a targeted readership,” he said. “I’m looking for intelligent readers here who care about the life and affairs of the city and the discussion and conversation that takes place here.”

Besides Web stories, the site is expected to offer videos, podcasts, even a song of the day feature. But it’s a slow-moving reveal. Right now, the site is in beta mode and will grow “organically,” as he puts it. On the video front in particular, though, he said: “We have some great announcements in that regard that we’ll be making in the coming weeks.”

Dobie’s ambitious project comes just as hyper-local news projects around the country face hard financial times, as online advertising revenue has proven incapable of paying the bills, in many cases.

Nonetheless, Dobie has a few ideas to keep the site afloat. He now runs a company that compiles event and entertainment listings. He thinks, if it’s really good, people will pony up for that service. He also said dedicating a section of the site where public relations firms can pay for their press releases to be published is on the table. Premium content, where readers pay for extra services or stories, is another worthwhile avenue, he said.

The site’s target audience won’t just be Nashville politicos, he said, but existing daily newspaper readers who feel like what’s landing on their doorstep every morning isn’t satisfying their craving for local news.

Will the Banner ever exist as a print publication again? It’s possible, he said.

“The question we’ll be asking ourselves nine to twelve months from now is: what is the price people might be willing to pay here? Is it $20? Is it $10 Is it $30? Or do we remain free and generate page views?”

Nashville’s known for many great things, he wrote on the site. “But a great newspaper is not one of them. So we’re going to move forward and see if we can take care of that.”

Tennessean Editor Stefanie Murray said the more competition, the better.

“As a journalist, I think there’s nothing better,” Murray said. “I came to Nashville from a highly competitive market in Detroit, and I’m confident it will only serve to make The Tennessean stronger.”

Murray said the paper is trying to be the best media outlet in Nashville. “And we’re taking aggressive strides to better position ourselves for the future right now.”