June 26th, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  June 26, 2006                                                            

• SPENDING MORE BUT ENJOYING IT LESS


• A NAME TO REMEMBER


• TEENS, TIME, TV AND THE INTERNET


• CITIZEN JOURNALISM LIBERATES


• $MILLIONS VERSUS $BILLIONS


• COCKTAIL CHATTER – WHYVILLE, DUTCH BEER AND CONNIE CHUNG


• CONGRATULATIONS

We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.  

• SPENDING MORE BUT ENJOYING IT LESS:  That pretty well sums up marketing executives, according to a report by marketing research consultants Blackfriars Communications.  The firm uses a marketing index which projects 2006 spending compared to 2005.  Second quarter 2006 was set at 146 – 46 points above what was spent in 2005.  Despite that, the survey says a quarter of all marketing executives are either not very or not at all satisfied with their marketing efforts.  And the percentage who report being extremely or very satisfied with their marketing efforts has fallen to 38% which is down from 53% in the first quarter.  So, even though spending was lower in the first quarter, satisfaction was higher, but in the second quarter it was the reverse with satisfaction lower but spending higher.  Online advertising grew to 15% of total market spending with those same marketing executives saying they plan to put a quarter of their budget on everything online.


• A NAME TO REMEMBER:  And the name is Frank Maggio.  Regular readers of MfM will remember he is the guy who tried to buy Nielsen Media Research from VNU.  Now, he is launching his own TV ratings service along with his own Cable TV channel.  The rating service uses “a census” of digital cable set top boxes, which means it aggregates a lot of data, although that data does not include satellite, broadcast-only, or analog.  His pitch to the Advertising Research Foundation was described as more of an anti-Nielsen diatribe than a true research presentation.  Maggio is also launching ReacTV which is described as an Internet-TV convergence model but which is sort of like Home Shopping Network with games.  Viewers can win prize money by “interacting with challenging games and rewarding ads.”  As part of the channel, he is launching a different version of advertising buying in which advertisers can click on spots available and just add them to their shopping cart a la Amazon.com.  


• CITIZEN JOURNALISM LIBERATES:  A large television broadcast group has launched its own online version of citizen journalism which it says “liberates viewers in an era in which most mass media is owned and dominated by a few mega companies.”  The Pappas Telecasting Companies which own 27 television stations launched the program communitycorrespondent.com where people can post stories, pictures and video about their community.  The best of the stories will be selected to air on the local station, which some stations do now, but the difference, according to the news release, is that everything will appear on the website.  The site is only up in the station’s Nebraska operation at this point, but it is supposed to be expanded to other stations in the group.  Side note:  One of those stations which has a successful program of airing pictures from viewers is client station WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina.  (Disclaimer:  MfM friend Desiree Hill is VP of News Development at Pappas Telecasting.)


• TEENS, TIME, TV AND THE INTERNET:  Two separate surveys came up with the same, un-surprising result.  Teenagers spend as much time on the Internet as they do watching TV.  According to a survey by BurstMedia, more than a third (39.9% of the males and 34.7% of the females) of the teenaged web users (note, the survey focused on those already using the web) say they spend more than three hours a day on-line and that’s not counting time spent on-line while at school.  A telephone poll by CBSNews.com echoed that, reporting that teenagers spend an average of 2.9 hours a day on-line – the same amount of time they say they spend watching TV.  In both surveys, the teenagers say half the time spent on-line is spent doing homework.  Both surveys also found that about two-thirds of the teenagers either posted to a social networking site like MySpace or Facebook, or at least visited the sites.  The Burst survey also reported that more than two-thirds (69%) say it would either “ruin” their day or make their day “not as good” if they had no Internet access outside of school.A former undercover cop specializing in online crime for the Ontario police department has put together a teen speak Internet guide.  The book, “Staying Safe in a Wired World,” by Rob Nickel shows the short-hand phrases such as F2T (free to talk) and P911 (Parents are coming), FYEO (for your eyes only), IAD8 (it’s a date), and YIWTGO (yes, I want to go private.)


• $MILLIONS VERSUS $BILLIONS:  Which would you rather have?  Seems a pretty stupid question, doesn’t it?  Not according to the folks at Craigslist.com.  The Internet classified site is the seventh most popular website in the world, alongside giants Yahoo and Google.  Yet while they are raking in Billions of dollars in revenue, Craigslist took in a “paltry” $25 Million last year even though analysts estimate the company could make 20 times that amount.  (That’s $500 Million for those math-impaired amongst you.)  According to an article by Brian M. Carney in the Wall Street Journal, the reason is the company refuses to adopt the banner ads approach of its behemoth brothers.  Its prime source of revenue are the job listing classifieds in San Francisco and Los Angeles and job listings and apartment listings in New York.  Other users can post free of charge, according to CEO Jim Buckmaster, because, “we’re more comfortable charging companies than individuals.”  


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  An on-line variation of Dr. Seuss’s Whoville called Whyville is an interactive, virtual world designed to help kids aged 8 to 12 learn math and science through games.  “Whyvillians” number 1.6 million and has proved popular enough that Toyota corporation is advertising its Scion line of vehicles on the site, to get the kids to convince their parents to buy as well as cultivate future buyers.  As many as 1,000 Dutch Soccer fans had to turn in their pants before entering a World Cup stadium game because their orange lederhosen carried a logo for a Dutch Brewery.  Budweiser owns exclusive beer advertising and promotional rights, and the Dutch brewery apparently had the fans wear the pants as a gimmick to attract attention.  Okay, if you haven’t seen it, you have to watch Connie Chung’s swan song parody performance of “Thanks for the Memories” on the farewell episode of Weekends with Maury and Connie.”  It’s on all the sites iFilm, YouTube, Break.com and on the TV Week website -- http://www.tvweek.com/article.cms?articleId=30111.


• FOOTNOTE/ CONGRATULATIONS:   There’s a phrase about “battered but not beaten.”  That certainly applies to WLOX-TV which recently won a national Edward R. Murrow award for its continuing coverage of Hurricane Katrina.  WWL-TV in New Orleans won the award for large television markets.  And as long as I am handing out congratulations… MfM friend Frank Volpicella’s KVUE-TV won in the Videography area for photographer Todd Rogenthien’s feature on the sport Le Parkour… MfM friend Mark Pimentel’s WTVQ-TV won hard news feature for Protected to Death… MfM friend John Hendon along with John Cogdill won for a feature report The Star Who Fell.  The complete list can be found at the RTNDA website, and with a little searching, as I did, you can actually see many of these amazing stories at the station websites.    


• SUBSCRIPTIONS:  If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM from 2006 are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com.  

June 19, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  June 19, 2006                                                            

• ONLINE ADVERTISING IS AND ISN’T’S


• NIELSEN VERSUS GOOGLE


• NEWS YOU CAN CHOOSE          


• MORE CITIZEN JOURNALISM


• VIDEO FOR VIEWERS, BY VIEWERS


• COCKTAIL CHATTER

• ONLINE IS’S AND ISN’T’S:  The Internet is stealing advertising dollars away from television, especially local television, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal; but the American Advertising Federation says its survey of marketers show networks is not losing money to the web, according to an article in Broadcasting and Cable; though TNS Media Intelligence predicts online’s share of the marketplace will grow from 10% in 2005 to 12% in 2006, according to an article in MediaPost Communications.  Despite everything, the reports are not necessarily contradictory.  Just confusing.  TNS says total U.S. advertising is expected to increase 4.9% to $150.3 Billion in 2006.  This is off half a percent (from 5.4%) from the January prediction.  The research firm says the Internet shows the greatest growth year to year with a projected 13% increase, followed closely by Spanish media with a 12.9% growth, and spot TV in third place with an anticipated 8.9% increase.  Radio was expected to have only a Y2Y growth of 2.1% and newspapers a paltry two-tenths of a percent.  The advertising federation survey focused on online video with only 15% of the advertising executives saying they planned to move some of their broadcast dollars to on-line video.  Most (93%) say they see online video and ‘rich media’ more as creative opportunities for advertising.  


• NIELSEN VERSUS GOOGLE:  We couldn’t talk about advertising dollars without at least mentioning the latest developments from Nielsen, even though most of you may have heard about it already.  The company says it will do away with handwritten diaries in even the smallest markets within five years.  And it is committed to a system it dubs A2M2 which stands for “Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement” which it describes as an ‘all electronic measure system that will develop integrated ratings for television viewing regardless of the platform on which it is consumed.’  Even more interesting is a report carried on Webpronews.com and ZDNet.com that speculates Internet giant Google may get into the ratings business.  Reporter Jason Lee Miller says it shouldn’t come as a surprise since Google is in the business of information collection and research.  He quotes ZDNet expert Garrett Rogers who notes that the company has registered the domain names googledvr.net and googledvr.org along with googletv.com, googlehdtv.net.  


• NEWS YOU CAN CHOOSE:  Subtitle --  giving a whole new meaning to consumer news.  Along with their bread, milk and eggs, consumers can now shop for the latest news on the World Cup, Saddam’s trial or Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s marriage plans.  AOL is relaunching the Netscape.com website with its ‘anchors’ picking stories and the readers not only voting on the ‘hot’ stories of the day but submitting stories as well.  It’s still in the beta phase.  The grande dame of news, the BBC, has launched an addition to its website, listing out the most “popular” news of the day, both internationally and regionally.  These are the most viewed and most e-mailed stories of the day.  For example, this morning’s most popular stories included a woman who was jailed for giving her lover HIV and a man who was arrested for driving his BMW at 135 miles for over an hour after his accelerator became stuck.  An even more unusual version of this consumer news concept is the website trendio.com, which bills itself as “the stock exchange of news.”  You sign up, are given $10,000 in play money, and then you bet on what are the top search words used by more than 3,000 “Anglophone media websites.”


• MORE CITIZEN JOURNALISM:  In a somewhat similar vein, the Online Journalism Review is offering a concept in which “readers become reporters.”    The site authors offer the idea of ‘open-sourced reporting’ in which the reporter announces the topic they are delving into and readers submit leads, tips, sources and ideas.  Readers of MfM will remember previous online reporter training programs, most notably bbctraining.com, but the OJR version is more of a wikipedia form of reporting.  


• VIDEO FOR VIEWERS, BY VIEWERS:  In a related note, two other websites will actually sell your video to news organizations for you.  The website are scoopt.com and celljournalist.com.  As you can tell from the last one, many of the videos being sold are the ones that are caught by happenstance by someone with their cell phones.  For example, the scoopt website tells about rapper Snoop Dogg getting into a fight in the first class lounge at Heathrow Airport.  A scoopt member happened to be there just before the action started, snapped some pictures that were used worldwide and, as the site puts it, “earned a very tidy sum.” Meanwhile, the Al Gore-backed Current.tv which bills itself as the “tv network created by the people who watch it” is calling for video shorts that tell a story of tolerance.  The grand prize winner will get $100,000.On an oddly related note, cable channel Comedy Central which gained notoriety because of the Jon Stewart fake new show may be getting more notoriety because of another fake news show.  The show “Dog Bites Man” is supposed to be a ‘mockumentary’ about a dysfunctional local morning news show.  It features segments in which its fictional news team interviews people who think they’re being interviewed for a real documentary when in fact they’re being set up for the fake news show.  The show taped a segment at a media literacy class at Portland State University pretending that it was going to be part of a documentary and another segment at Chapman University under the same pretext.   Jean O. Pasco reports in the Los Angeles Times that the state attorney general’s office sent a letter complaining the video was acquired under false pretenses.


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  The American Civil Liberties Union, the same group that advocated for the right of Nazis to protest in the streets in the name of freedom of speech, is considering a proposal that would penalize board members of the ACLU who criticize the board and staff in public.  You’ve no doubt heard that Dan Rather is being shown the door by CBS management.  It turns out that Rather may end up going to work at HDNet for Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner who made his fortune on the Internet.  On a related note, Cuban is backing a journalism website sharesleuth.com which exposes securities fraud and corporate malfeasance.  Animal Planet’s new series on meerkats (a member of the Mongoose family that sort of looks like prairie dogs) living in the Kalahari desert scored the best debut for the cable network in the last three years. Italian directors have shot a 93-minute feature film/ documentary about love and sex using a standard cell phone camera.  Reviews say that because there is no microphone in the cell phone camera, most of the shots are close-ups and although the video is occasionally shaky, the image is clear overall.  Titled New Love Meetings, the film is based on a 1965 documentary which explored Italians views sex in postwar Italy.  More than 700 people were interviewed.  The new version showed not much has changed.I advise clients to use proof of performance/ testimonials to reinforce their image of coverage.  So, taking my own advice, the New York Times has picked up on a story carried in MfM about the numerous video sharing websites that help amateur film makers create their own videos.  A full list of the photo sharing and video sharing websites can be found in last week’s MfM.


• SUBSCRIPTIONS:  We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, 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, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM from 2006 are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com.  

June 12th, 2006

Message From Michael                    (image placeholder)
                                                  June 12, 2006                                                                           

• THE WEB AS A MEDIA PARTNER


• NEWS LEADING VIDEO ONLINE


• THOUSANDS OF VIDEOS BUT ANYTHING WORTH WATCHING


• TALKING MORE BUT WATCHING LESS


• ASIA VERSUS AMERICA


• COCKTAIL CHATTER

• THE WEB AS A MEDIA PARTNER:  Web media is the dominant medium during work hours (followed by radio) and the second most used medium at home (after TV), according to a study released by the Online Publishers Association.  The study says the web has gone from a medium that ten years ago reached 10% of the people for less than an hour each day to the point that now it reaches 60% of the people for more than two hours a day.  By comparison, TV reaches 90% of the people for more than four hours a day.  Association President Pam Horan says, “the evidence of the Web’s rise to mass media status is now clear and incontrovertible.”  But, even though the study notes that the ‘web dominant group’ averaged $5,000 more ($26,450) than the ‘TV dominant group’ ($21,401) on retail spending, the association isn’t pushing the web so much as an alternative to other media but rather as part of an overall media package.  The study shows the web increased the reach of TV anywhere from 39% to 51% depending on the time of day.  Newspapers experienced a similar increase in reach while magazine advertising actually doubled its reach.  The study shows that 20% of all web usage occurs while either viewing TV or immediate before or after watching.  Horan cites another report by independent banker Veronis Suhler Stevenson which specializes in communications media showing that while the Internet got 17% of people’s time, it only received 8% of the advertising dollars.  The association commissioned Ball State University’s Center for Media Design which produced the Middletown Media Studies which was the subject of a special MfM report some time back and which was one of the first to note the phenomenon of Concurrent Media Exposure.  The center uses an observational approach, employing people who recorded what 350 consumers did every 15 seconds for about 80% of their waking day.  As they put it, 15 media were tracked, including 5 ad-supported media, during 17 life activities such as child care, meal preparation and homework.  A final note: the study showed web use cut across all gender, age and socio economic groups.


• NEWS LEADING VIDEO ONLINE USE:  The same group, Online Publishers Association, released an earlier report showing a fourth (24%) of Internet users watch video online at least once a week while 5% watch video online every day.  The most popular videos were movie trailers followed by jokes and funny video clips, but news and current event videos came in a very respectable third, ahead of, surprisingly (to me, at least), music videos.  Not surprisingly, most of the viewing took place at home but one in five Internet users watched online video at work with 38% of them admitting the videos were mostly personal rather than work-related videos.  The study which was ‘hosted’ by Frank N. Magid’s online division, shows that online video viewers are frequent consumers of multiple media.


• THOUSANDS OF VIDEOS BUT ANYTHING WORTH WATCHING:  Meanwhile, an article in MIT’s Technology Review makes the point that the clichéd 500 channel cable universe is being replaced by the thousands of amateur video producers but the question still remains… is there anything worth watching on.  Writer Wade Roush notes that the photo sharing sites have had five years to evolve with the result that there are a variety of sites for different consumer needs and tastes.  Video sharing sites are now popping up as part of the “social media – the outburst of conversations and communities around consumer generated content.”  But he says they have not defined their niche yet.You may already know about Yahoo’s Flickr, but that only touches the surface of photo sharing sites.  Roush offers this ‘partial’ list: Bubbleshare, Fotki, Fotolog, Funtigo, Parazz, Phanfare, Photobucket, PhotoShow, PicPix, Picturecloud, Picturetrail, Pixagogo, Riya, Shutterfly, Smugmug, Snapfish, Tabblo, Webshots, and Zooomr.  And (because you read MfM) you may already know about YouTube, Google Video and the recently re-done Yahoo Video, but that only touches the surface of video sharing sites.  Roush offers this list of ‘new entrants:’  AOL UnCut Video, blip.tv, Buzznet, CastPost, ClipShack, Dailymotion, Google Video, Jumpcut, Ourmedia, Revver, Streamload, Veoh, VideoEgg, Vimeo, vpod.tv, vSocial, and still in development, Motionbox and Wallop.  If you want to see what the current version of the counter culture movement is, visit these sites.          On a related note, the podcast-only version of ABC’s World News Tonight has become one of the most downloaded items on iTunes.  According to an article in LostRemote.com, the newscast was downloaded 1.4 Million times in the last week of the sweeps.  It’s also available at ABCNews.com as well as MobiTV, GoTV, and Sprint TV Live.  The Times of London is launching its own version of this with an Internet television service with news video clips, provided by various news organizations and eventually news clips produced by ‘citizen journalists.’


• TALKING MORE BUT WATCHING LESS:  A comparison of talk show ratings year to year by Marc Berman in The Programming Insider shows that virtually ever talk show has dropped.  The one exception was Ellen DeGeneres which showed a 10% increase.  But the mighty Oprah was off 11%, while Dr. Phil was off 5%, Live with Regis and Kelly (-6%), Maury (-13%), Montel (-17%),  and Jerry Springer (-18%).  All of the Court shows, but one, were also off year to year with the one exception, People’s Court, only managing to stay flat.  Judge Judy was off 4%; Judge Joe Brown (-9%); Judge Mathis (-8%) and Divorce Court (-7%).  The entertainment/ news magazines were a mixed bag with Entertainment Tonight, The Insider and Access Hollywood all off 4% while Extra was flat and Inside Edition was up 3%.


• ASIA VERSUS AMERICA:  According to two separate reports, the Asia-Pacific area leads America in two significant ways.  According to eMarketer, It is the largest broadband center with 40% of the world’s broadband households.  And according to BusinessWeek Online, it also leads in terms of online gaming, an area it has dominated for more than a decade.  However, in both instances that is expected to change.  BusinessWeek quotes market research firm DFC which predicts that the online gaming market will grow from $3.4 Billion last year to more than $11 Billion by 2011.  And eMarketer says that as of this year there is One Billion Internet users worldwide and by the end of the year, 250 Million people will have broadband access.  


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  July 4th marks the 35th anniversary of Project Gutenberg, a volunteer effort to convert the million-plus books that are no longer protected by copyright into digitally accessible online versions.  The project founder, along with World eBook Library, plans to make a “third of a million” of those books available free (many already are) online for a month.  A website created by the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center offers you a chance to find out if you have “authentic happiness.” The site (http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/) provides a series of questionnaires that help you determine everything from your strengths to your handling of relationships to your level of satisfaction with life.  To Bob Schieffer, Brian Williams and Charlie Gibson, you can soon add the name George Alagiah.  He is a BBC anchor who will  be anchoring the Beeb’s World News Today, airing at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time starting July 3rd.   Finally, I have to note that, indicative of the growth of blogging, the annual Kos blogging conference was held this weekend, getting coverage from traditional media from The New York Times to USA Today.  An interesting point made by several observers was that blogging has become the Liberal and/or Democratic answer to Conservative and/or Republican talk radio.    


• SUBSCRIPTIONS:  We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, 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, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM from 2006 are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com.

June 5th, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  June 5, 2006                                                                                                         

• CUSTOM MADE EQUALS CUSTOMER MADE


• CUSTOMER MADE JOURNALISM


• CUSTOM MADE NEWS WEBSITE


• TALKING ABOUT NEWS WEBSITES


• ON THE GO NEWS JUNKIES


• GRAB YOUR PARTNER AND DOSEY-DO


• TALKING ABOUT PARTNERS


• COCKTAIL CHATTER

• CUSTOM MADE EQUALS CUSTOMER MADE:  More than a third (35%) of Internet users have posted content to the Internet, according to a study of Broadband adoption by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.  That translates into 48 million Americans.  In large part that’s because Broadband use has jumped 40% over the last year from 60 Million in March, 2005 to 84 Million this past March.  That’s double the rate of the previous year.  The Pew folks define posting content as either having a blog or a webpage, working on a blog or webpage for a group, or sharing ‘self-created content’ such as a story, artwork or video.  The study says creating online content used to be the domain of ‘a broadband elite of… male technophiles,’ but no more.   It is still mainly young people with more than half (51%) of those under 30 posting content to the Internet.  However, the study also shows that broadband users living in households earning under $50,000 a year are slightly more likely (46% to 41%) to post online than those in higher incomes.  As proof of this growth, BusinessWeek Online reports that users post 35,000 new videos to Youtube.com daily while Google video reports 8.6 Million unique users.  Meanwhile, Harris Interactive reports the number of people online in America has grown 5% over the last year and now totals 172 Million.  The biggest jump is the number of people going online at home – 70% versus 66% in 2005.  On a very much related note, the website trendwatching.com which monitors “the most promising consumer trends, insights and related hands-on business ideas” worldwide argues that the customer-made trend of businesses co-creating content with their customers is THE most important trend to watch in the coming year.  The group defines ‘customer-made’ as corporations creating “goods, services and experiences” in cooperation with creative customers, tapping into their intellectual capital, and rewarding them in return for what is produced.  As examples, the group cites Nokia which is developing a wrist-band phone based on a Turkish designer’s concept; Proctor & Gamble which created marketing website Vocalpoint, “a community of influential moms,” to generate insight and knowledge into what mothers want; and the TV show L-Word which created a “fanisode” version of its show.  


• CUSTOMER MADE JOURNALISM:  On a sort-of related note to the idea of customer or consumer generated content, the 2nd International Citizen Reporters Forum will be held in Seoul, South Korea, July 12th to the 15th.  It is sponsored by ohmynews.com which is a South Korean based news organization with 41,000 ‘citizen contributors’ or as the founder and CEO puts it, reader-reporters.  More than 70% of its content is created by citizen journalists, with the rest coming from staff writers and other news sources.    Today’s ‘front page’ of its English/ International version (http://english.ohmynews.com) has a story about the future of Iran, the World Cup in Soccer and a programmable tattoo which uses nano technology to create visible and changeable tattoos under the skin.  Indicative of just how strong ohmynews has become, the International Herald Tribune recently announced that it will be running headlines from the website on its website.


• CUSTOM MADE NEWS WEBSITE:  New website spotback.com promises to help you customize your news selection so that it is designed just for you.  The site uses algorithms that analyze social behavior so that as you rate and interact with different news items, it develops a personalized profile of your tastes and then tailors the information for you.  Although very tech oriented, it also offers general news as well.  Another website buzztracker.org actually maps the world news and then displays it by location with lines connecting similar stories.  For example, today, not surprisingly, Baghdad accounts for 8% of the news while Santos, Melbourne and Mogadishu accounted for 1% each.  But then the website draws lines connecting associated news locations and associated news articles, displaying a sort of global news village.    


• TALKING ABOUT NEWS WEBSITES:  For the past several months, data from Nielsen/Net Ratings (and reported at cyberjournalist.net)  shows the top four news sites are pretty consistent.  Yahoo News takes the number one spot with more than 26 Million users who spend an average of 30 minutes online at the site.  Just behind is MSNBC which has slightly less than 26 Million users who average 25 minutes online.  They’re followed by CNN with 24 Million users who spend more time (39 minutes) online than the top two, and AOL News which averages more than 16 Million users who spend even more time (47 minutes) online.  While those four are consistently at the top and pretty consistently in that order, the number five, and deeper, spots vary between Internet Broadcasting, Gannett Newspapers, NYTimes.com, USA Today, Tribune Newspapers and Knight Ridder Digital.On a related note, the New York Times reports that a blog created by a former American soldier who grew up in El Salvador and Chicago reaches more Americans than all but a handful of major daily newspapers.  The blog, DailyKos, created by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga has some 600,000 visitors a day.


• ON THE GO NEWS JUNKIES:   The Boston Globe reports that virtually all of the local TV stations in the market are offering, or will be offering, downloadable news for people to view on their iPods or computers.  New England Cable News has announced it will offer its news and talk shows in a video-on-demand, podcast and cell phone version.  WBZ TV is offering a subscription version of its news, traffic and weather as well as reporter blogs for Verizon and Sprint customers.  WHDH-TV already offers text updates of its weather and school closing on mobile phones and plans to add web-only news video to its website.  WFXT-TV is relaunching its website with exclusive video not seen on its newscasts.  The article quotes local TV executives who say it is all part of a multimedia strategy which they hope will convince viewers to tune in when they can watch the TV.


• GRAB YOUR PARTNER AND DOSEY-DO:   At least that’s what some of the major Internet players are doing.  An article by reporter Burt Helm in BusinessWeek Online says May 25th was a big day for Internet dominance.  Tech Titan Yahoo announced that it was partnering with Tech Titan (sort of) eBay in an ad revenue sharing deal.  That same day Tech Titan Google announced that it was partnering with Tech Titan Dell to puts its toolbar on millions of personal computers.  The Yahoo-eBay deal helps Yahoo narrow the advertising lead Google has in the $12.5 Billion Internet ad market, and the Google-Dell deal helps Google ‘muscle in’ on Microsoft’s dominance of the PC desktop.


• TALKING ABOUT PARTNERS:  According to Nielsen/Net Ratings, nearly half (45%) of all Web users are partnering up in social networks.  The top 10 social networks grew 47% in the last year from 46.8 Million to 68.8 Million in April of this year.  The top site, of course, was myspace.com with 38.4 Million unique users.  Second place went to blogger.com which brings multiple blogs together for a total of 18.4 Million unique users.  After that it was classmates online, youtube, MSN groups, AOL hometown, Yahoo groups, MSN space, Six Apart Typepad and finally, xanga.  And the websites users are loyal, with anywhere from 47% to 67% coming back month after month.  


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  The most powerful woman in publishing is NOT Oprah, according to an essay in the New York Times Book Review.  At least when it comes to “literary fiction.”  No, says writer Rachel Donadio, that honor belongs to Sessalee Hensley, the one and only literary fiction buyer for Barnes & Noble, and the gatekeeper therefore to the chain’s 799 stores and its 17% share of the U.S. book market.  The other most powerful woman on television, Katie Couric, scored on her final day in what New York Daily News writer Marisa Guthrie called a “three-hankie farewell-a-thon” with 8.4 Million viewers, the fourth highest viewing in Today history.  The other three were the 2000 and 2004 elections and the San Francisco earthquake.  The most powerful woman in words, national spelling bee champion Katharine “Kerry” Close plans to attend Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and become a journalist.  The BBC reports that Texas is planning to enlist the Internet in its efforts to stop illegal immigration at its borders.  State officials want to provide live surveillance footage so people worldwide can watch the Mexico border and report any illegal crossings that they may spot.    


• SUBSCRIPTIONS:  We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, 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, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM from 2006 are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com.  

May 30, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  May 30, 2006                                                                                                         

• SWEEPS WRAPUP


• BURNED OUT, EXHAUSTED AND CYNICAL


• THE VIDEO MIGRATION CONTINUES


• I WANT MY BABY TV


• COCKTAIL CHATTER

• SWEEPS WRAPUP:  Every network, except one, was down year to year, and of course you know which network was not.  Fox with its hyperbole-deserving hit, American Idol, was up in households (8%), up in total viewers (9%), up in adults 18-49 (7%) and up in adults 25-54 (9%).  In fact, the finale of the Fox hit was up 6 Million viewers year to year, something that hardly ever occurs.  Even though CBS won the May sweeps in total households and total viewers, it was actually down in both categories year to year (8%).  According to Nielsen figures reported by The Programming Insider and Cynopsis, the eye network had 12.54 Million viewers, followed by Fox with 11.64 Million, ABC with 9.3 Million (-4%), and NBC with 9.2 Million (-1%).  The big ‘losers’ were the WB which was down 20% to 2.7 Million and UPN which was down 23% to 2.6 million, a fact which the programming insider’s Marc Berman rightfully notes, raises questions about the prospects for the merged CW.Berman also takes a look at the “traditional” season numbers, based on ratings from September 19, 2005 to May 24, 2006.  CBS wins the ‘total’ season in total viewers and in adults 25-54 for the 4th consecutive year while Fox wins the 18-49 demo for the 2nd year in a row and the adult 18-34 demo for the 7th time.  ABC pulled in a respectable number two in every category – total households, viewers, adults 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54.  NBC posted losses of as much as 10% while the WB and UPN both were down.  When the five demographic categories for the six networks are examined, there were 19 drops in ratings, 9 increases and 2 categories where there were no changes.On a related note, we can’t talk about the ratings without mentioning that Nielsen’s Amsterdam-based mother company, VNU, has been bought by a consortium of private equity firms for 7.4 Billion Euro, about $9.9 Billion U.S., despite a move by some shareholders to prevent the private equity bid.


• BURNED OUT, EXHAUSTED AND CYNICAL:  What’s that describe?  News producers, of course.  But what passes as black humor in news rooms is actually a serious fact of life, according to a survey by a graduate student at Texas Christian University.  Nearly one in eight producers say they feel burned out every day they go to work while more than a third (34%) report feeling burned out at least once a week.  Nearly half (42.9%) reported suffering from high exhaustion.  More than half (57.1%) scored high on cynicism.  Yet nearly half of them (46%) say they “couldn’t imagine doing anything else.”  The survey is the master’s thesis by former producer Angele Anderfruen and only had 51 respondents, all based in Texas.  She used a device called the Maslach Burnout Inventory which determines burnout or risk of burnout based on 16 questions.  Based on that, Ms. Anderfruen says more than a fifth of the producers are “in need of help.”  The survey also found that more than a quarter (26%) love their job while just under a quarter (22%) hate their job.  More than half (52%) said they were satisfied with their jobs although a little less than half (42.9%) said they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their salaries. The study notes that most producers are not at risk of burning out, but the number who are at risk is significant.  And most of those are women and the younger producers.  The issues are manageable workloads, cynicism, and training opportunities.  In closing remarks Ms. Anderfruen says, “If TV stations successfully address problems producers face, like burnout, the longevity of a newscast producer could increase. With that would come much needed experience in handling ethical and situational problems inherent in television news.” She also notes most journalism schools focus on on-air positions.  Ms. Anderfruen has posted her study, along with her resume, on the web at:  http://homepage.mac.com/zanki/ProducerBurnout/Menu53.html.  


• THE VIDEO MIGRATION CONTINUES:  Yet more examples of video moving to the Internet.  NBC is offering first-run programming on iTunes.  ABC is offering ad supported news clips from the BBC on its abcnews.com website.  Google is testing video ads as part of its sales strategy.  A new service called Clipsyndicate.com is offering video clips to anybody who wants to offer video on their websites.  The service gets the video clips from various groups and then sells the connection for a fee.  Similarly, another website, virtue.com, has been created to “connect brands and consumers” by creating an on-line video platform for people to produce user generated content that marketers can buy.  On a semi-related note, wireless research firm Telephia reports there are 2 million mobile TV subscribers in the U.S., which represents a penetration of about 1.4%.  The average subscriber spends about $40 a month MORE for service than non-mobile TV subscribers.


• I WANT MY BABY TV:  Nearly half (43%) of the children under the age of two, let me repeat that – two, watch TV every day.  And more than four out of five (83%) of the children under the age of six spend time with TV or other screens (video and DVD) and most for nearly two hours a day.  A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that nearly one in five babies (19%) under the age of one have a TV in their bedroom and nearly a third (29%) of those aged two to three have a TV.  By the time they reach 4 to 6 years of age, 90% of them are “watching or looking at screen media.”  Parents say the TV watching helps avoid fights with siblings, allows the parents to get work done around the house and helps the children to fall asleep with more than half saying TV helped calm their children down.  On a very much related note, you may have heard that a group of entrepreneurs have created Baby TV specifically aimed at children under three, “promoting learning, development and fun.”  Produced in collaboration with child psychologists, the site (babytv.info) says it is “uniquely designed to encourage parent-baby interaction, fostering a positive experience in parenthood.”      


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  A man interviewing for an IT job at the BBC in London ended up being interviewed on air as a tech expert.  The staff at the BBC confused him with a man who was editor of a technology magazine and who had been invited to comment about a complicated court case.   Watch his face as he is being introduced.  You can see the interview at:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG61JO6MoUk&search=guy%20goma.  Also, on youtube.com, Stephen Colbert’s roast of President Bush at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was viewed 500,000 times, according to several reports.  The video was pulled off youtube by CSpan, but it is now available at:  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879.  And in case you hadn’t heard, former CNN anchor Aaron Brown will be teaching for a semester next Spring at Arizona State University.    


• SUBSCRIPTIONS:  We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael.  But if you would like to get your own copy, 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, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM from 2006 are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com.