Message From Michael
April 25, 2011
BLACK IS BLACK
LET'S DO THE WIME WARP AGAIN
WOMEN VERSUS MEN IN MEDIA
THE ROYAL WEDDING
PLUGGED AND UNPLUGGED
COCKTAIL CHATTER – SORT OF
BLACK IS BLACK. I don't want my baby back. Not if her name is Rebecca Black. But more than 300-thousand people do. But gray is gray for 2.3 Million people who would be happy if she went away. Yes, yes, yes, this is another one of those headlines of mine that is a reach. Rebecca Black is a 13-year-old California girl who paid (all right, her parents paid) an estimated $20,000 to have a music video produced featuring her. So, why should this rate the lead story on this week's message? Because… hold on to your 45 RPM's here, folks… her video has had 114 Million views on YouTube. I don't know about you, but I find this stunning. Let me put a little perspective on this. That 114 Million is five times as many people as watch American Idol. For a little more perspective, the number one video of all time on YouTube is Baby by Justin Bieber (who I am assuming she is attempting to emulate), with his 523 Million views. But (here we go again), her 114 Million would still put her in the Top 40 (isn't that appropriate?) of all time YouTube videos. All this for a 'bubble-gum' style music video titled Friday with the enlightening lyrics explaining that Friday comes after Thursday and before Saturday.
Now, for some perspective gone mad, let me throw some more figures and factoids at you. That 300-Thousand represents the number of people who say they "like" the video. The 2.3 Million represents the number of people who "dislike" the video. Bieber's video had roughly 635K likes and 1.3 M dislikes. That is a 2 to 1 ratio. Her ratio of dislikes to likes is 7 to 1. Hers was the only video I could find in a review of the top 100 videos where the dislikes so far outweighed the likes. She and Bieber were the only ones I could find, in fact, where there were more dislikes than likes, which says something about the polarizing reaction to their music. For example, the second most watched video of all time is Lady Gaga's Bad Romance which has so far had 371-Million views but with 400-thousand likes versus 86-thousand dislikes. Shakira's Freshly Ground which comes in at number three with 334-Million views, had 319-thousand Likes and only 16-thousand Dislikes. Still (more perspective here), with 114 Million views, her video scored nearly twice as many views as teen idol Miley Cyrus's Can't Be Tamed (69 Million), significantly more than either of the two hits by teen idols the Jonas Brothers, Burning up (89 Million), and SOS (88 Million) or the very popular High School Musical 2 (64 Million) or even High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens (104 Million). You can throw into that Lady Gaga's Born This way (68 Million) and Poker Face (79 Million), and virtually any of the Black Eyed Peas hits. And it should be noted, the video Friday is available on iTunes where it had only 1,200 likes roughly.
Anyway, you get the point. As an additional note, her video continues to rack up views. By the time you read this, I'm sure the views have gone way beyond the 114 Million when I looked. You can do a search for the video on YouTube, but let me warn you. The video has generated so many parodies (many of which are getting Million views and more) that you may have trouble finding it. Look for… seriously… the 'official video.' As a side note, thanks to my students who prompted me to check on Rebecca Black's video after I had read about it elsewhere. And as a further side note thought, an examination of the top 100 videos on YouTube is an interesting sociological study in and of itself – some aspiring PhD candidate's thesis in waiting. A final footnote, and sort of sad commentary, many of the comments you'll find on YouTube are pretty vicious and nasty and she has even received death threats. Did I mention she's 13 years old? And, oh, yes, she now has a publicist and a manager.
LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN. As long as I am on a youth kick, some interesting notes from Nielsen's State of the Media report. Somewhat 'old news' but still worth noting, the average American watches 34 hours and 39 minutes of TV a week, an increase of two minutes year to year. But here's what's interesting. While older Americans (65+) watch the most television (47 hours and 33 minutes per week), teenagers (12 – 17) watch the least amount (23 hours and 41 Minutes a week). Okay, maybe not too surprising, although I wonder if (in the early days of TV), teenagers watched more than other age groups. Another thesis in the making. The heaviest 'timeshifters' were adults 35 – 49 who timeshifted 3 hours and 8 minutes of TV a week. That teenage group (12 – 17) also was the least interested in time shifting (averaging 1 hour and 31 minutes); 18 – 24 year olds were close behind (1 hour and 32 minutes).
Now, according to that same report, the number of mobile phone users (13+) in the U.S. is 228 Million, and nearly a third (31%) of those, use SmartPhones, with 83.2 Million of them mobile phone web users. Nielsen says 24.7 Million mobile subscribers watched video on their phone which is a 41% increase year to year. They watched an average of 4 hours and 20 minutes of mobile video a month. And you want to guess which age group watched the most mobile video… as if you have to guess. Teenagers (12-17) watched an average of 7 hours and 13 minutes of mobile video a month. As a side note, the average number of TV's per household in the U.S. is 2.5, but nearly a third (31%) have four or more TV's.
WOMEN VERSUS MEN IN MEDIA. Based on some of the recent media reports, this could be a weekly feature on the Message. The latest, from Nielsen, shows that women are more 'engaged' online than men, spending more time on fewer sites than men. They visit more social and community sites, and they watch more TV specials and award shows so they can engage in "community viewing" discussions. And I will avoid any Mad Men era stereotype style jokes, but the report also finds that women talk more (28%) than men and text more (14%) than men.
THE ROYAL WEDDING. A couple of quick media notes about the wedding. One, Britain's Royal Family is providing its own coverage of the wedding via YouTube. They will use video from the BBC, but use a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace in place of the BBC commentators. The Royal Family will also provide a live blog and Twitter feeds (#rw2011). Also, the Associated Press is also planning to offer a live feed of the ceremony, using LiveStream.
PLUGGED AND UNPLUGGED. As a sort of follow-up to last week's message on The World Unplugged study about 'addicted' student media users, a survey by Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania found that students spend an average of three hours a day tapping away on their cell phone keyboards. It was a combination of Facebook, emailing and searching, but primarily texting. The study reported by eCampusNews says regardless of the medium, the students "rarely" gave it their undivided attention. As a further follow-up note, one of the professors here at the Grady College asked his class about the report's findings that students define news as personal information and world events. Their reaction? Yep, it's true. And in the interest of setting the record straight, I didn't give credit to the lead researcher on The World Unplugged study. Her name is Susan Moeller with the University of Maryland.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Actually these aren't cocktail chatter items, so much as one-liners about things I read and wonder about. For example, retail gianticus maximus Wal-Mart is getting into the social media business. It bought social media platform Kosmix.com which searches and analyzes social content data by topic. Hmmmm… wonder what that could mean. Yahoo is getting into the TV Upfront advertising business, with original video output aimed at getting some of those TV add dollars. In a similar vein, online video ad network Digital Broadcast Group which started the Keifer Sutherland Web show The Confession is also offering up web shows similar to TV Upfront ad presentations. Need more proof that online video providers are gunning for traditional TV dollars? Facebook has created a sort of online ad agency called Facebook Studio aimed at helping 'participants' aka ad agencies produce effective Facebook pages for a client. Facebook is also getting into the lobbying business big time, hiring two lobbying groups and adding staff to its Washington office. And I say big time because according to the Wall Street Journal, the company spent a measly $351,000 on lobbying last year. And YouTube has set up a scholarship fund along with grants to find the next great video creators
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