August 28, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  August 28, 2006                                                                                                         

• KATRINA


• NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T


• NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU SEE IT


• BLACK AND YOUTH CREATED CONTENT


• MOVE OVER, JULIA ROBERTS


• THE EMMY ALTERNATIVES


• COCKTAIL CHATTER


• FOLLOWUP – PRESTIGE AND TRUST

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.  

• KATRINA:  It is the one word that says so much.  On this day one year ago, at 1:00 a.m. CDT it was declared a Category 4 hurricane.  Six hours later it was upgraded to a Category 5, the highest possible rating.  The next day, August 29th, at 6:10 a.m., Katrina made landfall near Buras, Louisiana, as a Cat4 hurricane with winds of 145 mph.  The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.  


• NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON’T:  The cryptic headline refers to ads.  The first part refers to a study by ad agency Initiative Worldwide which reports a 16% increase in TV ads over the last four years.  As reported in Media Life, the study says TV watchers around the world see an average of 70 ads a day.  Not surprisingly the U.S. had the highest number with viewers here seeing an average of 113 ads a day.  But Indonesia, Spain and Canada were not far behind.  The second part refers to a report by media research firm PQ Media which says product placement jumped 42.2% worldwide last year and is expected to grow another 38.8% this year to $3.07 Billion.  PQ Media president Patrick Quinn says product placement “has evolved from a novel marketing tactic to a key marketing strategy.”  The U.S. accounts for the largest part of that growth, in part because other countries restrict such advertising.  Other countries, including China, are looking at restricting the number of TV ads as well.SIDENOTE:  While researching these reports, I found an old study by Initiative Worldwide on the cost of buying advertising.  According to the report, the most expensive advertising on a cost per thousand ratio is cinema with a global average CPT of $59.43.  The least expensive is outdoor at $5.37 CPT.  The Internet was the second most expensive at $16.38CPT, followed by magazines ($11.14CPT), Newspapers ($9.23CPT), Television ($7.06CPT) and radio ($6.32CPT).


• NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU SEE IT:  The first part this time refers to IPTV – Internet Protocol TV.  As of last year, there were only 300,000 IPTV U.S. subscribers and 14 Million subscribers worldwide.  But market research firm eMarketer predicts that number will increase to 8.7 Million by 2010 in the U.S. and 139 Million worldwide.  More critically, the report says IPTV will shake up both TV and the Web worldwide.  As reported by Shankar Gupta in Online Media Daily, the report analysts say the combination of high quality video and search and retrieve capability of the Web will “radically disrupt” the TV model.  The second part of the headline refers to a report in Forbes.com about Sling Media’s Slingbox.  The technology allows you to watch and control your television remotely through the Internet.  You’re at work or traveling.  Just “dial up” your home TV or DVR on a broadband connection and watch your favorite shows.  Now they’ve added wireless capability.  The article calls the Slingbox “the sleeper hit of media technology.”  An acknowledgment:  Raycom Media CIO Dave Folsom was the first to tell me about this.  He has been touting the wonders of this technology for more than a year.


• BLACK AND YOUTH CREATED CONTENT:  Atlanta-based Black Family Channel (No, I hadn’t heard of it either) is adding a citizen journalism television program to its line-up.  The channel which has a strong religious theme to its programming says its mission is “to give television back to the family.”  Part of that is to tell stories “from and about the urban community” and which it says are ignored by the mainstream media.  As reported by Journalism.co.uk, the cable channel which claims 16 Million U.S. households is hoping to eventually produce four half-hour weekly shows made up entirely of viewers’ reports.  The reports will also air on the Internet (blackfamilychannel.com and urbanvoicetv.com) as podcasts or video blogs.  Not quite the same but somewhat similar is a website designed to be youth created content.  Called Uth TV (uthtv.com), the reports are supposed to be 100% youth created.  It’s described as YouTube for an even younger set.      


• MOVE OVER, JULIA ROBERTS:  Make way for Christine Dolce.  What?  You haven’t heard of Christine?  Well, you’re obviously not one of her 900,000 “friends” on MySpace.com  The Southern California cosmetician has just landed a deal with Unilever to promote a new deodorant called Axe aimed at young men.  Described as the “quintessential bleached blonde dominatrix,” but with great marketing savvy, she is expected to appeal, as the Economist.com put it, to “lusty lads.”  More critically, observers say the move could signal a new advertising approach for the under-performing (financially anyway) website.Also, in the online world, two other “stars” from sites that have become underground hits are lonelygirl15 and funtwo.  Lonelygirl has developed a cult following, even to the point of having sub-websites and generating online debates about whether it’s real or a hoax.  It’s “just” – and that word is in quotes – a young girl talking about her life, but it has struck some kind of emotional chord.  Funtwo strikes a chord of a different sort.  The site shows an unidentified guitar playing an incredible – notice, that word is not in quotes -- 5-minute, 20-second riff on a rock arrangement of the 18th Century classical composition Johann Pachelbel’s Canon.  (I know it sounds obscure, but if you’ve ever been to a wedding, you’ll recognize it when you hear it.)  The video has made it to the top ten of video websites scoring 7.35 Million downloads, according to the New York Times which has now identified him as a 23-year-old Korean named Jeong Hyun Lim.  Lonelygirl15 remains unidentified.


• THE EMMY ALTERNATIVES:  Not only should Julia Roberts move over, so should Tony Shalhoub and Steve Carell.  Make way for Will and Derrick.  What? Here I go again – You haven’t heard of Will and Derrick?  They’re the stars of the YouTube online comedy Nobody’s Watching which, the best way I can describe it, is today’s version of Wayne’s World.  And as long as we’re on a roll, move over Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.  Make way for DailyComedy.com and Heavy.com.  Daily comedy is just that.  Various videos that are sometimes and supposedly funny.  Heavy meanwhile is like website Break.com aimed at young males in particular.  The difference is that Heavy has started its own satirical news show starring a hand puppet with a microphone.  The website’s slogan is “because TV sucks.”  Of course, it is also loaded with ads for movies and TV.  One that the marketers amongst you will particularly like is VeryFunnyAds.com which, as the name implies, is a website with funny ads.  Even long-time humor website TheOnion.com has decided to get into the video business.  FOOTNOTE:  In case you’re wondering what’s the point of these two articles, let me repeat two figures:  900,000 “friends” and 7.35 Million downloads.


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  In keeping with the Hollywood theme of this week’s MfM, the top money-making star is… Harrison Ford whose films have grossed $5.86 Billion since 1965.  Tom Hanks was second with $4.61 Billion, followed by Eddie Murphy ($4.17 B) and Sean Connery ($3.85 B) and former Paramount star Tom Cruise ($3.85 B) came in fifth, according to figures compiled by the New York Sunday Times.  Only two women made the top twenty list – Julia Roberts at 14th with $2.88 Billion and Carrie Fisher at 17th with $2.84 Billion.


• A FOLLOW-UP:  From last week’s MfM on the Gallup Poll survey of trusted and prestigious professions, here are a few more facts.  For example, not surprisingly, doctors, teachers and scientists scored high in both polls with 85% saying they would trust doctors to tell the truth and 58% saying the profession has ‘very great’ prestige.  For teachers, the numbers are 83% (tell the truth) and 52% (very great prestige) while for scientists it’s 77% (truth) and 54% (prestige).  Doctors scored the highest with the public in the truth test, but came in second when it came to prestige.  As we noted last week, firefighters scored the highest in prestige with 63%, but nurses are also right up there on the prestige scale (55%).  The profession that has grown the most in prestige in the nearly 30 years since the poll started is teachers, from 29% in 1977 to 52% now.  The profession that has dropped the most – lawyers from 36% to 21%.  The profession that has shown the greatest improvement in ‘truthiness’ is accounting which gained 13% in the last four years to go to 68%, followed by bankers (up 11% to 62%), clergymen (up 10% to 74%) and scientists (up 9% to 77%).  The biggest drop in truth telling has been the President who has fallen 17% from 65% in 2002 to 48% this year, AND pollsters who have dropped 10% to a low of 34% in the last four years.  


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August 21, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  August 21, 2006                                                            

• TV VERSUS THE WEB, THE SAGA CONTINUES


• MORE DEATH KNELLS FOR TELEVISION


• PUBLIC RADIO TOO PUBLIC


• TARGETING JOE AND JANE COLLEGE


• JOURNALISTS THE RODNEY DANGERFIELDS OF PROFESSIONS


• COCKTAIL CHATTER – THE MOST FAMOUS UNKNOWN MAN

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.  

• TV VERSUS THE WEB, THE SAGA CONTINUES:  Studies about the web and TV use are beginning to sound like the latest medical study which shows X-item is good/bad for you.  In the good news column, a study by market research and consulting firm Crawford Johnson & Northcott says the web is not replacing local TV news.  The study says three quarters (75%) of Internet users say they watch a local TV newscast at least twice a week and half (52%) say they ‘try’ to watch at least one newscast a day.  In the not-so-good news column, Internet users are evenly split as to who they would turn to for local news, with 37% saying they would go to a local TV website but an almost equal number (35%) saying they would go to a newspaper website.  Despite all the emphasis on weather, the story carried in MediaWeek reports only a quarter of the Internet users (26%) say they would go to a local TV website for weather but at least that beats newspapers who scored only one in ten (9%).  In the good news column, more than two-thirds (68%) say they went to a local TV website for more information about a story covered in the local newscast.


• MORE DEATH KNELLS FOR TELEVISION:  So, how many have you heard so far?  Here are the latest.  Nielsen Media Research reports that there were more channels (96.4) available to the average household in 2005 than in the previous year (92.6), and that Americans spent more time (57 hours and 17 minutes a week) watching television last year than the year before (56 hours and 7 minutes).  But the number of channels watched showed a bare uptick from 15.0 in 2004 to 15.4 in 2005, and that the actual number of broadcast viewers actually decreased slightly from 16.4 in 2004 to 16.3 last year.  A study of the 8.6% of U.S. adults using DVR’s by MediaMark Research shows that adults in DVR households are more likely to be college educated than the average household, more than twice as likely to have a high income ($150K and more), nearly twice as likely to have half-million-dollar homes, AND more likely (43%) to be heavy magazine users, more likely (40%) to be heavy newspaper readers, more likely (81%) to be heavy Internet users and LESS likely (23%) to be heavy TV users.  A study by Harris Interactive for Real Network reports that nearly a third of adults over the age of 18 (31%) would rather play games than watch television when they have a spare hour.  Meanwhile, consulting firm McKinsey and Company says that by 2010, TV advertising will be one-third as effective as it was in 1990.  The firm notes that ad spending on primetime broadcast TV has increased 40% over the last decade while viewership has dropped 50%.  The company analysts say the drop in effectiveness is due to a drop in buying power combined with a drop in ad viewing because of turn-offs, less attention to ads because of multi-tasking and a drop in impact because of sheer saturation.   The major problem?  According to McKinsey, the drop in teen viewing.  The consolation, according to McKinsey, is that the lack of online ads available combined with the general web fragmentation will mean TV will continue booming for the next several years.  


• PUBLIC RADIO TOO PUBLIC:  If you ask some in the radio business, you might think so.  A study by The Media Audit and Ipsos found that National Public Radio is a contender, a major contender, in broadcasting.  NPR is the 4th most listened-to radio format in terms of weekly audience, but it is the second most popular in terms of how often it is listened to.  Confused?  The second issue is one of loyalty.  News/ Talk has the largest weekly audience (19,400,000), followed by Country (18,500,000), then Current Hit Radio, which we used to call Top 40, (17,200,000)  and NPR (14,700,000).  But when it comes to their ‘most listened to’ stations, the numbers change.  News/ Talk is still tops with 11,100,000 people saying they listen to this format most often, but now NPR comes in second with 8,600,000 people saying they listen to NPR most often.  NPR beat out Country but barely with Country getting 8,400,000.  Religion came in next at 6,100,00.  But the folks at The Media Audit/ Ipsos say when you convert these numbers into percentages, NPR comes in first in terms of converting listeners into loyal listeners.Proof of the power of news/talk:  In Los Angeles, an AM radio station has taken the #1 spot in ratings.  KFI-AM bills itself as ‘more stimulating talk.”  Although that’s a first for Southern California, MediaBuyerPlanner notes that AM radio stations are either #1 or in the top five in several major markets, including Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco and San Diego.  Meanwhile, in London, Virgin Radio has launched “visual radio” for mobile phones, providing artist and programming information along with pictures of the artist and downloadable ring tones from the selected song.  


• TARGETING JOE AND JANE COLLEGE:    MTV has bought a campus marketing group that has a network of 2,000 print and 450 online student newspapers.  The sometime music channel wants to make Y2M, Youth Media & Marketing, part of its MTVu network.  Officials with MTV say they want to turn the newspapers into “campus media hubs,” complete with national news, rich media, community and e-commerce features.  It opens the college students to MTV’s national advertisers and is part of MTV’s strategy to move into user generated content.  On a slightly smaller scale, but the same philosophy, Gannett’s Tallahassee Democrat newspaper has bought the Florida State University’s student-run newspaper.  Gannett officials say the move will expose the students to training and career opportunities and they in turn will expand their readership to a younger audience.  


• JOURNALISTS THE RODNEY DANGERFIELDS OF PROFESSIONS:  They get no respect, at least according to a series of polls by Harris Interactive.  More than half of the people polled (58%) say they would NOT trust journalists to tell the truth.  Less than two out of five (39%) say journalists could be trusted.  For reasons I can’t figure out, the Harris folks break out TV Newscasters as a separate category when asking people who they would trust to tell the truth.  But they fare little better with more than half of the public (51%) saying they would NOT trust TV newscasters to tell the truth and less than half (44%) saying they would trust them to tell the truth.  If that isn’t bad enough, another poll by Harris found that only one in six people (16%) believe journalism is a profession of “very great” prestige.  The Harris people say the prestige number has been a pretty consistent figure for journalists ever since the poll started in 1977.  If it makes you journalists out there feel any better, you do score better on the ‘truthiness’ scale than members of Congress (35%), and much to the embarrassment of the Harris people, pollsters (34%), union leaders (30%), stockbrokers (29%), lawyers (27%) and actors (24%).  And you do score better as well on the prestige scale than union leaders and actors (12%), business executives and stock brokers (11%) and real estate agents (6%).  And no, I don’t know why actors would score so low on the prestige scale either.  Doctors scored the highest with the public in the trust test with 85% saying they would trust doctors to tell the truth.  Firefighters scored highest in prestige with 63% saying it is a profession of great prestige.


• STORIES WORTH NOTING:  These are stories in the news that you are probably aware of, which may not be the ‘trends’ stories we focus on, but which I think should be noted.  Both have been mentioned in previous MfM’s.  The Federal Communication Commission has made it official.  It’s investigating the use of Video News Releases and Satellite interviews masquerading as ‘real news.’  A ‘ratings summit’ has been called to debate the increasingly controversial move by Nielsen to rate commercial minutes. (On a related note, TiVO has announced a new division focusing on audience research and measurement, specifically tracking how many people are watching TV commercials.)    


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  He created the technology that dominates world communication, but because of a major corporation’s efforts to claim credit, he is unknown to most people today.  Phil Farnsworth was born August 19, 1906.  He is the man credited with creating the phenomenon we now know as television.  Pepsico will be the largest corporation, based on market value, to be headed by a woman.  Indra Noovi, an Indian-American, who has overseen the company’s strategic expansion into non-carbonated drinks, will take over as CEO on October 1st. A cocktail chatter side note:  In a previous MfM we talked about the online marketing campaign for the movie Snakes on a Plane which has turned it into a phenomenon not unlike the Blair Witch Project.   On the Internet it has been consistently in the top 200 of most popular Web searches and its blog attracts upwards of 50,000 visitors a week.  But as of this morning, the box office showed, as BoxOfficeMojo put it, that ‘snakes’ was all hiss and no bite, grossing $15.3 Million which put it in first place but barely beating Talladega Nights which is in its third week.  


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August 14, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  August 14, 2006                                                            

• GETTING MORE NEWS BOOTS ON THE GROUND


• VIEWERS READY FOR THEIR CLOSE-UP, MR. DEMILLE


• VIRAL AND VIRILE VIDEO


• BROADER THAN A DOLLAR


• THE U.S. VS. CHINA FOR NEWS


• LONELY, I’M MR. LONELY


• COCKTAIL CHATTER

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.  

• GETTING MORE NEWS BOOTS ON THE GROUND:  Two phenomenon are coming together.  The first you’ve already read about because of your MfM newsletter.  (Okay, so, some other publications have covered it, too.)  And that’s the increasing use of ‘citizen journalists’ by various news organizations.  The latest one to join in this trend is CNN which has created CNN Exchange where people can post news videos, but it’s not the only one by a long shot.  ABC News Now has launched a weekly program incorporating video from viewers commenting about news and entertainment.  NBC plans to add a video-sharing service to the websites of its local TV stations with WCAU already in the consumer video business.  Reporter Louis Hau in an article titled YouWitness News  in Forbes.com says MSNBC.com and Reuters are expected to introduce viewer shot video into their reports by the end of the year.  As we’ve noted before, the BBC has also launched a similar project.  Several local stations are also joining in the movement which is receiving several different interpretations – it’s either involving viewers in the process; doing news on the cheap; or getting more news boots on the ground.  We liked the last one.  


• VIEWERS READY FOR THEIR CLOSE-UP, MR DEMILLE:  The second phenomenon is an approach being taken by a number of advertisers, who are enlisting tech-savvy, creative consumers to produce commercials for them.  You know the concept has moved from fad to trend when one of the 600-pound gorillas of advertising jumps on the bandwagon.  Coca-Cola has re-launched its website to encourage visitors to “create material supporting its brand.”  A spokesman for the company says basically that now people everywhere can do their own Andy Warhol impression.  The International Herald Tribune reports that several of the world’s largest advertising agencies, including WPP Group and Interpublic Group, have started ventures or partnerships focusing on user-generated content.  An Atlanta-based company, ViTrue, bills itself as “the world’s first user-created advertising platform.”   The article says some ad execs believe that user-generated content will “wane” once the novelty wears off, while others see it as the first step in the extinction of ‘creatives’ although the reality may be somewhere in between, according to the article, with agencies acting as orchestral conductors blending the two.


• VIRAL AND VIRILE VIDEO:  There is actually a third leg to this – viral video.  In actual fact, it’s the viral video from websites like YouTube.com which is probably responsible for the two phenomenon, according to some.  Understandable when you consider YouTube is the fastest growing site among the top 25 brands quadrupling its audience in the first six months of this year, according to Nielsen NetRatings.  Business Week reports that many businesses are trying to build on the phenomenon exemplified by the Subservient Chicken video which scores 400 million hits.  (I have to brag that I was one of the first trend watchers to talk about the subservient chicken video.)  The article notes that viral video can get millions of views and not cost millions to make, although it has grown into a $100 Million to $150 Million industry.  Now, rival online video sites are lining up major partners with Revver.com picking up major marketers like Microsoft, Warner Bros., and American Apparel.  Website Gotuit.com says it is trying to maintain “professional standards.”  Another, Stickam.com, is focusing on live video.


• BROADER THAN A DOLLAR:  Okay, so my headline doesn’t make sense.  It’s a play on words from the song “Wider Than A Mile.”  Anyway, it turns out that we pay more in the U.S. for broadband connections than just about anybody in the world.  According to eMarketers Broadband Prices and Bundles, people in the U.S. pay an average $6.10 for 1 Mbps of broadband per month.  The only ones paying more than us are the Germans ($6.29), people in Hong Kong ($7.69) and the Spanish ($13.44) although the Canadians only beat us by a penny ($6.09).  The cheapest broadband connection is in South Korea (73 cents per 1Mbps) and Japan (75 cents per 1Mbps).  In the U.K., it’s $2.86, Italy ($2.34), France ($1.51), and Australia ($3.79).The good news is that it’s getting cheaper, more accessible and faster.  The Federal Communications Commission reports there were 50.2 Million homes and businesses connected online via broadband by the end of last year.  That’s a 33% increase over the previous year.  Reports on some of the cable services say the advertised broadband speeds are reaching 15Mbps to 30Mbps downstream.  Meanwhile the FCC has adopted rules and procedures to encourage broadband access over power lines as an alternative to cable modems and DSL.


• THE U.S. VS. CHINA FOR NEWS:  In their latest news release on the Internet, executives with comScore Media Metrix say they find it “interesting” that five of the top ten general news websites are American.  The British score only one in the top ten and of course it’s the BBC.  But what I found even more interesting was that the other four websites in the top ten are all Chinese news websites.  You wouldn’t know it if you didn’t take the effort to check out the sites… as your anal retentive consultant (that’s me) did, because their domain names wouldn’t give you a clue.  The sites are 163.com (which reached 9%), QQ.com (8%), Sina.com (8%) and TOM.com (4%).  In total, the four reach 28% of the worldwide Internet audience.  That’s only half of the five U.S. sites which reached 54%.    The five U.S. sites are Yahoo News which on its own reached a quarter (24%) of the worldwide audience, followed by CNN (10%),  MSNBC (9%), AOL News (7%) and the New York Times “brand” (4%).  As a side note, it’s interesting to note that those five websites reached 110% of the total U-S-only Internet audience, obviously because of overlap.  More than half (54%) of all Internet users in the U.S. visit a general news website.  Worldwide the percentage is slightly lower (45%), but considering that’s 320 Million unique visitors, it’s a staggering number.  By the way, only the Sina.com website has an English version, in case you’re curious about the Chinese news perspective.The same news release further emphasized the value of such news websites, noting that general news visitors tend to have higher incomes, with 58% reporting incomes over $60,000.  They are also 11% more likely than the average to have incomes over $75,000 and 16% more likely to have incomes over $100,000.  As long as we’re talking demographics, visitors to general news sites are almost exactly divided between men (50.2%) and women (49.8%).  The report also emphasizes a point we’ve often made, and that is that the Internet is an important way to “get inside the walls,” a phrase we use to mean reaching people at work.  Nearly a third (32.6%) of the visitors say they look at news websites during the work day.  That’s higher than weekends (30.3%), evenings (27.8%) and mornings (23.9%).  


• LONELY, I’M MR. LONELY:  It seems that the old Bobby Vinton song may be the theme song for Americans.  According to a study published in the American Sociological Review, Americans have fewer close friends than they did two decades ago.  And twice as many Americans now, compared to twenty years ago, say they have no one with whom they discuss important matters.  Despite Dr. Phil and Oprah, despite MySpace and YouTube, one in four Americans (24.6%) say they have no one that they discuss “matters important to you.”  The study in the June 2006 issue also found that people on average have only two close “confidants” compared to three such close friends in 1985.  The change is so dramatic that even the researchers admit to some skepticism, saying it may be a matter of how people interpret the word ‘important’ and that the word ‘discuss’, for example, may be interpreted as face to face rather than Internet discussions.  They even note studies by Gallup and Pew indicating less dramatic numbers, although they also note studies that show a general decline in “socializing among neighbors” and involvement in civic and neighborhood associations.  Even so, the study authors from Duke University and the University of Arizona suggest that the “shifts in work, geographic and recreational patterns may have combined to create a larger demarcation between a smaller core of very close confidant ties and a much larger array of less interconnected, more geographically dispersed, more unidimensional relationships.”   Or put another way, there may be more “weak ties” on the Internet and elsewhere that expose people to a wide range of information, but fewer “strong ties” that offer stronger emotional support.  “Whatever the reason, it appears that Americans are connected far less tightly now than they were 19 years ago.  Furthermore, ties with local neighborhoods and groups have suffered at a higher rate than others.”        


• COCKTAIL CHATTER:  More than three-quarters of Americans have registered their primary phone numbers on the do-not-call registry, according to the Federal Trade Commission’s annual report to Congress.  The World Cup had 5.9 Billion viewers for its month of matches.  According to Kiplinger’s magazine, Americans spend an average of six nights away from home on vacation and spend an average of $261 a day for food and lodging.  An 18-year-old Puerto Rican student and model was crowned Miss Universe.  Okay, so that doesn’t qualify as ‘cocktail chatter’ except that Puerto Rican contestants have won the title four times; only U.S. contestants have won more (7).  As a further bit of trivia, the Miss Universe contest is now run by Donald Trump’s organization.  Four out of five pet owners admit to having called in sick so that they could take care of a sick pet, according to a survey by Cosmopolitan magazine.  And if my boss is reading this, I have not done that.      


• 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.

August 7th, 2006

Message From Michael                    
                                                  August 7, 2006                                                            

• Watching, Reading and Listening to the News – A Special Report

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.  

• GOING NEWSLES:  Nearly one out of every five Americans (19%) are going ‘newsless,’ according to a survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.  That’s how many told the researchers that they got no news from either television, the radio, newspapers or the Internet.  It’s all part of a wide-ranging report released July 30th and detailing the changing landscape of news consumption starting in 1993.  Of course, on the flip side, that means 8 out of 10 (81%) did get news, and as the report authors say, “getting the news is an integral part of the day for most Americans.”  But even that number is a dramatic drop from the 90% looking for news a decade ago and a significant drop since 2004 when it was 85%.  Even when they do get the news, they are only spending about an hour doing it -- 30 minutes watching, 15 minutes reading, 16 minutes listening and 6 minutes going online.


• REGULAR NEWS USE:  Not to further depress you news folks out there, but the report also shows the percentage of people who regularly watch, listen or read news has dropped dramatically since a decade ago (something we all sort of knew) but also dropped significantly in the last two years.  The percentage who regularly watch local TV news has dropped from 77% in 1993 to 59% in 2004 and now down to 54% in 2006.  Nightly network TV news has dropped from 60% in 1993 to 34% in 2004 and now down to 28% this year.  In a similar vein, the numbers for radio are 47% in 1993, 40% in 2006 and 36% this year; while 58% said they regularly read newspapers in 1993, only 42% did so in 2004 and only 40% this year.  Network morning news was the only area showing the slightest of upticks from 20% in 2000 to 22% in 2004 and now 23% this year.  The percentage watching cable TV news has dropped from 38% to 34% in the last two years.


• MEDIA CREDIBILITY:  You may have read or heard other reports about the study that also cite the increasing skepticism toward the media.  Less than one in four people believe “all or most” of what the various news organizations say.  Every one of them (CNN, 60 Minutes, ABC, CBS, NBC, The News Hour and local TV news) has shown significant drops since 1993 and slight drops in the last two years.  Only Fox has remained relatively flat, but even then, only 25% believe in its credibility and that is only slightly higher than the 22% reported for NPR, CBS and ABC or the 23% reported for NBC, the NewsHour and local TV news and Fox’s numbers are lower than its rival CNN (28%) and 60 Minutes (27%).  More interesting (to me at least), the report shows the degree of skepticism is across the board.  In 1993 the range of highest to lowest was 23%; this year there is only 7% difference between the highest credibility and the lowest.  The report notes there is little change in the attitude toward print news credibility over the last two years, but that there is “no recovery” from a long, downward trend.  The Wall Street Journal has the highest score but it’s still a meager one in four (26%) who say they believe “all or most” of what the WSJ reports.  For other print news operations, it’s more like one in five with Time and U.S. News tied at 21%, only a point ahead of the New York Times (20%), followed by “your daily paper” (19%), Newsweek and USA Today (18%), and the Associated Press at 17%.  An interesting side note – Good news for the National Enquirer; it has doubled its credibility rating from 3% in 1998 to 6% this year;  Bad news for People magazine; it barely beat the Enquirer with an 8% credibility rating.And, yes, the political polarization surrounding news credibility continues, with more Republicans (34%) watching Fox News and more Democrats (28%) watching CNN.  More interesting is that the gap between Republicans and Democrats watching the three nightly broadcast news show has tripled since 2004.  In 2004, 36% of the Democrats and 31% of the Republicans said they regularly watched the evening news.  This year, 38% of the Democrats but only 24% of the Republicans watch the evening news.


• THE INTERNET:  And for those looking or thinking it’s all because of the Internet… think again.  The study says the Internet serves more as a supplement to other news sources rather than a primary source for news.  The report also notes that half of the American public uses multiple sources for news on any given day… a pattern that has not changed over the last decade despite the growth of the Internet.  About a third (31%) say they rely on only one source but ONLY 4% of the respondents say they rely on the web alone.  When people do rely on only one source, it’s TV (16%).   Despite what I and many others would have thought, the web is not even the prime secondary source.  When people cite only two sources, it’s either TV and newspaper (12%) or radio and TV (9%), followed by the Internet and one other (8%).   One out of six (17%) say they use three or more sources and a very small 3% say they use all four – TV, radio, newspapers and the Internet.  The report authors say “the audience for online news is fairly broad but not particularly deep.”  For example, people who go online for news spend an average of 32 minutes doing so, compared to 53 minutes for television, 43 minutes for radio and 40 minutes for newspapers.  Even with the rise of the Internet, there has not been a rise in overall news consumption.  In fact, the report says that since 2000 nearly all of the growth among regular Internet news user has been in the 25-64 age group.  The report says there has been a significant increase (from 47% to 53%)  in the number of people going online from either home or work in the last two years, but that the number who went online “for news yesterday” is significantly lower (23%) and is roughly the same (24%) as two years ago.  


• ENJOYING THE NEWS:  A little more than half (52%) say they enjoy keeping up with the news “a lot.”  A third (34%) say they enjoy keeping up with the news “some.”  Not surprisingly, younger people are less likely (38%) to enjoy the news compared to older people (59%).  The biggest problem – Time.  More than a third (38%) say they’re just too busy and the same percentage (38%) say they “lack the background” to keep up.  Even with the flood of sources, most people say they are not concerned about “information overload.”  Nearly two thirds (64%) say they like having so much information while slightly more than a quarter (28%) complained about overload.  A majority of Americans (57%) say they follow local news and national news (55%) most of the time, not just when something big happens.  But the increase in international news interest we saw after 9/11 has dropped.  Only 38% follow it “most of the time” – a significant drop from the 52% two years ago.  But if something “important” happens, the number jumps to 58%.  (The authors note the survey was done before the situation in Lebanon erupted.)


• NEWS COMPETITION:  And we’re not talking among news sources.  Aside from time, the biggest competition is the alternative choices people, especially young people, have.  No surprise there.  Playing video games is particularly popular among young people, especially men (36%) compared to women (18%).  And 40% of those under age 30 say they either watched a move at home, or DVD or pay-per-view yesterday.  If it’s any consolation, 49% say they watched news yesterday.  What is surprising, the researchers say, is that reading books is a favored activity (41%) among young people.  As anyone who has gone on a Nielsen visit will understand, the report says more people (63%) say they watched a non-news television program the day before the survey than watched TV news (57%).    


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