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

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• 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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