March 27th, 2006

Message From Michael (image placeholder)
March 27, 2006

• SWEEPS


• INTERNET SWEEPS THE NEWS


• INTERNET VACUUMS THE NEWS


• STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA REDUX


• COCKTAIL CHATTER

• SWEEPS: Exactly one month from today, the fun begins. April 27th. The start of the May sweeps. THE most important sweeps period of the year. THE most enigmatic sweeps period of the year. THE most stressful sweeps period of the year. Good Lord, aren’t you glad you have me to remind you about this?


• INTERNET SWEEPS THE NEWS: No doubt you’ve seen the screaming headlines about the recent Pew Internet and the American Life study that showed the Internet has become THE source for news. Without discounting the enormity of the development, let’s try and clarify what the report actually said. First, 43% of BROADBAND users say they got their news ‘yesterday’ from the Internet. That’s six points higher than newspapers (37%) but considerably lower than local television (57%). And again, this is BROADBAND users. When ALL respondents are included, 23% say they got their news yesterday from the Internet. The difference, in brief, is that Broadband users are greater consumers of everything, including news. What is more disturbing, and lost in the headlines, is the news consumption among the ‘under 36’ age group. Not surprisingly, this age group is less likely to get their news from local TV, national TV or newspapers. But, as the report puts it, “this age group is generally less news hungry than older online users.”


• INTERNET VACUUMS THE NEWS: In actual fact, the Internet is becoming a part of people’s everyday lives, according to the State of the News Media 2006. The difference is that the universe of people using the web for news or anything else is not growing as fast any more, but the frequency with which people use the medium is increasing. People like the Web’s convenience, interactivity, diversity and control, but “the more people use the Web, the less they trust it.” The most trusted sites are the ‘old-legacy media’ sites. Online journalism is still an aggregator rather than an originator of news, especially when you look at sites like Yahoo and Google which are constantly changing but not necessarily really updating. Two local sites studied in the report are worth mentioning because of the contrast they offer. The study cited the Milwaukee Journal’s website, JSOnline.com, which it said clearly showed the newspaper’s connection to the community and which actually approached the Internet as a different medium, “developing a different personality.” The website of KPRC, Click2Houston, which is maintained by Internet Broadcasting Systems was more notable because of the mix of advertorial and editorial with more than half of the site paid content.Bottomline: Survey research from Consumer Reports shows that 11% of the American public get MOST of their news from the web. That’s up from 5% only four years ago. The report compares the Internet to an adolescent – learning what it can do, making a little money but not paying its own way, and unsure what it will be doing when it grows up.


• STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA 2006: I know I covered this in last week’s MfM, but as I said then, there was so much info that it was probably going to mean more reports. And here they are. As part of our holistic approach to news media, I picked out some highlights from various parts of the report that I found interesting.


• TELEVISION: The study says the early evening newscasts continue to lose audience but now, even the early morning newscasts may be in trouble. This is a major departure, if it proves true, from what we consultants and researchers have been preaching about morning news being the battle ground. On the flip side, the study says there are indications that the late evening newscasts may be improving their audience appeal. Interestingly, the TV section overview gives some good advice on morning news saying it should be formatted to “help people with their lives” by offering a snapshot of headlines, late-breaking stories, how to get to work and what to expect in the weather. With its emphasis on weather, the report says, “in the entire media landscape, probably no source offers coverage of the weather outlook with the depth and sophistication of this industry.”As the authors put it in the content analysis section, “local TV news remains America’s beloved but disrespected middle child.” As reported last week, the report notes that, after weather, traffic and sports, that crime and accidents dominate the coverage. Although it is getting ‘harder and harder to pin down,’ TV journalists continue to be stretched thin, with TV reports only slightly better than local radio in terms of sourcing and reporting. The report does say, on the positive side, that the reporting was straightforward and ‘strictly factual’ (in contrast, it says to cable news and morning network news) and that it is more likely to portray regular people instead of officials. “Yet despite the problems, people like local news, partly for the simple reason that it is local.”


• NEWSPAPERS: A good part of the overall theme of the report focused on newspapers, in large part because of the sale of the Knight Ridder group, and that was, in large part, because K-R was the nation’s second largest newspaper chain by circulation. The thinking was if it could happen to ‘them,’ it could happen to anyone. But as the report authors say, the future is still ‘ambiguous.’ Either newspapers are in a transitional phase to online or they are in a changing, lesser mode. Two figures cited in the report point out that ambiguity. One is that online revenues grew by 30% in 2005; the other is that online revenues only account for 3% to 5% of total ad revenue. Lastly the report cites several analysts who point out that print only takes in 20 to 30 cents on the dollar when it goes online compared to print. Journalistically, the newspapers scored higher than television mainly, as the report notes, because of the additional time which allowed the newspapers to add ‘new dimensions’ to the reporting, including ‘exclusives.’


• MAGAZINES: The report calls news magazines an ‘anomaly’ in the media world with some evolution of content but the same basic format with general news magazines losing circulation while celebrity magazines “which seemed so full they had no room to grow” growing. However, some niche news magazines like the Economist and the New Yorker gained circulation. Meanwhile, the slow drift toward lighter fare at other news magazines continues with some growing emphasis on ‘culture’ reporting. But the big story, according to the report is the magazine, The Week which basically aggregates content from other magazines, although the report calls it ‘culling.’ The magazine (which I should note I subscribe to) melds significant topics into a short space with a balanced presentation of left and right. “Data indicate that this approach may be catching fire.”


• RADIO: The report says technology is changing the definition of radio to something broader – listening. And listening over a wide range of devices. The report says that in the various debates about the state of journalism, the area about which the least is known is local news radio. On the positive side, the report noted that despite what many think, news radio isn’t all national syndicated material. At least half of the radio surveyed had a local perspective and another 16% took a regional perspective. However, the report cited three cities as an example of the state of news radio. In Houston, population 2 million, there were two stations identified as news/talk, two all talk, and one public radio station. In Milwaukee, with a population of 600,000, there were eight – three news/talk, two talk and three public radio. In Bend, Oregon, population 52,000, news radio listeners had occasional headlines.


• COCKTAIL CHATTER: Nearly seven years, Madison Avenue television time buyer TeleVest changed its named to MediaVest. Now they have changed again, this time to VIA units – Video Investment and Activation. CBS has picked agency Initiative Media to handle its media buying and planning which is a… $130 Million account. A start-up, so-called ‘media network’ has beaten the business audience reach of business bruiser The Wall Street Journal. The CEO of Captivate claims that by delivering business news in the elevators of buildings housing major corporations, the company delivers 100% coverage of the business audience that business advertisers are trying to reach. According to a study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Michigan, some TV health reports contained not only ‘egregious’ errors but sometimes “potentially deadly” errors. In most cases though, the authors say the stories “were not useful, but not overly harmful.” The study reported in the March issue of the American Journal of Managed Care says out of 2,795 news broadcasts examined, 1,800 featured health stories. Health stories accounted for 11% of the news hole for late evening newscasts. Only 27% of the reports relied on interviews from health professionals but part of the problem, say the authors, is that health professionals don’t know how to talk to the media.

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