Message from Michael -- October 6, 2008

IS THE MEDIA CUP HALF SEEN OR HALF HEARD

THE GRAND-DADDY OF MULTI MEDIA STUDIES

THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT FROM US

THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD

IT’S EVERYWHERE; IT’S EVERYWHERE


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IS THE MEDIA CUP HALF SEEN OR HALF HEARD. That seems to be the question raised by the latest research from MRI (Media Research and Intelligence). As opposed to so many reports on people’s multi-tasking media habits, the MRI study says “much media consumption occurs individually.” The study emphasizes that half of at-home media usage is exclusive – meaning that the consumer is using only that medium. For example: newspaper reading (55%), Internet usage (53.8%), magazine reading (53.6%) and TV viewing (49.4%). Regular readers of MfM will remember an earlier BIGresearch report on simultaneous media usage which emphasized that “the only way for people to keep up with the deluge of media options is to multi-task with other media.” That report released earlier this year said simultaneous media consumption was up from its previous year’s report by anywhere from 1% to 35% depending on the medium. How do you reconcile the two reports? The answer is I can’t, or at least not fully. For example: The MRI study says 15.3% of at-home newspaper reading is done while watching TV. The BIGresearch study says the figure is double that with 30% of the consumers saying they watch TV while reading the newspaper. Another example: The MRI study says the number one non-media activity that consumers engage in while using media is chores. The BIGresearch report says the number one non-media activity engaged in while using media is eating.

That doesn’t mean the reports are completely contradictory. For example, both reports point to television as the dominant medium. The BIGresearch study says that when more than one medium is used in the home, it is typically television and another medium, a fact echoed by the MRI study; The MRI study also goes on to say that television is used by four out of five people (83.6%) followed by radio (63.2%) newspapers (55.6%), the Internet (52.6%) and magazines (37.6%). And both reports raise questions about television’s influence. The BIGresearch report says its study shows TV’s influence on consumers to purchase products has declined while new media options have increased. The MRI report says the percentage of people saying they were “very focused” when using television is significantly lower than for all other medium, except radio. Only a third (34.7%) of TV viewers report being “very focused” which is double radio (16.5%) but lower than magazines (41.8%), newspapers (50%) and especially the Internet (54.6%).

Both reports have some interesting, although somewhat expected, insights. For example: The MRI study shows a dramatic drop in exclusive media usage for Television and the Internet in out-of-home usage. The Internet drops from a half (53.8%) in usage in home to a fifth (20.4%) out of home (mainly because it is used in conjunction with work – remember the word exclusive.) Television drops to a third (32.6%) from a half (49.4%) while magazines drop only four points to 49% and newspaper exclusive use remains the same in home and out of home at 55%. Only radio increases slight (from 28.6% to 34.6%). The BIGresearch report shows channel surfing as the #1 activity during TV commercials (41.2%) followed by talking with others by phone or in the room (33.5%) and my favorite – mentally tuning out (30.2%).

THE GRAND-DADDY OF MULTI-MEDIA STUDIES. Regular and long-time readers of MfM will remember the Middletown Media Studies by Ball State University which in 2004 raised the consciousness of just how pervasive multi-media use is. That report said that if you summed up all media use in a day, it came to a staggering 15.4 hours a day, but that if you took into account multi-media use it dropped, but to a still huge average of 11.7 hours a day. The ‘most active’ person spent more than 17 hours a day – virtually every waking moment – with the media; the ‘least active’ person spent a still sizable 5.25 hours a day with the media. That study showed that people spend double the amount of time with media than they think they do. That may be because the Middletown study used observational data instead of either diary or telephone surveys.

THE RICH ARE DIFFERENT FROM US. So said F. Scott Fitzgerald. To which Ernest Hemingway is purported to have said, “yes, they have more money.” Well, depending on how you look at it, they’re both right, according to a report by Ipsos/ Mendelsohn dubbed the Affluent Survey. According to the study, there are 23.3 Million households with an annual income of more than $100,000; 2.5 Million with an annual income of more than $250,000; and 2.67 Million households with liquid assets of more than $1 Million. Shock of shocks, the study reports that the affluent fly more frequently and stay at hotels more often, and when they vacation they are more likely to go to Aspen, Martha’s Vineyard or Maui. And when they play sports, they’re more likely to go sailing, play tennis, go snow skiing or play golf. (I suspect they don’t take part in a lot of pick-up basketball games, but that wasn’t included.) But, semi-serious shock of shocks, when they shop, they are more likely to go to Target (84.9%) or Wal-Mart (80.2%), than Saks Fifth Avenue (12.6%) or Nieman Marcus (13.5%).

When it comes to media, the use of television and radio by the affluent has declined steadily over the past five years while magazine readership has held steady. They watch the four networks in greater numbers (an average of 32 Million of them) than PBS (an average of 18 Million); more will watch CNN (26 Million) than Fox (17 Million). Their favorite non-news cable network (as I read the numbers) is Discovery (with 25.4 Million affluent viewers), followed by ESPN (22 Million), The Weather Channel and A&E (with roughly 21 Million each) and The Food Network (20 Million). The most popular magazine is…. drum roll please… People magazine (with 7.1 Million affluent heads of household), followed by National Geographic/ Traveler (6.8 Million), followed by (the one surprise) Pace Airline Media (5.6 Million) (and, no, I’ve never heard of it.). And, as has been reported elsewhere, the affluent spend more time online (an average of 23.4 hours a week) and make greater use of cell phones – 40% use hand-held devices to access the Internet and 10% make Internet purchases using their mobiles.

THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD: Or possibly I could have headlined this, the giant slayer. The little known India-based company Zoho has launched a suite of services to take on behemoths Google and Microsoft – everything from e-mail to word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations to project management, database applications and customer relationship management. All online in a cloud computing environment that reviewers (such as websites WebGuild.org and ReadWriteWeb.com) have given good marks. Such good marks, in fact, that General Electric (a behemoth in its own right) has picked Zoho as its strategic partner for its 400,000 desktops. Zoho was the winner of webguild’s best web 2.0 apps content, and website readwriteweb (interestingly and coincidentally) used the same headline I did in referring to Zoho. And here’s the kicker: As if the fact that Zoho is competing successfully with Google et al is not enough, Zoho’s team of developers are straight out of school – NOT College… School. Zoho pays the young developers the equivalent of one year of college. At the end of that year, many stay on; some actually go on to college.

IT’S EVERYWHERE; IT’S EVERYWHERE. If radio series crime fighter Chickenman were around today, that’s what he would be saying about the blogosphere. According to the annual state of the blogosphere report by Technorati, blogs attract 77 Million unique visitors in the U.S. alone. That’s more than either MySpace (75 Million) or Facebook (41 Million), and that is out of a total of nearly 189 Million in the total Internet audience. Since 2002, Technorati has indexed 133 Million blogs. Of that number, 7.4 Million blogs were posted in the last 120 days, 1.5 Million blogs in the last week, and 900,000 blogs in the past 24 hours. The company tracks blogs in 81 languages across 66 countries and six continents. North America accounts for nearly half (48%) of all bloggers, followed by Europe (27%) and Asia (13%). South America only accounts for 7% while little Australia accounts for 3% and Africa has one percent. Despite the come-and-go nature of blogs, the average blogger has been at it an average of three years. Blogs are profitable, too, with most people investing $1,800 and the mean annual revenue hitting $6,000. (So, what’s wrong with my blog, I wonder.) Three out of four U.S. bloggers are college graduates with nearly half (42%) having attended graduate school. Two-thirds are male with half between the ages of 18 and 34. And although the highest concentration of bloggers is in the San Francisco Bay area, followed by New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles, the folks at Technorati say the majority of bloggers do NOT live near the largest metropolitan areas.

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