WHO’S ON FIRST
AMERICANS’ NEWS IQ
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
WHO’S ON FIRST: The answer, when it comes to network programming, is EVERYBODY. ABC programming is on iTunes and AOL. NBC isn’t on iTunes, but it is on Amazon’s answer to iTunes, unBox, and NBC is creating its own video delivery system called NBC Direct. Fox programming is on iTunes and Unbox. And CBS is on all of the above including its own streaming video site Innertube because, says CBS Interactive chief Quincy Smith, the network is “all about open, nonexclusive, multiple partnerships.” In fact, iTunes carries ABC, CBS, MTV, ESPN, the Sci Fi Channel, Comedy Central, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Showtime and the list goes on and on. The same goes for AOL which also has A&E, The Biography Channel, CMT, Comedy Central, and again the list goes on and on. And as for Unbox, add in Adult Swim, Animal Planet, the BBC, Biography Channel, Bravo, Fuel TV, MTV, and again the list goes on and on. Then add Yahoo, Google, and of course YouTube to the plethora of online video outlets. And, of course, the networks all provide their own streaming versions of their programs. The point is that the networks are trying to get their shows in front of viewers any way they can, even if they are on sites that don’t add to the ratings. As reporter Dawn Chmielewski notes in the Los Angeles Times, network websites like CBS.com get 6 Million visitors while sites like Yahoo get 135 Million visitors.
Sidenote: I became fascinated with the number of TV shows being streamed at various sites after I looked up the newest Fox TV show, Back To You, which stars Kelsey Grammer, Fred Willard and Patricia Heaton and revolves around life in a television newsroom. No, it’s not realistic; after all, it’s a comedy, but it is funny and there are some zingers that other news people will recognize. My favorite is the 26 ½ year old News Director.
Footnote: A very good overview of the Fall 2007 Primetime TV programs can be found through MediaWeek. Marc Berman who produces the daily Programming Insider is featured on a webcast outlining ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ this season. Just to make life easier for you, I will even provide the link: http://www.nielsencast.com/ws/content_display/event/e3i700d8a6e85cce5080bf54fd95cd91fe5. And, as a side note to the footnote, you can actually try your hand at network programming on a website, tvbigshot.com, which is running a contest to test people’s programming skills.
AMERICAN NEWS IQ: A quiz created by the folks at the Pew Research Center showed that most Americans are familiar with key facts in the news about politics and Iraq. Only 6% of those surveyed could answer all 12 of the questions, but a quarter (26%) could answer 10 out of the 12 questions. Men (7.6 correct answers) scored better than women (6.3). College grads (8.2) not surprisingly scored better than high school grads (5.5). Interestingly there was a clear ascending scale in news knowledge that correlated with age with 18-29 year olds scoring the lowest (5.5 correct answers); followed by 30-49 (7.1); 50-64 (7.4) and 65+ (7.6). Now, in case you’re wondering why I’m not telling you some of the details, it’s because you can take the quiz yourself. You can check your own news IQ and then compare yourself to others by going to http://pewresearch.org/pubs/601/political-knowledge-update. (PS: I scored 12 out of 12.)
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD: That’s the lament of Newser.com’s Michael Wolff writing in Vanity Fair magazine. He makes the point that all those pushing news ventures online are ‘old’ – Barry Diller (65); Rupert Murdoch (76); Ariana Huffington (57); Jeff Jarvis (53); and the list goes on. Where are the 20-somethings like Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, he asks. He argues that some how, some way, some one will find the “Holy Grail” of news in this new media world using some kind of algorithm that defines the news process because “every advance in technology has seen the invention of a new form of news.” One of the problems is how do you do that in this multi-multi world when, for example, The New York Times makes $2 Billion a year with its paper version that reaches 1.1 Million daily readers, but only makes $250 Million on its online version that reaches 40 Million readers a month; AND while its newsgathering process costs $300 Million; AND then turns around and charges $600 a year for a subscription for material that is provided free online. In the end, he says, “news is, for better or worse, a card trick… (and) holding people’s attention is the trick.” Yet he still believes that news is meaningful and has a public purpose; that’s why he’s doing newser.com.
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS: It probably says something, although I’m not sure what, that half of the M-I-T Technology Review’s list of leading young innovators deal with computers and the Internet. The TR35 lists the 35 leading innovators under the age of 35. On the list are Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, (no explanation needed); Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon (which is a toolbar which will link you to odd websites that you have a special interest in, based on recommendations from other people who have ‘stumbled upon’ the sites), and Kevin Rose of Digg (which mixes blogging, social networking and crowdsourcing to create an online newspaper of ‘stories selected by the masses’). By the way, their respective ages are 23, 28 and 30. But even more interesting are people like the University of Washington’s Tapan Parikh, named TR35’s humanitarian of the year, for helping fishermen in Indian improve their profits by using cell phones; and TR35’s innovator of the year David Berry who, at the age of 29, is a Venture Capitalist helping to develop renewable petroleum from microbes. My favorite though may be Ivan Krstic, and not just because he is developing a system to make antivirus software unnecessary, but because, apparently, at the age of 21, it seems he has yet to finish his degree at Harvard because he keeps taking leaves to… write software interpreting data for a neuroscientist, build a patient management computer system for a hospital, scale up Facebook’s software architecture and develop security architecture for the One Laptop Per Child program, building inexpensive laptops for Third World children.
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE: According to MediaMark Research, the United States has passed a telecommunications milestone with cell-phone only households for the first time out-numbering landline-only households. The landline-only population has been larger than the cell-phone only population ever year since 2000 when the company first began measuring this. But in the latest survey, the cell-only population reached 14% compared to the 12.3% for the landline-only population. The researchers say the percentage of the population with at least one cell phone (86.2%) also passes the percentage of people who have a landline in their home (84.5%).
COCKTAIL CHATTER: A survey by the Pew Research Center found Americans evenly split on the belief that the country is divided along economic lines. Nearly half (48%) say we’re a country of “have’s and have not’s” while the same number (48%) say we are not. This is a dramatic increase from nine years ago when only a quarter of the American public (26%) believed we are a country of have’s and have not’s. Even more interesting, the number of Americans who see themselves as ‘have not’s’ has doubled in that time from 17% to 34%. Another survey by the folks at Pew, this one by Pew Global Research, finds that nearly as many countries (17) consider the United States to be an enemy as consider the country to be an ally (19). Internet giant Google has put up a prize of $30 Million to the first private enterprise that that can land a rover on the moon and beam back a gig of high definition images. A father-son research team has released a report that shows studying improves grades. I know this sounds like a Homer Simpson “doh” but apparently no-one has quantified the issue before. In an article published in the National Journal of Economic Research, they found that studying an hour a day increases student GPA’s by an average 0.36 points while playing video games for an hour each day led to a 0.24 drop in GPA for males and a 0.13 drop for females.
CONGRATULATIONS: To MfM friend and CBS Anchor Russ Mitchell, being named one of the ten outstanding leaders in the field of journalism and being award the University of Missouri’s Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Monday, September 17, 2007
Message From Michael -- September 17, 2007
NEWS IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
BLOG ME THIS, NEWSMAN
ARM WRESTLING ADVERTISERS
COCKTAIL CHATTER – GOD’S GOLF BALL
NEWS IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism has found major differences between the news presented on mainstream media news sites versus user generated sites. For example, taking one week in June, the study authors found that 10% of all the news on the mainstream media sites dealt with the war in Iraq. In the user generated sites, the war accounted for only one percent of the news. The project authors used three sites as examples of user generated sites – Reddit, Digg and Del.icio.us. They also did a comparison with the news.yahoo.com website. (There is no explanation why they didn’t use news.google.com.) Need another example? The immigration debate dominated the mainstream media news sites. On the three user generated sites, it came up only once as a top ten story. Instead, the user generated sites ‘news’ were more “lifestyle” focused stories.
Okay, now, you may have heard or read some of this, but dig a little deeper in the report (as your friendly neighborhood consultant did) and you find some more interesting data. For example, in the mainstream media, ten stories account for more than half (51%) of all the stories carried on the mainstream media websites. This is a fact noted in previous Project reports, that mainstream media tell you a lot about a little. In comparison, no single story dominated the user generated sites to the same extent. Okay, the iPhone controversy came close, but even it did not reach the same level of dominance. Instead, the user generated sites news agenda was “more diverse, yet also more fragmented and transitory” than that of their mainstream cousins. The other major point the authors make is that four out of ten (40%) of the stories on the user generated sites came from blogs with three out of ten (31%) coming from non-news, information sites such as YouTube, Technorati, or WebMD and only a quarter (25%) coming from more traditional news sites such as the BBC or Slate.
Some of the findings in the report may fall in the Homer Simpson “doh” category. For example, the user generated sites are all very U.S.-centric in their focus with nine out of ten stories being domestic. Yahoo which has a broader, global base had more foreign news coverage than the mainstream media. (Sunday, when I looked at news.yahoo.com, the ‘most popular’ story was about a gas-guzzling tax proposal in the U.K. In stark contrast, when I looked at news.google.com, the ‘most popular’ story was that there were nude pictures of the female star of the Disney television hit High School Musical.)
The report says the key area of interest was technology and science reports. Well, doh, these sites are dominated by tech-savvy individuals. That said, what was particularly interesting was the difference on news.yahoo.com, in particular, between what the editors picked versus the most recommended, the most e-mail and the most viewed. User-ranked stories tended to be more about health and medicine, lifestyle and crime. Its ‘most recommended’ page was more likely to be ‘news you can use’ articles; its most e-mailed page had those kinds of stories, butthis section was more diverse with big stories but also “oddball” stories; the ‘most viewed’ page was the “most sensational,” according to the report, with stories about celebrities and crime.
Footnote: The study authors make the point that the percentage of Americans who rely on user generated sites for news is only a fraction of the number who use mainstream news sites. But the big question, they say, is whether there will be further divergence over the coming years between user-driven sites and mainstream media sites. (I should note that the website MySpace has started a news website, and it says something that when you go to it, the so-called news stories only get one or two votes, despite the enormous size of the MySpace audience.)
Lessons to be Learned: Let me offer a thought about the findings. I would never recommend setting a news agenda based on such user generated preferences. But I would raise the question about defining your marketing agenda using the topics highlighted on the user generated sites.
BLOG ME THIS, NEWSMAN: So, you’ve now read that blogs accounted for more stories than traditional media on the user-generated sites. Here’s the other shoe dropping. According to a survey by market research firm BIGResearch, bloggers are considered more trustworthy by the American public than the media. Admittedly the numbers are small, but still significant with people 18-34 more likely to pick bloggers (8.5%) than the media (5%) and people 35-54 also picking bloggers (6.1%) over the media (3.8%). Only people over the age of 55 picked the media. If it’s any consolation, bloggers also scored higher in ‘trustworthiness’ than the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate. Only the President scored higher with one in seven (14.2%) of those over the age of 18 rating him “more trustworthy.” Possibly more disturbing is that roughly seven out of ten (69% to 72%) of those surveyed, regardless of age or gender, said, “I don’t trust any of the above.”
The Wall Street Journal in its Act One column talks about the growth of bloggers and a ‘blogging elite’ even though “the blog business model hasn’t been proven by a tough economy.” The article focuses on Washington, D.C., which is the fourth ‘bloggiest’ city in America, according to blog research site Outside In. The ‘bloggiest’ city – Boston, with 89 blog posts per 100,000 residents, closely followed by Philadelphia at 88, Pittsburgh at 53, Washington, D.C., at 51 and Portland at 49. The study authors, semi-tongue-in-cheek, say ‘blogginess’ is a reflection of “growth, civic activism and writerly population.”
ARM WRESTLING ADVERTISERS: Two separate reports, with two different sets of numbers, but the same basic conclusion. The Internet has officially beaten Radio in two out of three falls for advertising dollars. Market research firm eMarketer says the Internet will nudge out Radio by about a Billion dollars this year. But more critically, the Internet is growing while Radio is, in the words of the report, “anemic.” The same message from market research and consulting firm TNS Media Intelligence which says that in the first half of 2006, Radio led the Internet in a tight race in terms of advertising dollars, but now a year later, in the first half of 2007, the Internet took the lead, nudging past radio. But more importantly, while Radio is showing a slight decline, the Internet continues to show double-digit growth. Both reports are careful to note that the Internet advertising growth isn’t entirely at the expense of radio. The eMarketer report even goes further, urging advertisers to “combine the two to take advantage of the unique attributes of each.”
Okay, it’s trite, but I’ll use it anyway. I have some good news and some bad news for local TV Internet advertising. First, the bad news. Local online advertising, in the words of the eMarketer people, is a situation where the promise is greater than the reality. In other words, it’s not living up to expectations, and partly because of the intrusion of operations like Google and Yahoo. The good news is that local online advertising should “accelerate” as small and mid-size companies see its potential, and local Internet sites and services grow as well. Even better news, at least if you’re in television, is that local TV websites are finally beginning to pay off with one in four adults saying they’ve visited a local TV website in the past 30 days, according to a study from The Media Audit.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: One in three Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks, according to a recent CBS/ New York Times poll, even though this myth was debunked by official sources, including the White House. On April 13, 1945, General Patton forced the residents of the German village Ohrdruf to view a nearby concentration camp that they claimed to know nothing about. The next day the mayor and his wife committed suicide. (From Polaris, the magazine of WWII subvets.) A Civil War buff has determined that, based on the actual battles cited, the pregnancy of the character Melanie in the classic novel Gone With The Wind, lasted 21 months. And this is not a factoid of any sort, but I found it so amusing that I had to include it. The editor of the Star and Beacon newspaper in 96, South Carolina, in an editorial urging people to walk with Christ, ends by saying, “it’s the least we can do with our lives here on ‘God’s golf ball’ before the Almighty putts us back into a black hole on the cosmic back nine.”
BLOG ME THIS, NEWSMAN
ARM WRESTLING ADVERTISERS
COCKTAIL CHATTER – GOD’S GOLF BALL
NEWS IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER: A study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism has found major differences between the news presented on mainstream media news sites versus user generated sites. For example, taking one week in June, the study authors found that 10% of all the news on the mainstream media sites dealt with the war in Iraq. In the user generated sites, the war accounted for only one percent of the news. The project authors used three sites as examples of user generated sites – Reddit, Digg and Del.icio.us. They also did a comparison with the news.yahoo.com website. (There is no explanation why they didn’t use news.google.com.) Need another example? The immigration debate dominated the mainstream media news sites. On the three user generated sites, it came up only once as a top ten story. Instead, the user generated sites ‘news’ were more “lifestyle” focused stories.
Okay, now, you may have heard or read some of this, but dig a little deeper in the report (as your friendly neighborhood consultant did) and you find some more interesting data. For example, in the mainstream media, ten stories account for more than half (51%) of all the stories carried on the mainstream media websites. This is a fact noted in previous Project reports, that mainstream media tell you a lot about a little. In comparison, no single story dominated the user generated sites to the same extent. Okay, the iPhone controversy came close, but even it did not reach the same level of dominance. Instead, the user generated sites news agenda was “more diverse, yet also more fragmented and transitory” than that of their mainstream cousins. The other major point the authors make is that four out of ten (40%) of the stories on the user generated sites came from blogs with three out of ten (31%) coming from non-news, information sites such as YouTube, Technorati, or WebMD and only a quarter (25%) coming from more traditional news sites such as the BBC or Slate.
Some of the findings in the report may fall in the Homer Simpson “doh” category. For example, the user generated sites are all very U.S.-centric in their focus with nine out of ten stories being domestic. Yahoo which has a broader, global base had more foreign news coverage than the mainstream media. (Sunday, when I looked at news.yahoo.com, the ‘most popular’ story was about a gas-guzzling tax proposal in the U.K. In stark contrast, when I looked at news.google.com, the ‘most popular’ story was that there were nude pictures of the female star of the Disney television hit High School Musical.)
The report says the key area of interest was technology and science reports. Well, doh, these sites are dominated by tech-savvy individuals. That said, what was particularly interesting was the difference on news.yahoo.com, in particular, between what the editors picked versus the most recommended, the most e-mail and the most viewed. User-ranked stories tended to be more about health and medicine, lifestyle and crime. Its ‘most recommended’ page was more likely to be ‘news you can use’ articles; its most e-mailed page had those kinds of stories, butthis section was more diverse with big stories but also “oddball” stories; the ‘most viewed’ page was the “most sensational,” according to the report, with stories about celebrities and crime.
Footnote: The study authors make the point that the percentage of Americans who rely on user generated sites for news is only a fraction of the number who use mainstream news sites. But the big question, they say, is whether there will be further divergence over the coming years between user-driven sites and mainstream media sites. (I should note that the website MySpace has started a news website, and it says something that when you go to it, the so-called news stories only get one or two votes, despite the enormous size of the MySpace audience.)
Lessons to be Learned: Let me offer a thought about the findings. I would never recommend setting a news agenda based on such user generated preferences. But I would raise the question about defining your marketing agenda using the topics highlighted on the user generated sites.
BLOG ME THIS, NEWSMAN: So, you’ve now read that blogs accounted for more stories than traditional media on the user-generated sites. Here’s the other shoe dropping. According to a survey by market research firm BIGResearch, bloggers are considered more trustworthy by the American public than the media. Admittedly the numbers are small, but still significant with people 18-34 more likely to pick bloggers (8.5%) than the media (5%) and people 35-54 also picking bloggers (6.1%) over the media (3.8%). Only people over the age of 55 picked the media. If it’s any consolation, bloggers also scored higher in ‘trustworthiness’ than the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate. Only the President scored higher with one in seven (14.2%) of those over the age of 18 rating him “more trustworthy.” Possibly more disturbing is that roughly seven out of ten (69% to 72%) of those surveyed, regardless of age or gender, said, “I don’t trust any of the above.”
The Wall Street Journal in its Act One column talks about the growth of bloggers and a ‘blogging elite’ even though “the blog business model hasn’t been proven by a tough economy.” The article focuses on Washington, D.C., which is the fourth ‘bloggiest’ city in America, according to blog research site Outside In. The ‘bloggiest’ city – Boston, with 89 blog posts per 100,000 residents, closely followed by Philadelphia at 88, Pittsburgh at 53, Washington, D.C., at 51 and Portland at 49. The study authors, semi-tongue-in-cheek, say ‘blogginess’ is a reflection of “growth, civic activism and writerly population.”
ARM WRESTLING ADVERTISERS: Two separate reports, with two different sets of numbers, but the same basic conclusion. The Internet has officially beaten Radio in two out of three falls for advertising dollars. Market research firm eMarketer says the Internet will nudge out Radio by about a Billion dollars this year. But more critically, the Internet is growing while Radio is, in the words of the report, “anemic.” The same message from market research and consulting firm TNS Media Intelligence which says that in the first half of 2006, Radio led the Internet in a tight race in terms of advertising dollars, but now a year later, in the first half of 2007, the Internet took the lead, nudging past radio. But more importantly, while Radio is showing a slight decline, the Internet continues to show double-digit growth. Both reports are careful to note that the Internet advertising growth isn’t entirely at the expense of radio. The eMarketer report even goes further, urging advertisers to “combine the two to take advantage of the unique attributes of each.”
Okay, it’s trite, but I’ll use it anyway. I have some good news and some bad news for local TV Internet advertising. First, the bad news. Local online advertising, in the words of the eMarketer people, is a situation where the promise is greater than the reality. In other words, it’s not living up to expectations, and partly because of the intrusion of operations like Google and Yahoo. The good news is that local online advertising should “accelerate” as small and mid-size companies see its potential, and local Internet sites and services grow as well. Even better news, at least if you’re in television, is that local TV websites are finally beginning to pay off with one in four adults saying they’ve visited a local TV website in the past 30 days, according to a study from The Media Audit.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: One in three Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11 attacks, according to a recent CBS/ New York Times poll, even though this myth was debunked by official sources, including the White House. On April 13, 1945, General Patton forced the residents of the German village Ohrdruf to view a nearby concentration camp that they claimed to know nothing about. The next day the mayor and his wife committed suicide. (From Polaris, the magazine of WWII subvets.) A Civil War buff has determined that, based on the actual battles cited, the pregnancy of the character Melanie in the classic novel Gone With The Wind, lasted 21 months. And this is not a factoid of any sort, but I found it so amusing that I had to include it. The editor of the Star and Beacon newspaper in 96, South Carolina, in an editorial urging people to walk with Christ, ends by saying, “it’s the least we can do with our lives here on ‘God’s golf ball’ before the Almighty putts us back into a black hole on the cosmic back nine.”
Monday, September 10, 2007
Message From Michael -- September 10,2007
9/11
THE SILVER BULLET
BROADCAST JOURNALISM IN A MULTIMEDIA WORLD
WORD OF MOUTH FOLLOW-UP
WEBLISH VS. LEETSPEAK
9/11: Two numbers that speak volumes. Mark the day. Recognize it. Yes, I know it’s ‘only’ the 6th anniversary. But the fact is that the growing controversy over the Iraq war, the fact that General Petraeus is supposed to release his report on Iraq, the fact that Osama bin Laden has released another tape only adds to the occasion. Even so, that’s not the point. The point is that it is a defining moment in America. Marketers – produce :04 second ID’s, :10 and :15 second spots memorializing the day, saluting the military men and women. Newsies – there should be stories in every newscast (local and national) and your anchor team should acknowledge the event. Let your audience know that you remember… and you care. That’s a powerful message to send viewers.
PS: For those General Managers who do editorials, this is a perfect topic. Hint. Hint.
THE SILVER BULLET: Increase efficiency. Improve morale. Reduce turnover. Raise the ratings. How, you ask? One word – communication. Yes, I know that sounds like a trite answer, but a professor at the University of Miami has done a survey that ‘proves’ just that. Terry Adams at the University’s School of Communication surveyed producers and directors in various markets around the country. Part of what he found out, anybody who has been in a television newsroom knows. Most directors are older males who have been at the same station for a long time while most producers are young females who have only been at the station for a couple of years. Interestingly, although not surprisingly, the producers had a generally positive view of the directors with nearly all of the producers (97%) saying the director helped the process and nearly as many (88%) saying the director provided the information necessary and four-fifths (80%) rating the director as “competent.” It wasn’t quite the opposite with directors, but it was substantially different, with less than half (48%) of the directors agreeing that the producer helped in the process, and only slightly more (54%) saying the producer provided all the information necessary and nearly half (46%) of the directors rating the producer as “incompetent.”
Even more interesting and the key take-away from the survey (at least, to me) was Adams’ finding that there was a “significant relationship” between whether producers and directors held a show meeting and how they assessed each other’s competence. Those who held show meetings were more likely to consider their counterpart either the best they had worked with or at least competent. And it gets even more interesting. Adams found that the “quality of information” the producers and/or directors received from their counterpart was “significantly correlated” to their overall job satisfaction. That, in turn, also showed a relationship to job turnover which Adams rightly noted is a major problem with producers. And both defined the “perfect” producer or director in terms of communication. Finally, the piece de resistance, the stations with the highest reported levels of communication also had the highest ratings. In Academic speak, Adams says, “correlation analysis shows ratings to be significantly related to the amount of information relayed.” To his credit, he also put in plain English: “simply put, companies can make money out of good communication.”
YET… yet… (do you detect a note of frustration?), three quarters of the producers (75.9%) and directors (73%) did not have regular daily show meetings. And most (68%) work in different parts of the building so any ad hoc communication is impossible. Directors are less likely to take part in meetings in the news department than the other way around. Adams says the key finding is that not only do producers and directors not communicate well, they don’t even communicate minimally although, as he rightfully notes, “one cannot succeed without the other’s participation and involvement.”
And that note of frustration? That’s the consultant in me. I have recommended at EVERY station I have either worked at or consulted that the director be part of the editorial meeting. And there’s always excuses why the director can’t do it. As a final footnote, I contacted Adams who turns out to be a former director with ten years in the business.
BROADCAST JOURNALISM IN A MULTIMEDIA WORLD: That’s the title of a new book which argues that “multiplatform journalism is simply a fact of life for any up-and-coming journalist.” The book, designed as a text, looks at the specific strengths and advantages of the different platforms and how students can go beyond re-purposing to actually advancing their stories to the next level for any medium, according to the blurb on publisher CQPress’s website. It was written by MfM friend Deborah Potter, former CBS and CNN correspondent and now NewsLab executive director, and Deborah Wenger, former executive producer and now associate professor media convergence and new media at Virginia Commonwealth University. Okay, I admit this is plugola, and candidly I can’t endorse the book because I have only read the summary, but the fact is that it addresses an issue that seasoned and student journalists have to wrestle with now.
WORD OF MOUTH FOLLOW-UP: My previous MfM talked about the power of Word of Mouth in marketing, advertising and news. Further confirmation of the power of WOM comes from a New York Times article about music producer Rick Rubin and Columbia Records. As part of their marketing effort, they surveyed the 20 college student interns they had brought in who told them that: “a) no one listens to the radio anymore, b) they mostly steal music but they don’t consider it stealing, and c) they get most of their music from iTunes on their iPod. They told us that MySpace is over, it’s just not cool anymore; that Facebook is still cool, but that might not last much longer; and the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That’s how they hear about music, bands, everything.” (Thanks to Tim Livingston of WNWO/ Toledo and David Toma of WECT/ Wilmington for pointing this article out to me.)
Another study, this one by MTV and Nickelodeon found that four out of five (83%) of ‘tech-savvy’ teenagers visited a website based on the recommendation of a friend and half of all teenagers (55%) found out about a viral video through word of mouth. The study also found that 14 to 24 year olds have an average of 53 friends, both online and ‘off-line.’
WIDGETS FOLLOW-UP: I’ll keep this brief. USA Today has become the first major newspapers to develop widgets that can be used on people’s personal websites and that use Flash technology. (Readers will remember me talking about widgets several editions back.)
LEETSPEAK VS WEBLISH: Have you heard of either? Well, “weblish” is, as the name implies, a combination of English and Web-centric words. The latest addition to the so-called “weblish” dictionary – Bacn, which is a variation on spam and spim, and is defined as email consumers may want (such as my newsletter, niche product announcements, social network updates) but which still clog up your e-mail box. Now, there is a version, tentatively nicknamed “leetspeak” in which the shorthand vocabulary is used in regular communication including a spoken version. For example, LOL (Laugh Out Loud) is pronounced ‘lawl’ and PWN (which is gamer talk for annihilating an opponent) is pronounced ‘pone.’ An article in The Wall Street Journal says the changes are already underway and if you don’t believe it, the harbinger of bad taste, South Park, had a recent episode in which one of the characters shouted out, “looks like you’re about to get poned.”
THE SILVER BULLET
BROADCAST JOURNALISM IN A MULTIMEDIA WORLD
WORD OF MOUTH FOLLOW-UP
WEBLISH VS. LEETSPEAK
9/11: Two numbers that speak volumes. Mark the day. Recognize it. Yes, I know it’s ‘only’ the 6th anniversary. But the fact is that the growing controversy over the Iraq war, the fact that General Petraeus is supposed to release his report on Iraq, the fact that Osama bin Laden has released another tape only adds to the occasion. Even so, that’s not the point. The point is that it is a defining moment in America. Marketers – produce :04 second ID’s, :10 and :15 second spots memorializing the day, saluting the military men and women. Newsies – there should be stories in every newscast (local and national) and your anchor team should acknowledge the event. Let your audience know that you remember… and you care. That’s a powerful message to send viewers.
PS: For those General Managers who do editorials, this is a perfect topic. Hint. Hint.
THE SILVER BULLET: Increase efficiency. Improve morale. Reduce turnover. Raise the ratings. How, you ask? One word – communication. Yes, I know that sounds like a trite answer, but a professor at the University of Miami has done a survey that ‘proves’ just that. Terry Adams at the University’s School of Communication surveyed producers and directors in various markets around the country. Part of what he found out, anybody who has been in a television newsroom knows. Most directors are older males who have been at the same station for a long time while most producers are young females who have only been at the station for a couple of years. Interestingly, although not surprisingly, the producers had a generally positive view of the directors with nearly all of the producers (97%) saying the director helped the process and nearly as many (88%) saying the director provided the information necessary and four-fifths (80%) rating the director as “competent.” It wasn’t quite the opposite with directors, but it was substantially different, with less than half (48%) of the directors agreeing that the producer helped in the process, and only slightly more (54%) saying the producer provided all the information necessary and nearly half (46%) of the directors rating the producer as “incompetent.”
Even more interesting and the key take-away from the survey (at least, to me) was Adams’ finding that there was a “significant relationship” between whether producers and directors held a show meeting and how they assessed each other’s competence. Those who held show meetings were more likely to consider their counterpart either the best they had worked with or at least competent. And it gets even more interesting. Adams found that the “quality of information” the producers and/or directors received from their counterpart was “significantly correlated” to their overall job satisfaction. That, in turn, also showed a relationship to job turnover which Adams rightly noted is a major problem with producers. And both defined the “perfect” producer or director in terms of communication. Finally, the piece de resistance, the stations with the highest reported levels of communication also had the highest ratings. In Academic speak, Adams says, “correlation analysis shows ratings to be significantly related to the amount of information relayed.” To his credit, he also put in plain English: “simply put, companies can make money out of good communication.”
YET… yet… (do you detect a note of frustration?), three quarters of the producers (75.9%) and directors (73%) did not have regular daily show meetings. And most (68%) work in different parts of the building so any ad hoc communication is impossible. Directors are less likely to take part in meetings in the news department than the other way around. Adams says the key finding is that not only do producers and directors not communicate well, they don’t even communicate minimally although, as he rightfully notes, “one cannot succeed without the other’s participation and involvement.”
And that note of frustration? That’s the consultant in me. I have recommended at EVERY station I have either worked at or consulted that the director be part of the editorial meeting. And there’s always excuses why the director can’t do it. As a final footnote, I contacted Adams who turns out to be a former director with ten years in the business.
BROADCAST JOURNALISM IN A MULTIMEDIA WORLD: That’s the title of a new book which argues that “multiplatform journalism is simply a fact of life for any up-and-coming journalist.” The book, designed as a text, looks at the specific strengths and advantages of the different platforms and how students can go beyond re-purposing to actually advancing their stories to the next level for any medium, according to the blurb on publisher CQPress’s website. It was written by MfM friend Deborah Potter, former CBS and CNN correspondent and now NewsLab executive director, and Deborah Wenger, former executive producer and now associate professor media convergence and new media at Virginia Commonwealth University. Okay, I admit this is plugola, and candidly I can’t endorse the book because I have only read the summary, but the fact is that it addresses an issue that seasoned and student journalists have to wrestle with now.
WORD OF MOUTH FOLLOW-UP: My previous MfM talked about the power of Word of Mouth in marketing, advertising and news. Further confirmation of the power of WOM comes from a New York Times article about music producer Rick Rubin and Columbia Records. As part of their marketing effort, they surveyed the 20 college student interns they had brought in who told them that: “a) no one listens to the radio anymore, b) they mostly steal music but they don’t consider it stealing, and c) they get most of their music from iTunes on their iPod. They told us that MySpace is over, it’s just not cool anymore; that Facebook is still cool, but that might not last much longer; and the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That’s how they hear about music, bands, everything.” (Thanks to Tim Livingston of WNWO/ Toledo and David Toma of WECT/ Wilmington for pointing this article out to me.)
Another study, this one by MTV and Nickelodeon found that four out of five (83%) of ‘tech-savvy’ teenagers visited a website based on the recommendation of a friend and half of all teenagers (55%) found out about a viral video through word of mouth. The study also found that 14 to 24 year olds have an average of 53 friends, both online and ‘off-line.’
WIDGETS FOLLOW-UP: I’ll keep this brief. USA Today has become the first major newspapers to develop widgets that can be used on people’s personal websites and that use Flash technology. (Readers will remember me talking about widgets several editions back.)
LEETSPEAK VS WEBLISH: Have you heard of either? Well, “weblish” is, as the name implies, a combination of English and Web-centric words. The latest addition to the so-called “weblish” dictionary – Bacn, which is a variation on spam and spim, and is defined as email consumers may want (such as my newsletter, niche product announcements, social network updates) but which still clog up your e-mail box. Now, there is a version, tentatively nicknamed “leetspeak” in which the shorthand vocabulary is used in regular communication including a spoken version. For example, LOL (Laugh Out Loud) is pronounced ‘lawl’ and PWN (which is gamer talk for annihilating an opponent) is pronounced ‘pone.’ An article in The Wall Street Journal says the changes are already underway and if you don’t believe it, the harbinger of bad taste, South Park, had a recent episode in which one of the characters shouted out, “looks like you’re about to get poned.”
Message From Michael -- August 27, 2007
THE VICE VERSA ISSUE
IBM VS DELOITTE ON TV
CELEBRITY BLAMES VS. CELEBRITY WATCH
WORD OF MOUTH VS OTHER ADVERTISING
THE POWER OF CONSUMER GENERATED CONTENT
TRENDS TO WATCH
COCKTAIL CHATTER - WORLDWIDE
THE VICE VERSA ISSUE: I labeled this week’s MfM that because of the number of what sometimes appears to be conflicting and sometimes contradictory reports, studies and analyses that so often come out in the weekly media reports that I get.
IBM VS DELOITTE ON TV: The Internet rivals TV as a primary media source. Television still remains a core media activity. The first statement comes from the IBM Institute for Business Values. The second statement comes from Deloitte and Touche’s State of the Media Democracy report. The IBM report which covers the U.S., U.K., Japan, Germany and Australia, says two thirds of those surveyed (66%) reported viewing one to four hours of TV per day. That was only slightly more than the 60% who reported the same levels of personal Internet usage. The report says TV is “taking a back seat” to the cell phone and the personal computer among consumers age 18 to 34, and just as land line phones have replaced mobile phones in that group, cable and satellite TV risk a similar fate at the hands of the Internet. The Deloitte survey which focused on the U.S. says that even though consumers are doing more things from online searching and game playing to cell phone use, they are still watching television. In simple terms, they say, ‘it is always on.’ And even when they do go online, Deloitte says nearly half (46%) go to a TV website. The folks at Deloitte predict an increase in ‘participatory television.’
DVR’S: Both reports found some interesting anomalies in the use of DVR’s (Digital Video Recorders). The IBM report found that out of the quarter (24%) of U.S. respondents with a DVR, a third (33%) actually reported watching more television with a DVR. In the U.K., consumers used Video On Demand twice as much as they used their DVR’s. The Deloitte report found that it was the Generation X’ers and Baby Boomers using the DVR’s, rather than the Millenials. And the prime use was not so much commercial skipping (that came in third) but “season ticket” functions – being able to record an entire season of a show.
Footnote: A study by media investment company GroupM which is the parent company to many leading media agencies seems to take a middle road. It says in the short run, the Internet is expected to play a bigger role in driving advertising growth, especially from a global perspective, but also in the U.S. However, TV still remains the biggest influence in the advertising marketplace. TV is expected to account for nearly half (47%) of the GROWTH (key word) in advertising spending worldwide and more than a third (36%) of the U.S. ad spending growth. The Internet is expected to account for less than a third (30%) of the growth in worldwide ad spending and half (50%) of the U.S. growth.
CELEBRITY BLAME VS CELEBRITY WATCH: Okay, I love this one. An overwhelming majority of the American public (87%) told the researchers at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press say there is too much celebrity scandal coverage. Not only that, more than half (54%) say news organizations are the most to blame while only a third (32%) say the public is to blame. Anyway, that announcement came out just after the celebrity watch website TMZ.com announced its TV site is gaining in popularity after the “meteoric rise” of its website. Plus video-based celebrity interview site, appropriately named No Good TV, announced it is making the leap to television “in a big way” with a possible late night franchise.
Footnote: And in the middle of all this, Maybe – and it’s a big Maybe – there is a message about the American public’s taste in the fact that trash (sorry, that is commentary) news/ reality program Anchorwoman made its debut and its finale show all in one night on Fox. Yes, the ratings put it in last place, but one has to wonder about the huge amount of negative publicity surrounding the program.
WORD OF MOUTH VS OTHER ADVERTISING: This could be part of the vice versa debate, but from everything I’ve been reading in the last month, there is no debate. Word of Mouth is the most powerful form of advertising. Along with its second cousin – peer reviews, followed by its third cousin – user generated content (which website Marketingprofs.com calls ‘word of mouth on steroids’) and its fourth cousin – Interactive Television. A report released this month by Bridge Ratings and the University of Massachusetts says consumers give family and friends a rating of 8.6 on a scale of trust from 1 to 10 while advertising rates on a 2.2. And as reported earlier, researcher firm eMarketer found that 80% of consumers trust word of mouth more than any other resource. Another study by Ketchum and the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center says more than half (55.6%) of what it calls ‘adult influencers’ turn to family and friends for information while a third (34.6%) get advice from co-workers and one in five turn to either blogs (20.7%) or social networking sites (18.6%) for information. A survey by word of mouth marketer Bazaarvoice and market researcher Vizu found that three quarters (75%) of shoppers say it is ‘extremely’ or ‘very important’ to see customer reviews before making a purchase decision. The Deloitte report, cited above, also said that word of mouth drove visits to the Internet with 82% saying they visited a site based on a personal recommendation – only slightly behind the 84% who visited a website through search engines.
And you will recall previous MfM reports that Word of Mouth is also the first source of information for many people when it comes to news as well. Last week’s MfM cited a study by Frank N. Magid and Associates that word of mouth was the #1 way people outside the home found out about the Virginia Tech story. That just confirms earlier studies cited by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. A study released by Technorati showed that, based on the number of links to them, 22 blogs (which are a form of word of mouth) ranked in the top 100 news and information sites, which is nearly double the number from the previous year.
Footnote: In television we consultants talk about marketing that focuses on testimonials as one of the most effective forms of promotion, and when you consider it, such testimonials are a form of word of mouth or peer review.
Consumer Generated Media: Going back to the IBM vs. Deloitte article above, one particular point stands out. Despite some different interpretations about TV and the Internet, the two reports agree emphatically that user generated content has become a powerful force in media. The Deloitte report says that more than half (51%) of all Internet uses consume UGC and that goes for all generations. The head of the firm’s product innovation office says he was impressed by the “real popularity” and “widespread demand” of such content. The IBM report which included the U.K., Germany, Japan and Australia as well as the U.S. found consumers are increasingly contributing content. The percentages are small for people contributing to user-generated content sites (7% to 9%) but they more than double (20% to 36%) when consumers are asked about contributing to social networking sites. I should also remind readers of a previous MfM which cited a Pew Internet and American Life Project study that found three out of five (62%) of online video viewers prefer professional content while (one out of five) 19% prefer consumer-generated content.
Two Examples: User involvement in the process is best illustrated by two start-ups in the Music industry. Sellaband celebrated its first anniversary with a SellaBration in Amsterdam, after raising more than $1 Million by inviting fans of bands to invest in their favorite group. Now, another group SlicethePie has started the same concept in the U.S., turning music fans into music investors.
TRENDS: A study by Parks Associates found that a third (34%) of adult web users played online games at least once a week, compared to less than a third (29%) who watched short video clips and only one in five (19%) who hung out at social networks once a week. But, the group says video watching is growing at a rate of 123% compared to online gaming’s 79%. A third (34%) of consumers say they are much more concerned about environmental issues today than a year ago, but only a fifth (22%) believe they can make a difference. And in keeping with the vice versa theme, while concerned about the environment, research firm Yankelovich says ‘going green’ in their everyday life is not a ‘high priority.’
COCKTAIL CHATTER: The world’s #1 cell phone maker, Nokia, reports that India has become its 2nd largest market, jumping ahead of the U.S. but behind China -- something the company had predicted but which happened three years ahead of the predicted time. One country, Afghanistan, supplies 92% of the entire world’s opium, according to an article in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. The Japanese government has cancelled a grant that funded a sign language news program after it found out that the newscasters did a striptease while reading news items, the news agency Reuters reports. And a final note, lonelygirl15, the Internet phenomenon that turned out to be a hoax but a hoax that ended up garnering all the publicity it wanted, has died.
IBM VS DELOITTE ON TV
CELEBRITY BLAMES VS. CELEBRITY WATCH
WORD OF MOUTH VS OTHER ADVERTISING
THE POWER OF CONSUMER GENERATED CONTENT
TRENDS TO WATCH
COCKTAIL CHATTER - WORLDWIDE
THE VICE VERSA ISSUE: I labeled this week’s MfM that because of the number of what sometimes appears to be conflicting and sometimes contradictory reports, studies and analyses that so often come out in the weekly media reports that I get.
IBM VS DELOITTE ON TV: The Internet rivals TV as a primary media source. Television still remains a core media activity. The first statement comes from the IBM Institute for Business Values. The second statement comes from Deloitte and Touche’s State of the Media Democracy report. The IBM report which covers the U.S., U.K., Japan, Germany and Australia, says two thirds of those surveyed (66%) reported viewing one to four hours of TV per day. That was only slightly more than the 60% who reported the same levels of personal Internet usage. The report says TV is “taking a back seat” to the cell phone and the personal computer among consumers age 18 to 34, and just as land line phones have replaced mobile phones in that group, cable and satellite TV risk a similar fate at the hands of the Internet. The Deloitte survey which focused on the U.S. says that even though consumers are doing more things from online searching and game playing to cell phone use, they are still watching television. In simple terms, they say, ‘it is always on.’ And even when they do go online, Deloitte says nearly half (46%) go to a TV website. The folks at Deloitte predict an increase in ‘participatory television.’
DVR’S: Both reports found some interesting anomalies in the use of DVR’s (Digital Video Recorders). The IBM report found that out of the quarter (24%) of U.S. respondents with a DVR, a third (33%) actually reported watching more television with a DVR. In the U.K., consumers used Video On Demand twice as much as they used their DVR’s. The Deloitte report found that it was the Generation X’ers and Baby Boomers using the DVR’s, rather than the Millenials. And the prime use was not so much commercial skipping (that came in third) but “season ticket” functions – being able to record an entire season of a show.
Footnote: A study by media investment company GroupM which is the parent company to many leading media agencies seems to take a middle road. It says in the short run, the Internet is expected to play a bigger role in driving advertising growth, especially from a global perspective, but also in the U.S. However, TV still remains the biggest influence in the advertising marketplace. TV is expected to account for nearly half (47%) of the GROWTH (key word) in advertising spending worldwide and more than a third (36%) of the U.S. ad spending growth. The Internet is expected to account for less than a third (30%) of the growth in worldwide ad spending and half (50%) of the U.S. growth.
CELEBRITY BLAME VS CELEBRITY WATCH: Okay, I love this one. An overwhelming majority of the American public (87%) told the researchers at the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press say there is too much celebrity scandal coverage. Not only that, more than half (54%) say news organizations are the most to blame while only a third (32%) say the public is to blame. Anyway, that announcement came out just after the celebrity watch website TMZ.com announced its TV site is gaining in popularity after the “meteoric rise” of its website. Plus video-based celebrity interview site, appropriately named No Good TV, announced it is making the leap to television “in a big way” with a possible late night franchise.
Footnote: And in the middle of all this, Maybe – and it’s a big Maybe – there is a message about the American public’s taste in the fact that trash (sorry, that is commentary) news/ reality program Anchorwoman made its debut and its finale show all in one night on Fox. Yes, the ratings put it in last place, but one has to wonder about the huge amount of negative publicity surrounding the program.
WORD OF MOUTH VS OTHER ADVERTISING: This could be part of the vice versa debate, but from everything I’ve been reading in the last month, there is no debate. Word of Mouth is the most powerful form of advertising. Along with its second cousin – peer reviews, followed by its third cousin – user generated content (which website Marketingprofs.com calls ‘word of mouth on steroids’) and its fourth cousin – Interactive Television. A report released this month by Bridge Ratings and the University of Massachusetts says consumers give family and friends a rating of 8.6 on a scale of trust from 1 to 10 while advertising rates on a 2.2. And as reported earlier, researcher firm eMarketer found that 80% of consumers trust word of mouth more than any other resource. Another study by Ketchum and the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center says more than half (55.6%) of what it calls ‘adult influencers’ turn to family and friends for information while a third (34.6%) get advice from co-workers and one in five turn to either blogs (20.7%) or social networking sites (18.6%) for information. A survey by word of mouth marketer Bazaarvoice and market researcher Vizu found that three quarters (75%) of shoppers say it is ‘extremely’ or ‘very important’ to see customer reviews before making a purchase decision. The Deloitte report, cited above, also said that word of mouth drove visits to the Internet with 82% saying they visited a site based on a personal recommendation – only slightly behind the 84% who visited a website through search engines.
And you will recall previous MfM reports that Word of Mouth is also the first source of information for many people when it comes to news as well. Last week’s MfM cited a study by Frank N. Magid and Associates that word of mouth was the #1 way people outside the home found out about the Virginia Tech story. That just confirms earlier studies cited by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. A study released by Technorati showed that, based on the number of links to them, 22 blogs (which are a form of word of mouth) ranked in the top 100 news and information sites, which is nearly double the number from the previous year.
Footnote: In television we consultants talk about marketing that focuses on testimonials as one of the most effective forms of promotion, and when you consider it, such testimonials are a form of word of mouth or peer review.
Consumer Generated Media: Going back to the IBM vs. Deloitte article above, one particular point stands out. Despite some different interpretations about TV and the Internet, the two reports agree emphatically that user generated content has become a powerful force in media. The Deloitte report says that more than half (51%) of all Internet uses consume UGC and that goes for all generations. The head of the firm’s product innovation office says he was impressed by the “real popularity” and “widespread demand” of such content. The IBM report which included the U.K., Germany, Japan and Australia as well as the U.S. found consumers are increasingly contributing content. The percentages are small for people contributing to user-generated content sites (7% to 9%) but they more than double (20% to 36%) when consumers are asked about contributing to social networking sites. I should also remind readers of a previous MfM which cited a Pew Internet and American Life Project study that found three out of five (62%) of online video viewers prefer professional content while (one out of five) 19% prefer consumer-generated content.
Two Examples: User involvement in the process is best illustrated by two start-ups in the Music industry. Sellaband celebrated its first anniversary with a SellaBration in Amsterdam, after raising more than $1 Million by inviting fans of bands to invest in their favorite group. Now, another group SlicethePie has started the same concept in the U.S., turning music fans into music investors.
TRENDS: A study by Parks Associates found that a third (34%) of adult web users played online games at least once a week, compared to less than a third (29%) who watched short video clips and only one in five (19%) who hung out at social networks once a week. But, the group says video watching is growing at a rate of 123% compared to online gaming’s 79%. A third (34%) of consumers say they are much more concerned about environmental issues today than a year ago, but only a fifth (22%) believe they can make a difference. And in keeping with the vice versa theme, while concerned about the environment, research firm Yankelovich says ‘going green’ in their everyday life is not a ‘high priority.’
COCKTAIL CHATTER: The world’s #1 cell phone maker, Nokia, reports that India has become its 2nd largest market, jumping ahead of the U.S. but behind China -- something the company had predicted but which happened three years ahead of the predicted time. One country, Afghanistan, supplies 92% of the entire world’s opium, according to an article in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. The Japanese government has cancelled a grant that funded a sign language news program after it found out that the newscasters did a striptease while reading news items, the news agency Reuters reports. And a final note, lonelygirl15, the Internet phenomenon that turned out to be a hoax but a hoax that ended up garnering all the publicity it wanted, has died.
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