SWEEPS
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN
TO READ OR NOT TO READ
LOCAL TV NEWS VIEWING
RADIO LISTENING
NEWSPAPER READING
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS: Three days left. Okay, now, who knows what’s wrong with that statement? All of my diary clients do, of course. That’s because we always preach that you have to maintain a marketing and news push AFTER the official end of sweeps because nobody fills out their diary the day of. It’s always a day or two later, and that’s why it’s important to remind them who they were watching.
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN: Based on a survey by Harris Interactive, you might find the picture of the ‘average’ American to be a little different than you would expect. Americans spend much more time reading (29%) than watching television (18%) and almost as much time going to the movies (7%) AND even fishing (7%) as they do on the computer (9%). Family is still important to them, but they don’t spend nearly as much time with family and kids (14%) as they do reading or watching TV. And they’re more likely to garden (6%), go walking (6%), or playing team sports (6%) as going to church (5%), although they’re equally likely to exercise (5%) or golf (5%) as go to church. That’s how we split the 20 median hours of leisure time we have each week. The Harris Poll of 1,052 Americans shows we’re also spending less time working (with a median of 45 hours a week) than we did three years ago (when it was 50 hours).
The poll makes a point of showing the differences between now (2007) and then (2004) or even way back then (1995). For example, not surprisingly, the amount of time spent on computer activities has risen steadily from 2% in 1995 to the present 9% and watching sporting events has risen four points since 2004 along with exercise (up three points) and crafts (up three points). But when you average out the time spent (as OCD me did) on various activities since 1995, you find that while there has been a great deal of fluctuation year to year, the average time is pretty consistent. For example, reading averaged 28.6% while TV watching averaged 20.1% and family time averaged 13.7%; and that’s true for most of the activities (except fishing which at 7% this year is down from the average of 9.9%).
TO READ OR NOT TO READ: The Harris Interactive survey runs contrary, to a degree, to a report issued this month by the National Endowment for the Arts which found that Americans are spending less time reading, that reading comprehension skills are eroding and that “those declines have serious civic, social, cultural and economic implications.” The report particularly decries the drop in reading (for pleasure, that’s the key) by young people, noting that nearly half of all Americans aged 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure. Or put another way, the percentage of young Americans who read a book “not required for work or school” has declined significantly in the last ten years, although I should note the percentage is still over half for all age groups. The report makes the point that employers now rank reading and writing as the top deficiencies in new hires. It cites a report by The Conference Board which found that employers ranked four out of five (81%) job applicants with a high school degree deficient in written communication skills and more than one out of four (28%) college graduate deficient in such skills.
LOCAL TV NEWS VIEWING: According to a survey by The Media Audit, viewers in the South and Midwest are heavier local TV news viewers than those in the West and Northeast. In a survey of 11 news time periods in 88 markets, the research firm found that adults in the Midwest (defined as the West Coast through Colorado and New Mexico) are most likely to view a late evening LOCAL news program on NBC (36% more likely than the average U.S. adult) followed by prime time LOCAL news on Fox (25% more likely) and early morning LOCAL news on Fox (25%). Adults in the South (defined as Texas and Oklahoma across to West Virginia and Virginia) indexed above the national average in all 11 measured local news programs with the most popular being CBS early morning LOCAL news (32% more likely than the average U.S. adult to watch), followed by CBS late evening LOCAL news (28%) and early morning LOCAL news on Fox (24%).
RADIO LISTENING: The same group, The Media Audit, says the radio format with the greatest overall reach in adults 25-54 is Country with 13.3% of those listeners, followed by Contemporary Hit Radio AND News Talk (both with 12.2%) followed by Classic Rock (11%) and Public Radio (10.3%). If you’re looking to reach households with children living at home, Contemporary Christian formatted radio ranks number one (70.1%) even though it only ranked #16 out of 30 in Adults 25-54. The second most popular format in those households is Contemporary Hit Radio (66.4%) followed by Dance CHR (64.5%), Hot Adult Contemporary (64.4%) and Country (64.4%).
As a side note to this, MfM reader and radio consultant Jimmy Risk argues in a recent article that radio has always been a social network “of sorts” to generations of listeners and he says radio could build a digital ‘community’ using its dial position and website address and “reclaim the hipness factor.” It’s an argument I have made for local television. As he puts it, “local ratings and revenue are there for the taking by leveraging a parallel universe of digital bodies under an umbrella known as a social network.”
NEWSPAPER READING AND REVENUES: They’re both up… sort of. Actually it’s the Online versions that are up. According to The Media Audit (Again), the top 25 newspaper websites increased 15.4% in terms of average unique monthly visitors while the combined print and online audience increased 5.9% (indicating, therefore, a drop in the print version). Meanwhile, trade industry publication Editor and Publisher cites a study commissioned by the World Association of Newspapers which says 2006 was “a turning point” in the newspaper Web business model for many of the world’s newspapers. The study reports that “mature online operations” are generating 40% and higher profits for newspapers whose print operating profits have fallen to 23%. Of course, at this point, Internet operations make up less than 10% of a newspaper company’s revenues in the U.S. and only about 5% outside the U.S. The study says it is unlikely Online income will make up for the lost print income any time soon. The report also warns that ‘Internet pure play” businesses such as Google and Yahoo “now threaten local newspaper online advertising to an alarming degree.” That may explain why so many newspaper groups have partnered with Yahoo and other such players. The Associated Press reports that the Columbus Dispatch and 16 regional newspapers owned by The New York Times Company have joined the Yahoo consortium, bringing its total number to about 415 dailies and 140 weeklies. Interestingly, neither the New York Times nor the co-owned Boston Globe has joined the consortium. Nor have Gannett or Tribune, the #1 and #2 newspaper publishers by circulation.
As a side note to all this, I found it interesting when an executive with Morris Publishing visiting the Grady College made the point that one of the drawbacks of partnering with groups like Yahoo is that the pure play businesses do not require registration for people to view the various ads and articles. That means the local newspaper does not have a way of measuring this part of its Online viewing so that it can put together a total picture of audience reach. This brings me back to that Media Audit report. The analysis lists out the Top 10 Daily Newspaper Websites, starting with The New York Times which averages 3,146,900 monthly unique visitors, giving it a combined total (Print & Web) of 4,972,600. It’s followed by Newsday.com (1,798,400 and 3,017,000), ChicagoTribune.com, WashingtonPost.com, NYdailynews.com, LATimes.com, NYpost.com, SFGate.com and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s AJC.com. BUT of those sites, only two make it to the Top 10 Newspaper Websites based on percent of market reached: The Washington Post website which reaches 44.9% of the local market and the AJC website which reaches 35% of the local market. The top newspaper website in terms of local market penetration is the Times-Picayune out of New Orleans which reaches 47.4% of the local market. Even more interesting is that when the Print and Web versions are combined, the New Orleans newspaper has an unduplicated 18+ reach of 86%. The Buffalo News comes in second with 84.6% reach of the market, followed by the Omaha World Herald (83.7%) and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (81.8%)
As a side note to the side note, and to partially explain why I spent so much time on the LOCAL reach of the combined Print and Web products, Harry A. Jessell writes on the TVNewsday.com website, “with the possible exception of the daily newspaper, TV stations dominate local media today. To continue to do so, they must operate and promote the best local Web sites and mobile services. If they don’t, others will.” The article (brought to my attention by Peabody director Horace Newcomb) notes two companies have changed their names: Morgan Murphy Stations became Morgan Murphy Media and NBC Universal Television Stations has become NBC Local Media Division. He notes the analogy with passenger railroads failing in the 50’s and 60’s because, say analysts, they saw themselves as being in the railroad business when they were actually in the transportation business.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Message From Michael -- November 19, 2007
SWEEPS – IN OR OUT
THE 51ST STATE
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS
COCKTAIL CHATTER – VIRTUAL BEAUTY AND FAST COMPUTERS
A MARKETING CONUNDRUM
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS – IN OR OUT: The Thanksgiving holiday (and Black Friday) falls in the sweeps period this year. So, do you keep it in or take it out? Most stations re-title the newscasts and take them out of the sweeps because viewership is so erratic and low. Just a heads up – something you should think about.
THE 51ST STATE: And no, I’m not talking about Puerto Rico. That’s what SEARCHER, the magazine for database professionals, calls the Internet in this upcoming election and says the Internet is ‘breathing down the neck of mainstream media’ when it comes to the elections and that 2008 will be the first true “Internet election.” Citing another study by iCrossing, the report says the Internet is the number two source for election information, after television, and tied with newspapers. However, before my mainstream media friends commit hara-kiri, the study notes that voters are not going to the candidates websites or to the candidates MySpace pages for information, but rather are turning to Web search engines and the online versions of the traditional media. However, political blogs like the dailykos.com, huffingtonpost.com and talkingpointsmemo.com are becoming increasingly influential. The report also notes that all of the candidates (except, for some reason, Rudolph Giuliani) have adopted social networking tools on their websites. By the 2012 election, the report says, the Internet will be so essential and mainstream to presidential politics that “it probably won’t even warrant an article like this.”
As a side note, the Democrats have two thirds of the Online Internet traffic. And of them, Barack Obama has the most Facebook contacts – 122,00 which is more than twice the combined total of all the Republican candidates combined. And John Edwards has the most social networking links – 23. And if you want to keep up with the presidential race online, the report recommends three sites: http://www.memeorandum.com, http://www.politicalwire.com, http://www.realclearpolitics.com.
And as a foot note, you may have heard or seen the study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania which shows that the number of poltical “adwatch” stories run by the media has more than tripled from the 2000 election cycle to the 2006 election cycle. The head of the center, which by the way sends out a weekly newsletter (mentioned in previous MfM’s) examining political claims, says it is now a matter of “Caveat mendax – let the liar beware.”
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER: Half of those between the ages of 18 and 34 are watching less TV than they did a year ago, according to a survey by advertising rep agency Burst Media. And a ‘plurality’ of all respondents (42.4%) say they are watching less. The decline is even more noticeable among women, with nearly half (48.3%) of those 25-34 and almost the same number (46.7%) of those in the age group 35-44 saying they are watching less. Those figures are part of a survey released by the company showing that four out of five (82.4%) Internet users are doing something else – multitasking – while they’re online. The most common activity – watch television. Three-fourths (75.6%) of those watching television while online say they go to websites related to the programming. Jarvis Coffin, the CEO of Burst Media, says the “short attention span of consumers poses a challenge to marketers,” but he says the solution is to deliver ‘coordinated messages’ across different platforms to get the consumer’s attention.
On the flip side of that, a survey by The Conference Board and TNS Media Intelligence finds that even though three-quarters of ONLINE households report watching entertainment on the Internet every day, four-fifths of them say web viewing has NOT cut into their traditional TV viewing. As noted before, TV shows have replaced news as the most widely viewed content online. And as a further side note, a study by the Wharton School of Business found that YouTube use may actually increase TV viewing because the clips act as a tease to get the viewers to watch more. And as a side note to the side note, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen says the service may start providing higher quality videos, using a system that detects the speed capability of the user’s net connection.
And as a footnote, New York Times tech guru Stuart Elliott says fewer viewers are watching the new fall television series and raises the question that it may be because of online video opportunities. Most of the online videos are much shorter than TV programming and, curiously, he quotes the head of one advertising agency who also talks about “short attention span” of online viewers. Elliott also raises the question whether the writers strike will fuel the growth of online video.
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS: If you’re old enough, you probably re-played those words in your mind with a heavy accent reminiscent of Carl Sagan. The United Nations annual Internet Governance Forum says it’s official – there are 1 Billion Internet users worldwide. One Billion out of a total world population of 6 Billion. The question is how does the next Billion get online. The head of the U.N. forum says that the next Billion users will be decidedly poorer than the first Billion. Internet use is growing in what the forum organizers call the “less well off” nations that comprise three quarters of the world’s population. The forum debate focused on whether the Internet access should be government mandated, as a public service, or left to private enterprise. In areas like Africa where fewer than 4% have Internet access and basic electricity is an issue, the organizers say mobile phones may be the answer. This is also where the One Laptop Per Child program comes in to play.
As a side note, I should remind readers that a Harris Interactive poll found that four out of five people now access the Internet in the U.S. That’s up dramatically since 2000 when three out of five (57%) went online and even more dramatic is when you consider that eleven years ago in 1995 only 9% of the population went online. Equally interesting is the fact that the survey says the Online population now reflects more of the general population demographics.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: MTV has announced a super model contest with a difference. The network, along with Ford Models and Elizabeth Arden, is looking for the best looking avatar, a virtual world supermodel. The fastest computer in the world is IBM’s Blue Gene/L at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, with the ability to perform 478 Trillion calculations per second – what computer geeks would call 487 teraflops. The second fastest computer is IBM’s Blue Gene/P sister computer in Germany. The winner of the most awards for creative director in the Gunn Report which ranks advertising around the world was somebody you probably never heard of -- Thanonchai Sornsrivichai, based in Thailand. A survey by Clarity and The EAR Foundation found that senior citizens fear loss of independence (26%) and moving into a nursing home (13%) more than they fear death (3%). For those of you who rent cars all the time, a little item in FreePint which deals with research matters great and small says you can tell which side the gas cap is on by looking at which side the filler hose is on the icon on your dashboard. (Although for some reason, this applies to all cars but Japanese cars.)
A MARKETING CONUNDRUM: So, explain to me, dear readers, how four auto parts stores within 500 yards of each other can survive. Driving through Abbeville, South Carolina, there were two local auto parts stores, Logans and Sonny’s, almost side by side and less than a hundred yards further down was an Advanced Auto Parts store and across from it was an O’Reilly’s auto part store. And just to prove that it isn’t a South Carolina thing only (although it may be a southern thing), there were three auto parts stores within four blocks of each other in Elberton, Georgia. (I know, you’re jealous of all the cool places I travel to.)
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
THE 51ST STATE
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS
COCKTAIL CHATTER – VIRTUAL BEAUTY AND FAST COMPUTERS
A MARKETING CONUNDRUM
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS – IN OR OUT: The Thanksgiving holiday (and Black Friday) falls in the sweeps period this year. So, do you keep it in or take it out? Most stations re-title the newscasts and take them out of the sweeps because viewership is so erratic and low. Just a heads up – something you should think about.
THE 51ST STATE: And no, I’m not talking about Puerto Rico. That’s what SEARCHER, the magazine for database professionals, calls the Internet in this upcoming election and says the Internet is ‘breathing down the neck of mainstream media’ when it comes to the elections and that 2008 will be the first true “Internet election.” Citing another study by iCrossing, the report says the Internet is the number two source for election information, after television, and tied with newspapers. However, before my mainstream media friends commit hara-kiri, the study notes that voters are not going to the candidates websites or to the candidates MySpace pages for information, but rather are turning to Web search engines and the online versions of the traditional media. However, political blogs like the dailykos.com, huffingtonpost.com and talkingpointsmemo.com are becoming increasingly influential. The report also notes that all of the candidates (except, for some reason, Rudolph Giuliani) have adopted social networking tools on their websites. By the 2012 election, the report says, the Internet will be so essential and mainstream to presidential politics that “it probably won’t even warrant an article like this.”
As a side note, the Democrats have two thirds of the Online Internet traffic. And of them, Barack Obama has the most Facebook contacts – 122,00 which is more than twice the combined total of all the Republican candidates combined. And John Edwards has the most social networking links – 23. And if you want to keep up with the presidential race online, the report recommends three sites: http://www.memeorandum.com, http://www.politicalwire.com, http://www.realclearpolitics.com.
And as a foot note, you may have heard or seen the study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania which shows that the number of poltical “adwatch” stories run by the media has more than tripled from the 2000 election cycle to the 2006 election cycle. The head of the center, which by the way sends out a weekly newsletter (mentioned in previous MfM’s) examining political claims, says it is now a matter of “Caveat mendax – let the liar beware.”
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER: Half of those between the ages of 18 and 34 are watching less TV than they did a year ago, according to a survey by advertising rep agency Burst Media. And a ‘plurality’ of all respondents (42.4%) say they are watching less. The decline is even more noticeable among women, with nearly half (48.3%) of those 25-34 and almost the same number (46.7%) of those in the age group 35-44 saying they are watching less. Those figures are part of a survey released by the company showing that four out of five (82.4%) Internet users are doing something else – multitasking – while they’re online. The most common activity – watch television. Three-fourths (75.6%) of those watching television while online say they go to websites related to the programming. Jarvis Coffin, the CEO of Burst Media, says the “short attention span of consumers poses a challenge to marketers,” but he says the solution is to deliver ‘coordinated messages’ across different platforms to get the consumer’s attention.
On the flip side of that, a survey by The Conference Board and TNS Media Intelligence finds that even though three-quarters of ONLINE households report watching entertainment on the Internet every day, four-fifths of them say web viewing has NOT cut into their traditional TV viewing. As noted before, TV shows have replaced news as the most widely viewed content online. And as a further side note, a study by the Wharton School of Business found that YouTube use may actually increase TV viewing because the clips act as a tease to get the viewers to watch more. And as a side note to the side note, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen says the service may start providing higher quality videos, using a system that detects the speed capability of the user’s net connection.
And as a footnote, New York Times tech guru Stuart Elliott says fewer viewers are watching the new fall television series and raises the question that it may be because of online video opportunities. Most of the online videos are much shorter than TV programming and, curiously, he quotes the head of one advertising agency who also talks about “short attention span” of online viewers. Elliott also raises the question whether the writers strike will fuel the growth of online video.
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS: If you’re old enough, you probably re-played those words in your mind with a heavy accent reminiscent of Carl Sagan. The United Nations annual Internet Governance Forum says it’s official – there are 1 Billion Internet users worldwide. One Billion out of a total world population of 6 Billion. The question is how does the next Billion get online. The head of the U.N. forum says that the next Billion users will be decidedly poorer than the first Billion. Internet use is growing in what the forum organizers call the “less well off” nations that comprise three quarters of the world’s population. The forum debate focused on whether the Internet access should be government mandated, as a public service, or left to private enterprise. In areas like Africa where fewer than 4% have Internet access and basic electricity is an issue, the organizers say mobile phones may be the answer. This is also where the One Laptop Per Child program comes in to play.
As a side note, I should remind readers that a Harris Interactive poll found that four out of five people now access the Internet in the U.S. That’s up dramatically since 2000 when three out of five (57%) went online and even more dramatic is when you consider that eleven years ago in 1995 only 9% of the population went online. Equally interesting is the fact that the survey says the Online population now reflects more of the general population demographics.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: MTV has announced a super model contest with a difference. The network, along with Ford Models and Elizabeth Arden, is looking for the best looking avatar, a virtual world supermodel. The fastest computer in the world is IBM’s Blue Gene/L at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, with the ability to perform 478 Trillion calculations per second – what computer geeks would call 487 teraflops. The second fastest computer is IBM’s Blue Gene/P sister computer in Germany. The winner of the most awards for creative director in the Gunn Report which ranks advertising around the world was somebody you probably never heard of -- Thanonchai Sornsrivichai, based in Thailand. A survey by Clarity and The EAR Foundation found that senior citizens fear loss of independence (26%) and moving into a nursing home (13%) more than they fear death (3%). For those of you who rent cars all the time, a little item in FreePint which deals with research matters great and small says you can tell which side the gas cap is on by looking at which side the filler hose is on the icon on your dashboard. (Although for some reason, this applies to all cars but Japanese cars.)
A MARKETING CONUNDRUM: So, explain to me, dear readers, how four auto parts stores within 500 yards of each other can survive. Driving through Abbeville, South Carolina, there were two local auto parts stores, Logans and Sonny’s, almost side by side and less than a hundred yards further down was an Advanced Auto Parts store and across from it was an O’Reilly’s auto part store. And just to prove that it isn’t a South Carolina thing only (although it may be a southern thing), there were three auto parts stores within four blocks of each other in Elberton, Georgia. (I know, you’re jealous of all the cool places I travel to.)
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Message From Michael -- November 12, 2007
THE FACEBOOK RIFLE SHOT
IT’S NOT YOUR COLLEGE STUDENTS’ FACEBOOK ANY MORE
THE BLOGGING JOURNALISTS
STRANDED ON A BLOG DESERT ISLAND
THE BEAUTY OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS
COCKTAIL CHATTER -- PERFECT PITCH
TRAVEL WEBSITES WEIRD AND WONDERFUL
CONTRIBUTORS NOTES – WINE AND CRIME
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE FACEBOOK RIFLE SHOT: Depending on how you look at it, the new Facebook advertising strategy dubbed “social ads” is a rifle shot approach that targets consumers to a degree not seen before as opposed to the scattered shotgun approach of most advertisers, but it may backfire on them. The former Harvard college student who founded Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, describes the ad approach as “revolutionary targeting” in part because Facebook users supply so much real information about themselves in their profiles. Add to that the ability to track and filter their on-line movements and purchases, it makes the Amazon process of recommending books based on past purchases seem like child’s play. Facebook is able to whittle down the target audience for a specific brand from millions to thousands, even down to hundreds. You can almost hear the tone of incredulity in the overview Microsoft, which recently bought a stake in Facebook, gives in its sales pitch: Facebook users communicate details about their demographics, interests, photos and even their contact information.” The head of Fox Interactive Media is quoted in AdWeek as saying, “it changes everything.” It’s behavioral and contextual advertising on steroids, but it is also, as one article put it, “creepy.” The Facebook and MySpace ad programs have already drawn complaints from the Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups. Yes, indeed, it will change everything.
IT’S NOT YOUR COLLEGE STUDENTS’ FACEBOOK ANY MORE: Since Facebook opened its doors to people outside education, the growth has been amazing. That part you know, but do you know where it’s grown the most? How about Turkey, where the growth rate is 280%, followed by Israel with 87%; and then Malaysia, Singapore, France and China all hovering around 50% while the U.S. has grown a mere 7.4%. Of course, the U.S. still makes up the mass of subscribers with 21.4 Million subscribers as of November 11th, compared to Turkey’s mere 1.24 Million and Israel’s even merer (yes, I know that’s not a word) 175 Thousand. According to figures from Facebook guru and blogger Jeff Pulver, the total Facebook subscription outside the U.S. is about 25 Million, and it includes places you might not expect such as Pakistan, India, Lebanon and Columbia. (Yes, I know, you didn’t expect Turkey either.)
THE BLOGGING JOURNALISTS: Four out of five business journalists (84%) use blogs as either primary or secondary sources of information while more than half (54%) say blogs help spark ideas for news stories and a quarter (25%) say blogs make their jobs easier. The survey by marketing and public relations consultancy Arketi Group out of Atlanta also shows that the majority of these journalists say that their online publication is allowed to “scoop” their print publication in what the group says is “a trend that continues to blur the line between print and online media.” Nine out of ten of these journalists turn to industry sources for story ideas, but the same number relies on news releases or public relations contacts. Not surprisingly the business journalists are heavy Internet users with all of them saying they use the Internet to do their work. The news release from the company quotes Professor Kaye Sweetser from our own Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication who says business journalists are embracing user-generated content like blogs, webinars and podcasts in their day-to-day reporting and that, “savvy companies know this and are looking for ways to legitimately increase their participation in creating and growing online content using Web 2.0 methods.”
STRANDED ON A BLOG DESERT ISLAND: You’re stranded on a desert island and you can have only one book, what would it be? Remember that old challenge? The modern day version is that you’re stranded on a digital desert island and you have only limited Internet access, what would that be? Five grad students at Carnegie Mellon University have answered that question using what else – an algorithm. They have developed a list, out of the 10-Million-plus blogs available, of the top 100 blogs which are the most up to date and which catch most of the stories that propagate over the blogosphere. And they found some “counterintuitive results” showing that the popular blogs might not be the most effective way to “catch information.” The sites range from well known ones like Instapundit to lesser known ones like BasicThinkingBlog – which, by the way, is in German and which, interestingly, to me at least, had only two English words that I could detect – Videos and YouTube. Many moons ago, I remember a report that said the three most popular blog topics are politics, technology and ‘mom’ issues. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the blogs on this list are disappointingly (my opinion) about politics. Still there are some interesting ones, including Pajamas Media and TheNoseOnYOurFace which bills itself as “news so fake you’ll swear it came from the mainstream media.”
Everything on the Internet is an algorithm, it seems. The algorithm used by the students for detecting the ‘best’ blogs is the same used to determine where to put sensors in a water distribution system to most quickly detect the spread of contaminants. The underlying concept is that the spread of information between blogs is an “information cascade” where the information pours over the blogosphere. They then examined a number of differing factors so that it wasn’t just PA (people affected) which would favor the bigger blogs or NP (number of posts) which would favor the summarizer blogs, but in-links, out-links, scalability and so-on to develop a “cost unit” model. By the way, the report did win “best student paper” award in the computer sciences. However, it may say something about the list that when I checked all 100, the links were broken on four of them. Also, it might raise questions about the validity of the system when the Austinist, Phillyist, DCist, Bostonist, Londonist, Shanghaiist, SFist and Seattlest all make the list. LINK: http://www.bloggersblog.com/cgi-bin/bloggersblog.pl?bblog=1024072
COCKTAIL CHATTER: People who speak Mandarin are more likely than the speakers of any other language to have the rare gift of perfect pitch, according to Oliver Sacks, author of the book Musicophilia. One of the stars of the NBC hit series Heroes has been named ‘global ambassador’ for the One Laptop Per Child program we’ve mentioned before in MfM. But this isn’t one of those celebrity spokesperson things. Masi Oka is a Brown University Math/Computer Science grad who is also an SFX guru with George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic company. A third of the American public (33%) believe that electing a woman President would be a good thing while only one in ten (9%) believe it would be a bad thing, but more than half (55%) say gender doesn’t matter, according to the Pew Research Center.
WEBSITES WEIRD AND WONDERFUL: There are numerous websites around the world which provide an actual real life look at the world today. Want to watch for the Loch Ness monster? Go to camvista.com. It will provide a link to a live camera focused on the lake, or you can pick out various sites around the British Isles and elsewhere. Want to see what Tutankhamen saw when he grew up? Visit pyramidcam.com and watch the sun set over the pyramids of Egypt. Planning a trip to Brisbane with a stopover in London? Visit trafficland.com and see what the traffic and weather is like. Or maybe you want to check on your cousin Minerva in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Visit http://www.wunderground.com/webcams/index.html and see what the weather is like.
CONTRIBUTOR NOTES: Crime and wine. I’m proud of the fact that MfM runs the gamut of interests and the readers reflect that variety of interests. From Nick Simonette, GM/ WAFB/ Baton Rouge, comes a conversation about “two buck chuck.” For those who haven’t heard of this, it is a California wine that originally cost $2, but has risen as the popularity has risen, but which can match wines ten times the price. Ask your local sommelier or liquor store. From Lee Brantley, GM/ WTVM/ Columbus, comes a link to a website that shows a world map of all the crime or disaster related incidents going on in the world. Visit globalincident.com for a fascinating snapshot look at your world.
CONGRATULATIONS: To Scott Libin. Scott takes over the reins of news director at CBS O-and-O WCCO, leaving his position of Managing Editor at the Poynter Institute but returning to adopted hometown Minneapolis where he was previously ND at WTSP.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
IT’S NOT YOUR COLLEGE STUDENTS’ FACEBOOK ANY MORE
THE BLOGGING JOURNALISTS
STRANDED ON A BLOG DESERT ISLAND
THE BEAUTY OF AN INDEPENDENT PRESS
COCKTAIL CHATTER -- PERFECT PITCH
TRAVEL WEBSITES WEIRD AND WONDERFUL
CONTRIBUTORS NOTES – WINE AND CRIME
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE FACEBOOK RIFLE SHOT: Depending on how you look at it, the new Facebook advertising strategy dubbed “social ads” is a rifle shot approach that targets consumers to a degree not seen before as opposed to the scattered shotgun approach of most advertisers, but it may backfire on them. The former Harvard college student who founded Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, describes the ad approach as “revolutionary targeting” in part because Facebook users supply so much real information about themselves in their profiles. Add to that the ability to track and filter their on-line movements and purchases, it makes the Amazon process of recommending books based on past purchases seem like child’s play. Facebook is able to whittle down the target audience for a specific brand from millions to thousands, even down to hundreds. You can almost hear the tone of incredulity in the overview Microsoft, which recently bought a stake in Facebook, gives in its sales pitch: Facebook users communicate details about their demographics, interests, photos and even their contact information.” The head of Fox Interactive Media is quoted in AdWeek as saying, “it changes everything.” It’s behavioral and contextual advertising on steroids, but it is also, as one article put it, “creepy.” The Facebook and MySpace ad programs have already drawn complaints from the Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups. Yes, indeed, it will change everything.
IT’S NOT YOUR COLLEGE STUDENTS’ FACEBOOK ANY MORE: Since Facebook opened its doors to people outside education, the growth has been amazing. That part you know, but do you know where it’s grown the most? How about Turkey, where the growth rate is 280%, followed by Israel with 87%; and then Malaysia, Singapore, France and China all hovering around 50% while the U.S. has grown a mere 7.4%. Of course, the U.S. still makes up the mass of subscribers with 21.4 Million subscribers as of November 11th, compared to Turkey’s mere 1.24 Million and Israel’s even merer (yes, I know that’s not a word) 175 Thousand. According to figures from Facebook guru and blogger Jeff Pulver, the total Facebook subscription outside the U.S. is about 25 Million, and it includes places you might not expect such as Pakistan, India, Lebanon and Columbia. (Yes, I know, you didn’t expect Turkey either.)
THE BLOGGING JOURNALISTS: Four out of five business journalists (84%) use blogs as either primary or secondary sources of information while more than half (54%) say blogs help spark ideas for news stories and a quarter (25%) say blogs make their jobs easier. The survey by marketing and public relations consultancy Arketi Group out of Atlanta also shows that the majority of these journalists say that their online publication is allowed to “scoop” their print publication in what the group says is “a trend that continues to blur the line between print and online media.” Nine out of ten of these journalists turn to industry sources for story ideas, but the same number relies on news releases or public relations contacts. Not surprisingly the business journalists are heavy Internet users with all of them saying they use the Internet to do their work. The news release from the company quotes Professor Kaye Sweetser from our own Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication who says business journalists are embracing user-generated content like blogs, webinars and podcasts in their day-to-day reporting and that, “savvy companies know this and are looking for ways to legitimately increase their participation in creating and growing online content using Web 2.0 methods.”
STRANDED ON A BLOG DESERT ISLAND: You’re stranded on a desert island and you can have only one book, what would it be? Remember that old challenge? The modern day version is that you’re stranded on a digital desert island and you have only limited Internet access, what would that be? Five grad students at Carnegie Mellon University have answered that question using what else – an algorithm. They have developed a list, out of the 10-Million-plus blogs available, of the top 100 blogs which are the most up to date and which catch most of the stories that propagate over the blogosphere. And they found some “counterintuitive results” showing that the popular blogs might not be the most effective way to “catch information.” The sites range from well known ones like Instapundit to lesser known ones like BasicThinkingBlog – which, by the way, is in German and which, interestingly, to me at least, had only two English words that I could detect – Videos and YouTube. Many moons ago, I remember a report that said the three most popular blog topics are politics, technology and ‘mom’ issues. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the blogs on this list are disappointingly (my opinion) about politics. Still there are some interesting ones, including Pajamas Media and TheNoseOnYOurFace which bills itself as “news so fake you’ll swear it came from the mainstream media.”
Everything on the Internet is an algorithm, it seems. The algorithm used by the students for detecting the ‘best’ blogs is the same used to determine where to put sensors in a water distribution system to most quickly detect the spread of contaminants. The underlying concept is that the spread of information between blogs is an “information cascade” where the information pours over the blogosphere. They then examined a number of differing factors so that it wasn’t just PA (people affected) which would favor the bigger blogs or NP (number of posts) which would favor the summarizer blogs, but in-links, out-links, scalability and so-on to develop a “cost unit” model. By the way, the report did win “best student paper” award in the computer sciences. However, it may say something about the list that when I checked all 100, the links were broken on four of them. Also, it might raise questions about the validity of the system when the Austinist, Phillyist, DCist, Bostonist, Londonist, Shanghaiist, SFist and Seattlest all make the list. LINK: http://www.bloggersblog.com/cgi-bin/bloggersblog.pl?bblog=1024072
COCKTAIL CHATTER: People who speak Mandarin are more likely than the speakers of any other language to have the rare gift of perfect pitch, according to Oliver Sacks, author of the book Musicophilia. One of the stars of the NBC hit series Heroes has been named ‘global ambassador’ for the One Laptop Per Child program we’ve mentioned before in MfM. But this isn’t one of those celebrity spokesperson things. Masi Oka is a Brown University Math/Computer Science grad who is also an SFX guru with George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic company. A third of the American public (33%) believe that electing a woman President would be a good thing while only one in ten (9%) believe it would be a bad thing, but more than half (55%) say gender doesn’t matter, according to the Pew Research Center.
WEBSITES WEIRD AND WONDERFUL: There are numerous websites around the world which provide an actual real life look at the world today. Want to watch for the Loch Ness monster? Go to camvista.com. It will provide a link to a live camera focused on the lake, or you can pick out various sites around the British Isles and elsewhere. Want to see what Tutankhamen saw when he grew up? Visit pyramidcam.com and watch the sun set over the pyramids of Egypt. Planning a trip to Brisbane with a stopover in London? Visit trafficland.com and see what the traffic and weather is like. Or maybe you want to check on your cousin Minerva in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Visit http://www.wunderground.com/webcams/index.html and see what the weather is like.
CONTRIBUTOR NOTES: Crime and wine. I’m proud of the fact that MfM runs the gamut of interests and the readers reflect that variety of interests. From Nick Simonette, GM/ WAFB/ Baton Rouge, comes a conversation about “two buck chuck.” For those who haven’t heard of this, it is a California wine that originally cost $2, but has risen as the popularity has risen, but which can match wines ten times the price. Ask your local sommelier or liquor store. From Lee Brantley, GM/ WTVM/ Columbus, comes a link to a website that shows a world map of all the crime or disaster related incidents going on in the world. Visit globalincident.com for a fascinating snapshot look at your world.
CONGRATULATIONS: To Scott Libin. Scott takes over the reins of news director at CBS O-and-O WCCO, leaving his position of Managing Editor at the Poynter Institute but returning to adopted hometown Minneapolis where he was previously ND at WTSP.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Message From Michael -- November 5, 2007
WORLDWIDE PRESS FREEDOM REPORT
HUMONGOUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY
CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG
HEY NIELSEN
MORE ONLINE PROGRAMMING COMPETITION
COCKTAIL CHATTER – COLLEGE MINDSET
NEWSPAPER ERRORS
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
WORLDWIDE PRESS FREEDOM REPORT: The French-based but international organization Reporters Without Borders puts The United States at 48th in a list of 169 countries when it comes to press freedom. That actually is an improvement from last year when the U.S. ranked 53rd. The countries of Iceland and Norway tied for first place in the 2007 list just released. In fact, the top 14 countries listed were all European. Eritrea replaced North Korea as the worst country in the world when it comes to press freedom. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, came in 18th while Britain came in 24th and France was 31st. India came in 120th while Pakistan came in 152nd. Iraq was 157th and Iran was 166th. Russia was 144th while China was 163rd.
Of the 20 countries at the bottom of the index, seven are Asian (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Laos, Vietnam, China, Burma, and North Korea), five are African (Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Somalia and Eritrea), four are in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, Palestinian Territories and Iran), three are former Soviet republics (Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) and one is in the Americas (Cuba).
The report authors say the Internet is “occupying more and more space in the breakdown of press freedom violations” with an increase in the number of cases of online censorship. The group says more and more governments have realized that the Internet can play “a key role in the fight for democracy” and have developed new ways to censor people online. It notes that “the governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media.”
HUMONGOUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY: That’s what the “information industry” will generate in less than three years, according to Outsell – the ‘only’ worldwide market research and consulting company. Let me define ‘humongous.’ That’s $448 Billion worldwide. The company says the ‘information industry’ – isn’t that a weird term? – will have sustained but moderate ‘combined annual growth rate’ (CAGR) of 5.5% over the next three years. Not surprisingly the Search, Aggregation and Syndication segment of the industry (aka Google, Yahoo, etc.,) will leave the other segments “in the dust” with a CAGR of 22.7%. What the group calls the “news providers and publishers” segment will actually have a 2.5% decline in revenue in that time. Of course, the ‘information industry’ is broadly defined to include everything from credit and financial information to B2B trade publishing, education and training, IT & Telecom Research, etc…etc..etc…
CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG: That’s what Google is saying as it develops an open social networking platform so you can “take your friends with you.” The Internet behemoth already has its own social network – Orkut… no, I never heard of it either. And for good reason, more than half of its user are Portuguese-speaking Brazilians. Why? I don’t know. Google has been working with several other social networking sites to develop an open platform, transportable kind of social networking which experts say could have a dramatic impact. Called OpenSocial, the concept is to let software developers and websites develop a single set of software standards for the little software widgets that can add a social networking layer to all Web sites. The other ones include Bebo (the #1 site in the U.K.), SixApart, HI5, Friendster, LinkedIn and Ning. Now, social network giant MySpace has joined as well, adding much more weight to the concept. The two other giants in the social network arena – Facebook and Craigslist – have not joined… yet. Tech writer and San Jose State University business professor Randall Stross writes in The New York Times that “Google’s self interest is plain enough.” It doesn’t want to lose web users to the social networking sites, but it hasn’t added OpenSocial to its own Websites because, quoting a Google type, “trust builds up over a very long time… and can be lost very quickly.”
Footnotes: The same New York Times edition profiled Andy Rubin, who is “Google’s resident gadget guru” and in charge of developing the ‘Google phone” due out next year. Social networking site Twitter which specializes in very brief IM’s, called ‘tweets’, was the source of recent controversy when one user sent a ‘tweet’ that he was going to commit suicide. He didn’t in the end, but it pointed out the growing public display of everybody’s desire to be Warholian. And research firm Ipsos Insight reports that social networkers are three times more likely to download music or video to their phones, twice as likely to send a text message or pay a bill through their mobile devices.
HEY NIELSEN: Continuing the social networking theme, the folks have created a website heynielsen.com which we’ve mentioned before in MfM. But I recently decided to re-visit the site, and it’s interesting to me just how little traffic it generates. Many of the highlighted TV shows, movies and music get one or two “votes” but little else. The most popular TV shows highlighted (The Dresden Files and Stargate Atlantis) did get anywhere from 500 to 600 votes, but most everything else got zippo. Now the website has named the top TV blog sites. First place went to jerichomonster.blogspot.com; second to cultural leanings, whose website is memles.wordpress.com. Honorable mentions went to televisionary.blogspot.com, tvsquad.com and tvovereasy.com.
MORE SOCIAL NETWORKING NEWS: A social networking site aimed at the disabled has been launched – Disaboom.com. Another social networking site you probably haven’t heard of is Belgian website Netlog, even though it has 28 Million members and is in 13 languages and does it all with a staff of only 35 people. A survey of advertising executives by digital marketing firm CoreMetrics finds that three-quarters (78%) believe social networking offers a marketing advantage; yet the average percentage of online marketing dollars allocated to social media is only 7.8%.
MORE ONLINE PROGRAMMING COMPETITION. The newest competitor to Joost which we beta-tested and mentioned in previous MfM’s, is Hulu, an online video service put together by NBC-Universal and News Corp. The site is in the beta testing phase right now, but it promises to offer programs from NBC, Fox as well as Sony and MGM. Under the Hulu model, advertisers – which include Cisco, Intel, General Motors, Nissan and Toyota – get to embed their ads in a form of product placement.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Every year Beloit College in Wisconsin puts out a Mindset List which lists what the students entering college would be familiar with and NOT familiar with. For example, students entering this fall, who will – maybe, hopefully – graduate in 2011 have never “rolled down” a car window but have always had bottled water. The phrase “off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone and music has always been “unplugged.” MTV has never featured music videos; and stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names. High definition television has always been ubiquitous. Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil. Burma has always been Myanmar. The Berlin Wall never existed for them but Humvees, minus the artillery, have. Women have always been police chiefs in major cities. Wolf Blitzer has always been serving up the news on CNN and Katie Couric has always – as list compilers Tom McBride and Ron Nief put it – “had screen cred.” And the World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
A study by the Pew Global Research Project finds a high level of distrust between Muslims and non-Muslims, but with Muslims having more negative views of Westerners. The e-Voter Institute says a survey of political consultants find nearly half (46%) will allocate between 6% and 20% of their communications budget to the Internet – an increase from the 38% in 2006. For those old enough to remember, former Gulf War “scud stud” Arthur Kent is running for office on the Tory party ticket in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
NEWSPAPER ERRORS: This didn’t fit anywhere else, but I found it too interesting not to include. The Tribune-owned Orlando Sentinel newspaper (which I used to work for) has admitted that it has had an increasing number of errors in the newspaper since it went through a financial belt-tightening. The paper’s public editor Manning Pynn wrote that the reason was fairly simple. The paper lost a number of seasoned veterans, mainly editors, “and the result is more published errors.” He writes, ““Every business’ success depends on the reliability of its products or services. If their reliability declines, people are less likely to buy them. Newspapers are particularly susceptible to that phenomenon.”
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com as well as on my Website. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
HUMONGOUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY
CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG
HEY NIELSEN
MORE ONLINE PROGRAMMING COMPETITION
COCKTAIL CHATTER – COLLEGE MINDSET
NEWSPAPER ERRORS
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
WORLDWIDE PRESS FREEDOM REPORT: The French-based but international organization Reporters Without Borders puts The United States at 48th in a list of 169 countries when it comes to press freedom. That actually is an improvement from last year when the U.S. ranked 53rd. The countries of Iceland and Norway tied for first place in the 2007 list just released. In fact, the top 14 countries listed were all European. Eritrea replaced North Korea as the worst country in the world when it comes to press freedom. Our neighbor to the north, Canada, came in 18th while Britain came in 24th and France was 31st. India came in 120th while Pakistan came in 152nd. Iraq was 157th and Iran was 166th. Russia was 144th while China was 163rd.
Of the 20 countries at the bottom of the index, seven are Asian (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Laos, Vietnam, China, Burma, and North Korea), five are African (Ethiopia, Equatorial Guinea, Libya, Somalia and Eritrea), four are in the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, Palestinian Territories and Iran), three are former Soviet republics (Belarus, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan) and one is in the Americas (Cuba).
The report authors say the Internet is “occupying more and more space in the breakdown of press freedom violations” with an increase in the number of cases of online censorship. The group says more and more governments have realized that the Internet can play “a key role in the fight for democracy” and have developed new ways to censor people online. It notes that “the governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media.”
HUMONGOUS AMOUNTS OF MONEY: That’s what the “information industry” will generate in less than three years, according to Outsell – the ‘only’ worldwide market research and consulting company. Let me define ‘humongous.’ That’s $448 Billion worldwide. The company says the ‘information industry’ – isn’t that a weird term? – will have sustained but moderate ‘combined annual growth rate’ (CAGR) of 5.5% over the next three years. Not surprisingly the Search, Aggregation and Syndication segment of the industry (aka Google, Yahoo, etc.,) will leave the other segments “in the dust” with a CAGR of 22.7%. What the group calls the “news providers and publishers” segment will actually have a 2.5% decline in revenue in that time. Of course, the ‘information industry’ is broadly defined to include everything from credit and financial information to B2B trade publishing, education and training, IT & Telecom Research, etc…etc..etc…
CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG: That’s what Google is saying as it develops an open social networking platform so you can “take your friends with you.” The Internet behemoth already has its own social network – Orkut… no, I never heard of it either. And for good reason, more than half of its user are Portuguese-speaking Brazilians. Why? I don’t know. Google has been working with several other social networking sites to develop an open platform, transportable kind of social networking which experts say could have a dramatic impact. Called OpenSocial, the concept is to let software developers and websites develop a single set of software standards for the little software widgets that can add a social networking layer to all Web sites. The other ones include Bebo (the #1 site in the U.K.), SixApart, HI5, Friendster, LinkedIn and Ning. Now, social network giant MySpace has joined as well, adding much more weight to the concept. The two other giants in the social network arena – Facebook and Craigslist – have not joined… yet. Tech writer and San Jose State University business professor Randall Stross writes in The New York Times that “Google’s self interest is plain enough.” It doesn’t want to lose web users to the social networking sites, but it hasn’t added OpenSocial to its own Websites because, quoting a Google type, “trust builds up over a very long time… and can be lost very quickly.”
Footnotes: The same New York Times edition profiled Andy Rubin, who is “Google’s resident gadget guru” and in charge of developing the ‘Google phone” due out next year. Social networking site Twitter which specializes in very brief IM’s, called ‘tweets’, was the source of recent controversy when one user sent a ‘tweet’ that he was going to commit suicide. He didn’t in the end, but it pointed out the growing public display of everybody’s desire to be Warholian. And research firm Ipsos Insight reports that social networkers are three times more likely to download music or video to their phones, twice as likely to send a text message or pay a bill through their mobile devices.
HEY NIELSEN: Continuing the social networking theme, the folks have created a website heynielsen.com which we’ve mentioned before in MfM. But I recently decided to re-visit the site, and it’s interesting to me just how little traffic it generates. Many of the highlighted TV shows, movies and music get one or two “votes” but little else. The most popular TV shows highlighted (The Dresden Files and Stargate Atlantis) did get anywhere from 500 to 600 votes, but most everything else got zippo. Now the website has named the top TV blog sites. First place went to jerichomonster.blogspot.com; second to cultural leanings, whose website is memles.wordpress.com. Honorable mentions went to televisionary.blogspot.com, tvsquad.com and tvovereasy.com.
MORE SOCIAL NETWORKING NEWS: A social networking site aimed at the disabled has been launched – Disaboom.com. Another social networking site you probably haven’t heard of is Belgian website Netlog, even though it has 28 Million members and is in 13 languages and does it all with a staff of only 35 people. A survey of advertising executives by digital marketing firm CoreMetrics finds that three-quarters (78%) believe social networking offers a marketing advantage; yet the average percentage of online marketing dollars allocated to social media is only 7.8%.
MORE ONLINE PROGRAMMING COMPETITION. The newest competitor to Joost which we beta-tested and mentioned in previous MfM’s, is Hulu, an online video service put together by NBC-Universal and News Corp. The site is in the beta testing phase right now, but it promises to offer programs from NBC, Fox as well as Sony and MGM. Under the Hulu model, advertisers – which include Cisco, Intel, General Motors, Nissan and Toyota – get to embed their ads in a form of product placement.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Every year Beloit College in Wisconsin puts out a Mindset List which lists what the students entering college would be familiar with and NOT familiar with. For example, students entering this fall, who will – maybe, hopefully – graduate in 2011 have never “rolled down” a car window but have always had bottled water. The phrase “off the hook” has never had anything to do with a telephone and music has always been “unplugged.” MTV has never featured music videos; and stadiums, rock tours and sporting events have always had corporate names. High definition television has always been ubiquitous. Chavez has nothing to do with iceberg lettuce and everything to do with oil. Burma has always been Myanmar. The Berlin Wall never existed for them but Humvees, minus the artillery, have. Women have always been police chiefs in major cities. Wolf Blitzer has always been serving up the news on CNN and Katie Couric has always – as list compilers Tom McBride and Ron Nief put it – “had screen cred.” And the World Wide Web has been an online tool since they were born.
A study by the Pew Global Research Project finds a high level of distrust between Muslims and non-Muslims, but with Muslims having more negative views of Westerners. The e-Voter Institute says a survey of political consultants find nearly half (46%) will allocate between 6% and 20% of their communications budget to the Internet – an increase from the 38% in 2006. For those old enough to remember, former Gulf War “scud stud” Arthur Kent is running for office on the Tory party ticket in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
NEWSPAPER ERRORS: This didn’t fit anywhere else, but I found it too interesting not to include. The Tribune-owned Orlando Sentinel newspaper (which I used to work for) has admitted that it has had an increasing number of errors in the newspaper since it went through a financial belt-tightening. The paper’s public editor Manning Pynn wrote that the reason was fairly simple. The paper lost a number of seasoned veterans, mainly editors, “and the result is more published errors.” He writes, ““Every business’ success depends on the reliability of its products or services. If their reliability declines, people are less likely to buy them. Newspapers are particularly susceptible to that phenomenon.”
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com as well as on my Website. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
Message From Michael -- October 29, 2007
THE EVENING NEWS RACE
THE OLD MEDIA’S NEW MEDIA TARGET
YOUR NEW MEDIA TARGET
THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON YOU DON’T KNOW
STEP INTO THE WAYBACK MACHINE -- WASTELAND
COCKTAIL CHATTER – NOVELS, THE LAST SUPPER AND CURRENT TV
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE EVENING NEWS RACE: You all know of course about the race between ABC with Charles Gibson and NBC with Brian Williams for first place. According to Nielsen, on average only 34,000 viewers separate the two in the ratings season to date. With Sweeps coming up, I thought it would be interesting to take a historical look. For example, as tight as the present ratings battle seems, in the 1998-99 season, NBC took first place for the season with an average edge of only a thousand viewers, a look back through Nielsen’s records shows. The last time CBS held the #1 spot was in 1988-89, although only by the skin of its teeth, after dominating the ratings for nearly two decades starting in 1970. And in case, you’re wondering, because I know you are, Dan Rather took over the anchor chair from Walter Cronkite in March of 1981. So he was able to hold on to it for seven years. CBS lost the #1 spot to ABC which held on to that position for seven years from 1989-90 to 1995-96. Peter Jennings became sole anchor in 1983, after sharing the anchor duties for five years in the unusual three-anchor format with Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson and after an early disastrous stint as ABC’s evening news anchor in 1965 at the age of 26. NBC took over the #1 ranking in the 1996-97 season. Tom Brokaw had taken over the solo anchor duties 16 years earlier in 1983 after co-anchoring with Roger Mudd for two years. And, continuing to prove I am anal retentive, some last facts from the historic trends. The Networks combined had a 30-plus rating through the 70’s and halfway through the 80’s. In 1988-89, the ratings dropped for the first time below 30. The ratings declined steadily until 2002-03 when it dipped for the first time below 20. So far this season, the average is a 15.2 for the three networks combined.
THE OLD MEDIA’S NEW MEDIA TARGET: The folks at Standard & Poor’s predict that traditional media companies are going to go on a buying splurge for Blogs. As they say in their investing newsletter The Outlook – “they reach large, loyal audiences, they’re fairly cheap to run, and they can be lucrative.” What’s not to like? In classic understatement they say it’s “an attractive business model.” To put it in context, the S&P newsletter points out that the number one blog on the Internet is technology blog Boing Boing which attracts 7.5 Million page views a month. By way of comparison, technology magazine Wired has 1.9 Million print readers. As of September, 2007, blog monitor Technorati says it is indexing 106 Million blogs – 12 Million more than the month before. Newspapers in particular are predicted to turn to bloggers to augment their own strong Web presence. The Outlook report says the move is a recognition by ‘old media companies’ that “Internet users would rather participate in the news than simply consume it.”
A similar but slightly different view comes from former entertainment executive and IAC/ InterActive Corp CEO Barry Diller who says traditional media companies still ‘don’t get it’ when it comes to the ‘disruptive power’ of the Internet. He says they should invest more in research and development and build new things online from scratch.
To provide a little further perspective, the Television Bureau of Advertising projects spot television revenue to ‘surge’ 9% to 10% in 2008, because of the political races and Olympics. BUT it predicts that station web-site advertising will grow 40% to 50% and station wireless 50% to 70%.
YOUR NEW MEDIA TARGET: Looking for your own ‘attractive business model’ for investing? Research firm Hitwise picks five potential Internet Superstars that are getting the attention of the hip, techno savvy younger generation. KeepVid lets users capture and replay streaming video from various sites such as YouTube, Metacafe and iFilm. And there is an online talent show Bix where you can upload comedy videos and karaoke performances. WikiMedia Commons is a central repository for freely licensed photos, music and video. Stickam is a community-based Webcam which allows live video streaming and video conferencing. And, finally, Hitwise picks out Veoh, an online video destination that we’ve mentioned in previous MfM’s.
THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON YOU DON’T KNOW: Or maybe you do. After all she has 1,791,920 MySpace friends. Her name -- Tila Tequila. I’ve mentioned her before in MfM, but now she has her own MTV show which reportedly is #1 in its time period for the 18-34 demographic. Ms. Tequila (real name Nguyen) emigrated to MySpace from a Houston public housing project after her family emigrated from Vietnam. The only reason I mention her is that a) it is part of my never-ending quest to make sure the readers of MfM are ‘in the know’ even if, sometimes, it may be question whether it’s worth knowing and b) because of a great line in Sunday’s New York Times by writer Guy Trebay trying to explain the phenomenon: “When exactly in the Warholian arc of fame did we arrive at a point where we create celebrities of people so little accomplished that they make Paris Hilton look like Marie Curie?” Plus, even more interesting and worth knowing is a series of studies cited by write Jake Halpern in his book Fame Junkies that a third of American teenagers (31%) have the honest expectation that they will one day be famous and four out of five of them (80%) think of themselves as truly important.
STEP INTO THE WAYBACK MACHINE: On May 9, 1961, then Federal Communications Chairman Newton Minnow referred to television as a “vast wasteland.” Years afterward, he said he wished the two words that people remembered from his speech were “public interest.” Proving yet again that I need a life, I recently listened to the 40-minute speech. A couple of notes. He was only interrupted four times and then only with very light applause when he said the free enterprise system must be allowed to work and that he would fight any kind of censorship. Also, interestingly for the time, he urged stations to do editorials. And his quote about television being a vast wasteland was one of only several great quotes in his speech:
To networks – “tell your sponsors to be less concerned with costs per thousands and more concerned with understanding per millions… remind your stockholders than an investment in broadcasting is buying a share in public responsibility.” Public interest isn’t just what interests the public. Talking about his role as FCC chairman, “either one takes this job seriously – or one can be seriously taken.”
About ratings – He said the three great influences on a child were home, school and church, and that television was becoming the fourth. But that if the first three followed ratings, like television did, children would eat a steady diet of ice cream, there would be school holidays all the time and there would be no Sunday school. “If some of you persist in a relentless search for the highest rating and the lowest common denominator, you may very well lose your audience.”
And as an interesting footnote to all this, Minnow noted in his speech that broadcasters were in good financial health, noting that the gross broadcast revenues for all television in 1960 was roughly $1.2 Billion with a before taxes profit of $243 Million, yielding an average return on revenue of 19.2%. Just for perspective, BIA Financial Network reported television revenues in 2006 of $22.5 Billion.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Besides the countdown to sweeps, there is another countdown – to NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The idea is simple – write a 175-page, 50,000 word novel in a month. You can register at NaNoWriMo.org. You start writing November 1st and you have to have it finished by November 30th. A high resolution rendering (16-17 giga pixels) of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper has been posted on the Internet at the site www.haltadefinizione.com by digital imaging company Hal9000 for – as Reuters put it – art lovers and conspiracy theorists alike to study. More than half of the U.S. public (58%) believe that “as Americans we can always solve our problems and get what we want,” according to a survey by the folks at the Pew Research Center. Sounds pretty good until you read further on that the number is a 16 point drop from the three-quarters (74%) who believed that way five years ago. And I know you already have heard this, but it’s so amazing that it’s worth repeating: Microsoft has bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 Million which, when projected, values the company headed by a 23-year-old at $15 Billion. One you may not have heard comes from that same Forbes conference mentioned earlier – investment company Yucaipa founder Ron Burkle says one of his investments, Current TV, is worth up to $2 Billion after just a few years in existence.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
THE OLD MEDIA’S NEW MEDIA TARGET
YOUR NEW MEDIA TARGET
THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON YOU DON’T KNOW
STEP INTO THE WAYBACK MACHINE -- WASTELAND
COCKTAIL CHATTER – NOVELS, THE LAST SUPPER AND CURRENT TV
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
THE EVENING NEWS RACE: You all know of course about the race between ABC with Charles Gibson and NBC with Brian Williams for first place. According to Nielsen, on average only 34,000 viewers separate the two in the ratings season to date. With Sweeps coming up, I thought it would be interesting to take a historical look. For example, as tight as the present ratings battle seems, in the 1998-99 season, NBC took first place for the season with an average edge of only a thousand viewers, a look back through Nielsen’s records shows. The last time CBS held the #1 spot was in 1988-89, although only by the skin of its teeth, after dominating the ratings for nearly two decades starting in 1970. And in case, you’re wondering, because I know you are, Dan Rather took over the anchor chair from Walter Cronkite in March of 1981. So he was able to hold on to it for seven years. CBS lost the #1 spot to ABC which held on to that position for seven years from 1989-90 to 1995-96. Peter Jennings became sole anchor in 1983, after sharing the anchor duties for five years in the unusual three-anchor format with Frank Reynolds and Max Robinson and after an early disastrous stint as ABC’s evening news anchor in 1965 at the age of 26. NBC took over the #1 ranking in the 1996-97 season. Tom Brokaw had taken over the solo anchor duties 16 years earlier in 1983 after co-anchoring with Roger Mudd for two years. And, continuing to prove I am anal retentive, some last facts from the historic trends. The Networks combined had a 30-plus rating through the 70’s and halfway through the 80’s. In 1988-89, the ratings dropped for the first time below 30. The ratings declined steadily until 2002-03 when it dipped for the first time below 20. So far this season, the average is a 15.2 for the three networks combined.
THE OLD MEDIA’S NEW MEDIA TARGET: The folks at Standard & Poor’s predict that traditional media companies are going to go on a buying splurge for Blogs. As they say in their investing newsletter The Outlook – “they reach large, loyal audiences, they’re fairly cheap to run, and they can be lucrative.” What’s not to like? In classic understatement they say it’s “an attractive business model.” To put it in context, the S&P newsletter points out that the number one blog on the Internet is technology blog Boing Boing which attracts 7.5 Million page views a month. By way of comparison, technology magazine Wired has 1.9 Million print readers. As of September, 2007, blog monitor Technorati says it is indexing 106 Million blogs – 12 Million more than the month before. Newspapers in particular are predicted to turn to bloggers to augment their own strong Web presence. The Outlook report says the move is a recognition by ‘old media companies’ that “Internet users would rather participate in the news than simply consume it.”
A similar but slightly different view comes from former entertainment executive and IAC/ InterActive Corp CEO Barry Diller who says traditional media companies still ‘don’t get it’ when it comes to the ‘disruptive power’ of the Internet. He says they should invest more in research and development and build new things online from scratch.
To provide a little further perspective, the Television Bureau of Advertising projects spot television revenue to ‘surge’ 9% to 10% in 2008, because of the political races and Olympics. BUT it predicts that station web-site advertising will grow 40% to 50% and station wireless 50% to 70%.
YOUR NEW MEDIA TARGET: Looking for your own ‘attractive business model’ for investing? Research firm Hitwise picks five potential Internet Superstars that are getting the attention of the hip, techno savvy younger generation. KeepVid lets users capture and replay streaming video from various sites such as YouTube, Metacafe and iFilm. And there is an online talent show Bix where you can upload comedy videos and karaoke performances. WikiMedia Commons is a central repository for freely licensed photos, music and video. Stickam is a community-based Webcam which allows live video streaming and video conferencing. And, finally, Hitwise picks out Veoh, an online video destination that we’ve mentioned in previous MfM’s.
THE MOST FAMOUS PERSON YOU DON’T KNOW: Or maybe you do. After all she has 1,791,920 MySpace friends. Her name -- Tila Tequila. I’ve mentioned her before in MfM, but now she has her own MTV show which reportedly is #1 in its time period for the 18-34 demographic. Ms. Tequila (real name Nguyen) emigrated to MySpace from a Houston public housing project after her family emigrated from Vietnam. The only reason I mention her is that a) it is part of my never-ending quest to make sure the readers of MfM are ‘in the know’ even if, sometimes, it may be question whether it’s worth knowing and b) because of a great line in Sunday’s New York Times by writer Guy Trebay trying to explain the phenomenon: “When exactly in the Warholian arc of fame did we arrive at a point where we create celebrities of people so little accomplished that they make Paris Hilton look like Marie Curie?” Plus, even more interesting and worth knowing is a series of studies cited by write Jake Halpern in his book Fame Junkies that a third of American teenagers (31%) have the honest expectation that they will one day be famous and four out of five of them (80%) think of themselves as truly important.
STEP INTO THE WAYBACK MACHINE: On May 9, 1961, then Federal Communications Chairman Newton Minnow referred to television as a “vast wasteland.” Years afterward, he said he wished the two words that people remembered from his speech were “public interest.” Proving yet again that I need a life, I recently listened to the 40-minute speech. A couple of notes. He was only interrupted four times and then only with very light applause when he said the free enterprise system must be allowed to work and that he would fight any kind of censorship. Also, interestingly for the time, he urged stations to do editorials. And his quote about television being a vast wasteland was one of only several great quotes in his speech:
To networks – “tell your sponsors to be less concerned with costs per thousands and more concerned with understanding per millions… remind your stockholders than an investment in broadcasting is buying a share in public responsibility.” Public interest isn’t just what interests the public. Talking about his role as FCC chairman, “either one takes this job seriously – or one can be seriously taken.”
About ratings – He said the three great influences on a child were home, school and church, and that television was becoming the fourth. But that if the first three followed ratings, like television did, children would eat a steady diet of ice cream, there would be school holidays all the time and there would be no Sunday school. “If some of you persist in a relentless search for the highest rating and the lowest common denominator, you may very well lose your audience.”
And as an interesting footnote to all this, Minnow noted in his speech that broadcasters were in good financial health, noting that the gross broadcast revenues for all television in 1960 was roughly $1.2 Billion with a before taxes profit of $243 Million, yielding an average return on revenue of 19.2%. Just for perspective, BIA Financial Network reported television revenues in 2006 of $22.5 Billion.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Besides the countdown to sweeps, there is another countdown – to NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. The idea is simple – write a 175-page, 50,000 word novel in a month. You can register at NaNoWriMo.org. You start writing November 1st and you have to have it finished by November 30th. A high resolution rendering (16-17 giga pixels) of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper has been posted on the Internet at the site www.haltadefinizione.com by digital imaging company Hal9000 for – as Reuters put it – art lovers and conspiracy theorists alike to study. More than half of the U.S. public (58%) believe that “as Americans we can always solve our problems and get what we want,” according to a survey by the folks at the Pew Research Center. Sounds pretty good until you read further on that the number is a 16 point drop from the three-quarters (74%) who believed that way five years ago. And I know you already have heard this, but it’s so amazing that it’s worth repeating: Microsoft has bought a 1.6% stake in Facebook for $240 Million which, when projected, values the company headed by a 23-year-old at $15 Billion. One you may not have heard comes from that same Forbes conference mentioned earlier – investment company Yucaipa founder Ron Burkle says one of his investments, Current TV, is worth up to $2 Billion after just a few years in existence.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
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