Message From Michael-Jan26th

Message From Michael                    (image placeholder)
                                                       January 26, 2006                                                                                                    

• SWEEPS AND SWEEPS FACTOIDS


• THE FOUR F’S OF RATINGS


• THE FIFTH NETWORK


• FIVE YEARS THAT ARE LIKE 50


• SOME ‘GOOD’ NEWS ABOUT TV AND THE INTERNET


• SALES PEOPLE TAKE NOTE


• COCKTAIL CHATTER – CHINA AND MURDOCH

• SWEEPS:  One week till February 2nd and the start of the sweeps.  Need I say more? Sweeps Factoids:  All ten of the top ten telecasts of ALL time were SuperBowl games, according to Nielsen Media, and 17 of the top 20 telecasts were SuperBowl shows.  The only non-sports program to break the top 20 was the finale of Cheers in 1993.  The other two in the top 20?  Two days of the Winter Olympics of 1994.  Now, here’s a weird factoid I found from analyzing Nielsen’s top 100 telecasts:  In the last decade, only ten programs, besides sports, have broken the top 100 mark.  Five of those were Academy Award programs.  The others were Seinfeld in 1998 (#21), Friends in 1996 (#49) and 2004 (#80), E.R. in 1998 (#86) and, here’s the one that makes you wonder, a special edition of 20/20 in 1999 (#85).  Can you guess what that was about?


• THE FOUR F’S OF RATINGS:  After yet another Nielsen diary visit on behalf of clients, I’ve come up with one of those cutesy consulting mantras, but it’s true nevertheless.  Fragmentation:  You already semi-know about this, but the viewing options have splintered into shards that viewers are picking up.  Fringe:  Satellite penetration has reached such a level that, combined with spill-over from neighboring markets, has become an invading horde.  Flow: Viewers are too often stepping onto the banks of the programming river because we’re not reminding them to stay in.  Frequency:  Viewers are kicking the viewing habit because we haven’t made the nicotine of news addictive enough.  At this point, you’re probably wondering what I’m smoking, too.  Anyway…As a follow-up to our earlier report about the sale of VNU and subsidiary Nielsen Media, a Florida real estate tycoon has launched a new research company which he says will cherry-pick parts of VNU to form a single all-encompassing media research firm.  Frank Maggio who has filed two lawsuits against Nielsen Media says he plans to eventually sell the company back to U.S. media and advertising companies to operate as a not-for-profit industry-controlled concern.  (Source:  Media Daily News).    


• THE FIFTH NETWORK:  By now, everybody has heard about the merger of the WB and UPN into a single network, CW, owned 50-50 by Time Warner and CBS, but it was just too important a development not to at least mention in MfM.  Besides, it gives me a reason to mention a new website which broadcasters should bookmark.  It’s tvnewsday.com, the business of broadcasting, and it’s the brainchild of former Broadcasting and Cable exec Harry Jessell.  It has several articles dealing with the network fall-out, including a report on a drop in broadcaster Sinclair’s shares because the company owns a lot of WB and UPN stations, and a prediction of turmoil in the spot ad market because of the depletion of network TV ratings points.  (Thanks to Horace Newcomb, Executive Director/ Peabody Awards, for this tip.)


• FIVE YEARS THAT ARE LIKE 50:  Nobody needs to tell you that the Internet is booming, but a recent report provides some concrete statistics about just how big a boom it has been.  The report, which seems to have gotten little coverage, by the Center for the Digital Future at the U-S-C Annenberg School has tracked Internet use each year over the past five years.  The director of the project, Jeffrey I. Cole, says the five year study shows the Internet is changing America. The headlines --The Internet is playing a significantly increased role in politics; the Internet is also playing an increasingly important role in the social lives of military personnel; more ‘poor’ people are using the Internet; more people over 55 are using the Internet; more people, period, are using the Internet and using it for longer periods; the number of people buying online has tripled in the past four years, despite continuing concerns about credit card use online – concerns that are decreasing though; e-mail use remains the most popular activity online with more than a third checking e-mail several times a day.  And the two semi-contradictory facts that make you wonder – 1) Workers say the Internet makes them more productive at work even though large numbers say they use the Internet for personal reasons at work; 2) The number of people who cite the Internet  as ‘the most important source of information’ continues to rise each year even though the number of people who believe the information on the Internet IS reliable and accurate continues to decline each year.The statistics – Internet access has risen to its highest level in the five years of study, with 78.6% of Americans going online in 2005.  The number of Americans using the Internet at home has risen from 46.9% in the first year of the study in 2000 to 66.2% in the fifth year of the study in 2005.  The number of Internet users aged 56 to 65 has from increased from 55% in 2000 to 74.9% in 2005.  Internet use among those with incomes of less than $30,000 a year has risen from around 50% in the first four years of the project to 61% in the last year.  The number of users who consider the Internet ‘reliable and accurate’ has dropped from a peak of 58% in 2001 to 48.8% in 2005.  Of those who can access non-work websites from the office, the vast majority go online for non-work purposes for 3.5 hours a week.  Yet, 66.3% say the Internet makes them more productive at work, up from 56.7% in 2000.The kicker – When asked which technology they would be most willing to give up, 39.4% of Internet users chose cell phones, followed by 32.7% who would first give up television.  Only 27.8% of Internet users would be most willing to give up the Internet.On a related note, a report by the Pew Internet and the American Life Project says the percentage of women using the Internet still lags behind the percentage of men using it, but because women make up a larger portion of the population, there are more total women than men on line.  Other stats -- more women aged 18-29 (86%) than men that age (80%) are online and more black women (60%) are online than black men (50%).  The author of the study says men go online for “the breadth of experience” while women go online “for the human connections.”


• SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT TV AND THE INTERNET:  I should maybe add the word ‘finally’ but the Television Bureau of Advertising reports that revenue from TV station websites doubled from 2004 to 2005, reaching $283 Million, and is expected to increase by 39% in 2006.  Of course that was only a fraction (6% to be exact) of the $3.9 Billion spent on the web last year with newspaper websites accounting for 43.2% of the LOCAL Internet advertising market.  And on a related note, the USC report cited above also noted that Internet watching comes primarily at the expense of TV watching.


• SALES PEOPLE TAKE NOTE:  On an un-related but related note, a Los Angeles based start-up company is helping companies create TV ad campaigns over the Internet for as little as $500.  Companies go to the site, spotrunner.com, and pick a generic spot from the company library, add a little this, a little that, pick your station and time, make up a schedule and, according to the site, Voila, “you’re competing against the national chains with an affordable, high quality television commercial that rivals theirs.”  Before you discount it, keep in mind that the founders of the site are the same people who founded PeoplePc and the Firefly Network.  See for yourself.    


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  So, what do China and Murdoch have in common?  According to a report in BusinessWeek, China employs 30,000 censors to monitor Internet traffic.  Hackers found that Chinese censors found 987 words that were blocked from government controlled Internet operations.  All corporations – Microsoft, Yahoo, Google – have to sign a “public pledge of self discipline” to host their sites on servers in China.  And in a similar vein, Murdoch’s recently acquired myspace.com became embroiled in controversy when users found that references to competitor youtube.com were being deleted out of articles and postings.  And as long as we’re overseas, MarketWatch on NPR reports that Japanese firms are moving part of their computer manufacturing to China because of labor costs.  And while we’re in Japan, Naked News which features anchors who disrobe during a newscast, has launched a channel in the land of the rising sun.  Okay, this is more bragging than reporting, but several readers of MfM noted that several news organizations have done stories about the milliondollarpage.com which we reported in MfM several months ago.On a somber, this-is-not-a-kicker note, the Daily News in Sri Lanka reports that murder was the leading cause of work related deaths for journalists in 2005 with 47 killed, nearly half (22) of them in Iraq.  The number of deaths is down from 57 in 2004.  


• If you are receiving this newsletter from someone else, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.  If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, reply to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line.  Note – This e-mail has been scanned by Norton antivirus before being sent.