By Ryan G. Murphy, Digital Media Editor

What’s in a name?

Apparently a “significant” revenue increase and a 150 percent jump in page views, according to WCWJ Jacksonville VP/General Manager Marc Herfner, as reported Monday on Broadcasting & Cable’s site.

According to the report, when WCWJ swapped its traditional branding MyCW17.com and replaced it with YourJax.com in May, the site’s growth has been almost exponential.

This and other such stories, including NBC’s recent growth after switching to “Local,” has left many in our industry wondering if taking a station’s call letters away from the online product is a key to success.

“By using your call letters, you're automatically limiting yourself to those who follow your newscasts,” said Steve Safran, Senior VP of Media 2.0 at Audience Research & Development, in the B&C report. “Why not open it up, make it more inclusive and pull in a whole new audience online?”

Most web managers and station heads have bought into the philosophy that using the web to simply repurpose on-air content should be the bare minimum, or perhaps, not the focus at all.

Stations are increasingly promoting their television and online products as separate business entities and, as such, are creating different platforms for delivering news. For example, WNBC.com in New York was formerly a site dedicated to pushing newscast viewers to the site by delivering hard news. Now, as NBCNewYork.com, the focus is much more feature-based and designed to reach a different, seemingly, younger audience.

A potential dilemma arises in such drastic switches, especially at stations where the call letters have made themselves a part of the community – where viewers strongly identity with that specific news brand.

“The best way to get people to go to the sites is to take the brand they already know,” says Robb Richter, LIN's senior VP of new media, in the B&C report. “We don't want users to have to go to Google to find us.”

We’re curious to hear your thoughts on call-letter branding online. What does your station currently do and what changes has it ever considered? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.