The Ever-Changing Face Of Our Neighborhood News Online Videos

Gary Nager

When I first started what was then called WCNT-TV (Wesley Chapel New Tampa Television) with a partner in 2016, my intent was to create something of a hyperlocal TV news station that would one day become a 24-hour “channel” featuring news and informational content solely about New Tampa and Wesley Chapel.

A couple of years later, not only had I taken over complete control of our online content from that former partner, we began focusing on short news and informational videos about the people, businesses and restaurants in our communities. That same year, as I was re-branding our online video content as NeighborhoodNewsOnline.net, with the help of a former producer, I applied for — and was stunned to receive — one of only 86 grants worldwide (and one of only 23 in the U.S.) from Google to expand that video content, as part of the online giant’s attempt to combat the growing proliferation of “fake news” online. 

I was told by Google that even though our Neighborhood News print editions were only about two tiny (but growing) markets, a big reason we received a grant was because we had been in the business of providing real news to and for the residents and businesses of these two small submarkets of the Tampa Bay area for 26 years.

And, that grant money from Google did help us expand our online presence from an average of one video release every two weeks to more than two releases each week of 2019.

Unfortunately, Google didn’t see fit to provide us with another grant for 2020 in order to keep that momentum going the following year, which then ended up also being the year that Covid-19 changed everybody’s business.

Thanks to a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan, however, I was able to retain and continue paying all of our employees, including videographer/video producer Charmaine George, but with most people not venturing out of their homes, and working mainly from home from March through much of the summer last year, it was harder for us to continue putting out the same amount of content and even harder to create and release content that people wanted to watch, despite having so much less to do outside.

Even so, we were still able to put out more than two video releases per week, with 74 total releases for 2020, which were viewed nearly 200,000 times, with a Facebook (search “Neighborhood News”) reach of more than 300,000, bringing our overall viewership to close to 2 million through our first five years.

 Our ten most-viewed videos of 2020 (all of which were viewed more than 5,000 times each, reaching an average of 12,000+ people each on Facebook) were primarily about new business and restaurant openings, especially Aldi, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County (which had three of our top-10), The Grove, Aussie Grill, Main Event and Pasta di Guy.

Our pace for new video releases has slowed somewhat in 2021, and fewer of you have been watching them, although we also have been encouraged by the fact that our most-watched video ever was our exclusive sneak peek of the all-new Grove Theater (photo) in January, which has, to date, been viewed by more than 32,000 people with a Facebook reach of more than 53,000. We also have had decent viewership of videos about New Tampa’s new Fresh Kitchen and others.

To that end, our plan is to greatly expand our focus on dining and new business opening videos for the rest of 2021. So, if you or someone you know has a new business or one opening soon in either of our distribution areas, please email me at ads@ntneighborhoodnews.com.

Thanks for watching!

St. Patrick’s Day Means It’s Been One Full Year Of Covid-19

The photo of Jannah and me was taken on March 7, 2020, at a friend’s wedding, literally a week or so before the U.S. began to shut down because of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

I also remember going to O’Brien’s Irish Pub in Wesley Chapel to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day 2020, and I was already uncomfortable talking too closely to the people we met and especially, with hugging anyone. No one was yet wearing masks — as there was some debate as to whether or not they were effective in preventing the spread of this then-new, still-largely-unknown illness — and I just felt like no one knew how close was too close to be talking to someone in those earliest days of the illness. 

Well, St. Patrick’s Day 2021 is now here, which means that the pandemic has been raging in this country for one full year. Thankfully, despite nearly 30 million confirmed U.S. cases and more than a half-million deaths, the number of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths seem to finally be subsiding a bit, thanks to ongoing mask-wearing and social distancing rules, as well as the introduction of millions of doses of three rushed-to-market vaccines. The good news — at least so far — is that those who have been able to receive the Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech or Johnson & Johnson/Janssen vaccines to date have been avoiding serious illness, hospitalizations and deaths, with minimal side effects for most.

I will admit that those who have been able to receive any of these vaccines once they became available has been a little mystifying to me — I thought it was supposed to be the elderly, true front-line workers in hospitals (doctors, nurses and anyone else with direct patient contact), firefighters and law enforcement officers who were supposed to be first in line to receive them, but I saw many people under age 65 on Facebook who didn’t fit into any of those categories bragging that they had received both doses of the vaccine before my mom was able to get her first dose of Moderna vaccine, which she finally did last week.

But, considering how new all of this is, and how crazy the lines have been at public heath locations just to get a Covid test, I am encouraged by the progress that has been made. I’m also encouraged by the fact that the vaccines all also appear to be effective against the different Covid-19 variants that have been popping up. 

I also am hopeful that Jannah and I — who are both under age 65 and in relatively good health — will be able to be included in the next group to be vaccinated, especially once teachers and everyone living or working in long-term care facilities have received theirs. My wife and I genuinely miss going out to crowded bars with live music, but we’ve spent precious few evenings out enjoying dinner and karaoke or to watch a Lightning game since this nightmare began.

 I feel fortunate that neither I nor any members of my immediate family have been touched personally by Covid, although at least one Neighborhood News employee did suffer for a few weeks with a relatively mild case. But thankfully, our employees have mostly been working from home and we wear masks whenever more than one of us are in the office together. 

Even so, how long Jannah and I will have to continue to wear masks when we go out to eat — something we’ve done far less of the last year, but have started to do a little more of late — remains to be seen. And, I also am concerned that the repeal of mask mandates by the governors of several states may be happening a little too soon, too. The U.S. is nowhere near “herd immunity” yet and I don’t have the same faith in people to wear masks without those mandates that those governors seem to have. 

So, while St. Patrick’s Day is one of the holidays I actually have traditionally enjoyed, it will forever be remembered, at least by me, as the holiday when the scourge of the early 21st century first hit home. Stay safe, my friends.

It’s Kind Of Awesome To Live In ‘Champa’ Bay These Days!

Tom Brady hoists the Lombardi Trophy after leading Tampa Bay to a Super Bowl victory.

When I first moved back to Florida in 1993, the Tampa Bay Lightning had just completed their first season in the National Hockey League — at the Expo Hall at the Florida State Fairgrounds in unincorporated Hillsborough County.

And, one of the reasons I moved to Florida from Westchester County, NY, was because Tampa Bay was rumored to be getting not just an expansion baseball franchise, but my beloved San Francisco Giants were supposed to be leaving Candlestick Park to come to our area and I wanted to publish a Giants magazine.

Gary Nager, Editorial

Well, as the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and Giants often go astray, and the Giants never moved here, but the Nagers still did. Five years later, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays were finally born as a Major League Baseball expansion franchise.

And, when I moved here in 1993, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were simply awful.

After going 0-14 in their first year (1976), the Bucs made the playoffs for the first time in 1979, and two more times in 1981 and ‘82, but then went 15 years before their next postseason game, under second-year coach Tony Dungy. Their record during that span was a dismal 100-223, which means they won less than a third of their all-time games from their inception through my third year of owning the Neighborhood News. Even so, you’d never know it if you talked to any fan who was from any part of the Bay area. 

The Bucs’ fans were almost cult-like, despite their creamsicle-colored uniforms, long before Dungy became the coach. I remember being threatened by a bar owner in New Port Richey for suggesting that he turn his largest-screen TV off a Bucs preseason game. He told me, “We’re all Bucs fans here, son. If you don’t like it, I invite you and your family to leave.”

But oh, how the Tampa Bay area’s sports franchises have risen. In perhaps the hardest year for sports ever, as virtually everyone in the country now knows, the Tampa Bay Lightning won the 2020 Stanley Cup (the team’s second), the Tampa Bay Rays made it to the World Series for the second time and the Tampa Bay Bucs capped their 2020 season with a dominating 31-9 win over the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs the day before we went to press with this issue — the team’s second time hoisting the Vince Lombardi trophy (photo).

It historically hasn’t been an easy time rooting for the local major sports franchises, especially, this Covid-crazy year, but how rewarding has it been? 

Who would have thought that the Bolts would come back from the previous season’s devastating sweep at the hands of the Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round of the 2019 playoffs? Who would have thought that the Rays, with one of MLB’s lowest payrolls, would beat out the Red Sox, Yankees and defending American League champion Astros to advance to the World Series? And, who would have thought that the Bucs would go from being a 7-5 playoff pretender with a questionable defense and a finally-old-looking 43-year-old QB to reel off eight consecutive wins, including decisive victories over Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints, Aaron Rodgers and the Green Bay Packers and the seemingly unbeatable Pat Mahomes and the Chiefs? Out of nowhere, we won eight consecutive games with a top-level defense and Tom Brady looking like, well, the Brady who had won six Super Bowls with the Patriots.

Wow. If not for The Weekend’s worst-ever halftime performance and Covid forcing most local fans to stay away from the first-ever Super Bowl played and won by a team in its own stadium, Brady, head coach Bruce Arians, offensive coordinator Byron Leftwich and defensive coordinator Todd Bowles finished off an almost perfect game to give the GOAT his seventh win and fifth Super Bowl MVP award. 

Congrats to the health care heroes who got to attend the game for free. I salute you and your efforts to keep as many of us as possible alive during this plague even more than I salute the Bucs, the Bolts, the Rays and even MLS’s Tampa Bay Rowdies for providing the best-possible distractions during this most difficult year. Way to go, Champa Bay!

It’s Easy To Look Forward With Our 2020 Vision!

The year 2019 has been extremely eventful for Wesley Chapel (and for yours truly) and the forecast for 2020 is (drumroll, please)…for much more of the same for the fastest-growing designated area in Florida.

So yes, a lot of new businesses and restaurants opened between S.R. 54 and S.R. 56 in Wesley Chapel in 2019, but there’s so much more to come.

For example, while our area got its first green grocer — Earth Fare — this year, we will have a new (and perhaps even more anticipated) Aldi opening next year.

Although news about new openings along S.R. 56 dominated 2019, with the long-dormant The Grove shopping center just north of S.R. 54 being sold to aggressive new owner Mark Gold in the last quarter of 2019, you can be sure that the 2020 news coming out of our area won’t only be about 56. There are new businesses — and plenty of mom-and-pop-owned restaurants — coming to The Grove, many of which we can’t announce yet, but we plan to continue to be the primary source of news and information about everything coming to this suddenly revitalized commercial area.

On the other hand, S.R. 56, which was extended all the way to U.S. Hwy. 301 this year, isn’t going to get any less busy anytime soon, on both sides of I-75. 

Although newbies like Walk-On’s Bistreaux & Bar and Bubba’s 33 (opening just after you receive this issue) have joined an already-crowded-with-restaurants area around the Tampa Premium Outlets in 2019, next year will bring The Main Event bowling & entertainment center, Rock n’ Brews and hopefully, Saltgrass Steakhouse.

Further east on (and just north of) 56, the Wiregrass Ranch Sports Campus of Pasco County is expected to open sometime next summer, and the county’s private partner, RADDSports, will bring not only thousands of hotel room nights with the indoor sports complex’s basketball, volleyball and cheerleading events on the weekends, but also will offer lots of great local leagues and events during the week, too. And, although the adjacent Marriott-branded Residence Inn may not open until 2021, it will be home to Wesley Chapel’s first rooftop bar.

Speaking of drinking, those who fancy craft beers will soon have two places to call home — as Florida Ave. Brewing will open what they believe will be Florida’s largest microbrewery at the former Sports + Field location on S.R. 56 and Double Branch Artisanal Ales will open at The Grove. Both local breweries made a big splash with local residents at the second annual New Tampa BrewFest (see pages 35-37) held Nov. 16.

And, while the first Crystal Lagoon by Metro Lagoons actually opened in Epperson in late 2018, it will soon be joined by an even larger (15-acres vs. 7.5 acres) Metro Lagoon at Mirada just a few miles to the north either by the end of this month or the beginning of January. And, based on a recent published report in the Tampa Bay Times, the first neighborhood commercial development may begin in Epperson as early as next year, too.

And, quite honestly, that is just a taste of what you can expect to see in Wesley Chapel next year. And of course, you know where you’ll get most of the news first about what’s happening in our area — and in adjacent New Tampa — the Neighborhood News print editions and NeighborhoodNewsOnline.net!

On A Personal Note…

The year 2019 also has been very special for yours truly. It started in January, when we were one of only 23 U.S. media companies to receive a grant from the Google News Initiative. I then celebrated 25 years of Neighborhood News in February (although our well-attended party was in April), Jannah and I got married in March, Jannah became the director of marketing for RADDSports over the summer and now, we have two new grandbabies who surely will make 2020 even more special for us.

Jannah’s daughter Lauren gave birth to Rosalie (Rosie) Carolyn Cione on Nov. 7 and she and her fiancé Albert Cione have been doing an amazing job with their 6-lb., 3-oz. (at birth) little bundle (above left). Then, on Dec. 2, my younger son Jake and his wife Meghan brought the equally precious 7-lb., 13-oz. Jackson (Jax) John Nager into the world. 

So heck yes, Rosie & Jax’s “Grampa G” and “Grammy J” are kind of excited about 2020!  

If Someone Tells You Print Is Dead, Tell Them About The Neighborhood News!

Almost every day when I go to North Tampa Bay Chamber ribbon-cutting and other local events, I have at least one local business owner tell me that they don’t do any print advertising at all — and that Facebook, Instagram and other online advertising outlets are the only places they spend their money these days.

And then, inevitably, there’s always at least one person, who may or may not think that they’re being funny, who will tell me, “Haven’t you heard? Print is dead!”

When my blood finishes boiling, I usually explain that I’ve been the owner and editor of the Neighborhood News in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel for 25 years and that people who live in our communities — whether they got here before I took over an 11-month-old monthly in 1994 or they just got here last year — tell me constantly that the Neighborhood News is the only local publication of any kind that they read cover-to-cover. I’m not dissing any other publication, I’m just repeating what I hear literally every day. 

But, before you say, “Yeah, right!,” and turn the page to see another great python pic or read about the upcoming second annual New Tampa Brew Fest (see pages 40-43), consider something as simple as our annual Reader Dining Survey & Contest, which appears for the last time for 2019 on page 35 of this issue.

Last year, when there were many more spaces to fill in than in this year’s revised, much simpler survey, we received fewer than 300 entries — not bad as local magazine contests go, but far fewer than our record 1,200+ Dining Survey Contest entries received either three or four years ago.

This year, that number actually may surpass 1,500 entries before this year’s November 11 entry deadline.

Yes, this year’s contest is easier to enter and yes, we’ve had quite a few people who have entered to date fill out the survey on our NeighborhoodNewsOnline.net website. However, we also believe that the vast majority of the people who go to the website to fill out the survey still read about the contest in our print editions first and then go online to fill out the survey to save themselves the extra effort (and cost) of having to put the survey in an envelope, writing the address info on the envelope, paying for and using a stamp and dropping it in the mailbox. So exhausting!

But, even if some of those entries came from people who only read about it online, how do you explain the 600+ people who already have taken the time to open one of our recent issues and do just that? And, I can assure you, with stories by managing editor John C. Cotey like the Burmese python hunter from Cory Lake Isles, The Brunchery coming to Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd., the latest on the Kinnan-Mansfield flap and getting to be the first local media of any kind to break the story about the new owner of The Grove at Wesley Chapel shopping center, to name just a few — I know that the vast majority of our print readers still have not entered that contest at all.

Yes, we have worked hard to make the Neighborhood News a true multimedia experience, but the next time someone tells you that print is dead, make sure you tell them to take a look at the kind of information the Neighborhood News print editions provide for you about your community every four weeks — and that all it takes for you to keep up with what’s happening in your community is actually open it when you take it out of your mailbox.   

Neighborhood News Online Update     

I can’t believe that as this issue is reaching your mailbox, the calendar has turned to November, which means that we are nearing the end of the year in which we became one of only 23 U.S. media companies to receive 2019 funding from the Google News Initiative. 

A lot has happened in New Tampa and Wesley Chapel over these past ten months, and we have done our best to keep up with the incredible amount of important hyperlocal news coming out of both of our distribution areas. 

In fact, although we are still a little behind on our goal of reaching five new video releases every week, we are now right at three videos per week, up from only one every other week through the end of 2018.

But of course, it’s not just about the quantity of videos we release — it’s about the quality. In fact, since we became the first local news provider to break the story — in video first, then in print in our October 18 Wesley Chapel issue — about Mark Gold, the new owner of The Grove, the video has surpassed 10,500 views on Facebook and the Facebook post of John’s print story may have set a record for us, with a reach of nearly 80,000 people and 7,800+ total engagements!

I also have been thrilled that most of the nearly 21 videos we have released in the seven weeks since September have totalled nearly 80,000 views and an average of 4,300 views per video.

In fact, with a reach of nearly 700,000, and 400,000 views through Oct 25, we have an outside chance of breaking a video reach of one million people and 500,000 video views for 2019, especially if we can inch closer to our goal of five video releases per week.

And, we almost certainly will have an even bigger reach for our print stories that get posted on Facebook with a click-through to our website, NeighborhoodNewsOnline.net!

So no, not only is print not dead when you’re talking about the Neighborhood News, we also are the only local media outlet offering you and your business in or serving New Tampa and/or Wesley Chapel a truly multimedia advertising opportunity. Get yours today! 

Call (813) 910-2575 today to find out how to get started!