Case Study: KING 5 News achieves real-time, interactive election coverage with Microsoft Azure

How Power BI Helped KING 5 News Create an Interactive and Engaging Data Story

KING 5 News, a Seattle-based NBC affiliate, wanted to modernize local election coverage to deliver the kind of real-time, interactive data storytelling typically seen only on national networks. The station needed to drill down county-by-county results during Washington’s 2016 presidential primary and display the same live visuals on-air, on its website, and across mobile apps—capabilities that had previously been out of reach for a local broadcaster.

KING 5 used Microsoft Power BI with an Azure SQL Database and Surface Hub to create live, touch-enabled visualizations and publish-to-web reports that refreshed automatically via DirectQuery. The approach let reporters annotate maps on air and gave viewers interactive access on desktop and mobile; the broadcasts reached more than 367,000 viewers, Power BI reports received over 57,000 views, and a Facebook Live event reached 116,000 people—while delivering fresher results than other sources and opening new storytelling possibilities.

KING 5 News

Peter O’Connell

Executive Producer for Special Projects