KWWL, part of Raycom Media Inc, broadcasts to audiences in a hyphenated market that includes Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Iowa City and Dubuque.

Dale R Woods, VP/General Manager of KWWL, says: 'Curious mapping software has elevated our graphical presentation of the news. When breaking news occurs we are able to instantly get a map locator on the air. Then minutes later the animated map of the breaking news is available. I'm certainly a believer in Curious World Maps. We recently had two maps on the 5pm news and three on the 10pm news and all five of those stories were different. We also used Curious very effectively during the 2004 Presidential elections, as we were able to show the changes by counties in the state of Iowa from the previous election. The ability to animate our mapping is very visually appealing to our viewers.'

Woods adds that Curious World Maps is used in every newscast on KWWL and that everybody from the reporters, producers and directors has embraced this new technology.

As well as illustrating news stories, KWWL also use Curious World Maps to create the maps for their traffic reporting. Using a series of pre-defined style templates and a license of Curious World Maps installed in their traffic room, the producers themselves can create, update and air animated traffic maps instantly in response to incoming information about jams, accidents, diversions and other traffic incidents.

This use of Curious World Maps makes KWWL the ideal test site for Curious Software's newest product offering: Curious Traffic Producer.

Scheduled for release at NAB 2005, Traffic Producer is the first in a new range of products dedicated to fast and easy creation of maps illustrating particular types of story, in this case traffic reports. Designed to expand map creation beyond the graphics department and into the newsroom and studio, Traffic Producer is template driven allowing the creation of a full run down of maps illustrating different traffic incidents in a city or area: offering drag and drop addition to the map of symbols illustrating accidents or road blocks, and highlighting of roads to show traffic state. The comprehensive street database can be searched extremely quickly using street names and house numbers, street intersections or GPS co-ordinates. The finished run down can be sent directly to Curious Software's new Map Presenter, and played out directly to air under the control of the presenter, who can even add telestration to highlight particular areas of interest.

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