DON’T COUNT OUT DEAD TREE TECHNOLOGY
ONLINE VIDEO IS LIKE HAVING YOUR OWN DVR
ADVERTISING AND RODNEY DANGERFIELD
MONEY MAKING MEDIA MILLIONAIRES
COCKTAIL CHATTER
DON’T COUNT OUT DEAD TREE TECHNOLOGY: That wasn’t exactly the point of a MediaWeek Special Report looking at the 2008 media outlook, but when you crunch the numbers, like I did, you are reminded just how much of the advertising dollars they account for. Newspapers and magazines together account for nearly as much advertising spending ($73.41 Billion projected for 2007) as all of television (network, cable, spot) and radio combined ($76.77 Billion). Of course, they’re growing at a much slower rate than broadcasting. I am not going to try and summarize the report here, but instead offer a brief overview and a different way of looking at the numbers. The report offers three projections for growth from Price Waterhouse Cooper, Veronis Suhler Stevenson and ZenithOptimedia. I averaged the three to come up with a projected growth and then projected what 2008 means in actual numbers. (Yes, I know, I don’t have a life.) And I apologize, but there’s lots of numbers coming up.
Low man on the growth totem pole of course are newspapers which actually showed a decline from 2006 to 2007 in circulation and revenue, and are only expected to grow an average 2/3rds of one percent in 2008. But at around $49 Billion, it is still #1 and the 600-pound gorilla of the advertising picture. I have to confess that I didn’t realize that magazines (which comes in #2) accounted for such a huge part of the advertising dollar ($24.85 Billion projected for 2007). But, again, growth is pretty low, with an average of 4% projected for 2008. By comparison, TV in all its forms (network, cable and spot) is expected to average between 6.5% to 7%. Cable TV leads the pack at $20.2 Billion projected in 2007 and an average growth rate that will put it at roughly $21.63 Billion in 2008. Network TV comes in next with $18.45 Billion projected in 2007 and a projected growth rate that will put it at $19.68 Billion in 2008. And finally, Spot TV with a projected $18.3 Billion in 2007 growing to $19.5 Billion in 2008. Another thing I didn’t know (there’s so much I don’t know) is that radio advertising is actually larger than any of the individual TV segments, at least in 2007 with $19.82 Billion. But with a meager 2.2% average growth rate, radio will fall behind cable TV in 2008 and just barely ahead of the other two, reaching $20.26 Billion.
The wild card in all this, of course, is digital advertising. It is the third largest category of advertising, but of course that covers everything from MySpace and Yahoo to television video online and newspaper websites. Still, with an average growth rate of 19.8%, digital is on advertising steroids compared to the others. Digital in its myriad forms has projected revenues of $21.1 Billion in 2007, just barely ahead of Cable, but then leaping to a projected $25.28 Billion in 2008, just barely behind magazines. The report notes that broadcast networks are doing everything they can to leverage their brands, content and distribution system into new media; and that newspapers are leveraging their news brand online and garnering a greater growth (24%) than anybody else in their digital efforts.
ONLINE VIDEO IS LIKE HAVING YOUR OWN DVR: New research by NBC-Universal indicates that people are using online video like they use their DVR. They miss an episode. They just go online to watch it. And, says NBC’s Chief Digital Officer, George Kliavkoff, the research shows that online video viewing is not just for people wanting to watch snippets. More than four out of five (83%) who start watching an hour-long program online finish watching it online. Kliavkoff admitted he was worried that online video would “cannibalize” the on-air product. Even better, the research indicates the online viewing, like the DVR viewing actually adds to the viewing ‘incrementally.’ And, as a personal footnote, I missed the comedy Back To You that I mentioned in last week’s MfM, and it was nice to be able to go online to watch it.
As a footnote to this, DVD penetration has almost reached the level of VCR penetration, according to data from Nielsen Media. The difference is that VCR usage has been slowing declining from a high of 91.4% in May of 2002 to 86.4% in May of last year, while DVD usage has been steadily increasing from 42.6% in May of 2003 to 82.4% in May of last year.
ADVERTISING AND RODNEY DANGERFIELD: What do they have in common? They get no respect. At least, according to a survey by advertising giant J. Walter Thompson which found that only one in seven (14%) of Americans respect ad people. But, a consolation prize to my advertising friends, nearly a third (31%) saw ad people as a “necessary good” and that was better than politicians and car salesmen. Even more interesting to me was the finding that four out of five (84%) think too many things are over-hyped and three-quarters (72%) say they are tired of people trying to grab their attention “and sell me stuff.”
Okay, I have to at least acknowledge the more famous study released by the folks at J. Walter Thompson, even though it has made all the media rounds. That is people’s addiction to the Internet. The ‘snicker fact’ is that one in five actually admitted to having less sex because of the Internet. The less humorous but probably more telling factoid is that almost the same number (one in five) said they could go a whole week without the Internet but most said they couldn’t stand being without the Internet for a day (15%), or a couple of days (21%) or a few days (19%).
MONEY MAKING MEDIA MILLIONAIRES: Okay, say that five times real fast. Actually, don’t bother. Just say Oprah. Forbes magazine unofficially announced her queen of media, naming her as the top money-maker in the media world, earning $260 Million from June of 2006 to June of 2007. You’re probably saying ‘no surprise there.’ True. But how about the #2 spot – Jerry Seinfeld. Thanks to re-runs, he gets $60 Million a year. The one I wouldn’t have guessed, at #3, is Simon Cowell, who gets $45 Million a year, followed by David Letterman at $40 Million, Donald Trump (no, I don’t understand why he’s on the list either) at $32 Million, Jay Leno also at $32 Million, Phil McGraw at $30 Million, Judy Sheindlin (aka Judge Judy) at $30 Million, George Lopez at $26 Million, Keifer Sutherland at $22 Million, Regis Philbin at $21 Million, Tyra Banks at $18 Million, Rachel Ray at $16 Million, Katie Couric at $15 Million, Ellen deGeneres at $15 Million, Ryan Seacrest at $14 Million, Matt Lauer at $13 Million, Barbara Walters at $12 Million, Diane Sawyer at $12 Million and finally Meredith Viera at $10 Million. Just for the record, that’s 11 men and 9 women.
And as a footnote – Oprah also made Forbes 400 list of the world’s richest people. Even more fascinating – for the first time, everyone on that list is a Billionaire. Yes, including Oprah.
WORTH NOTING: This is somewhere between Cocktail Chatter and Factoid, but Nielsen Media has taken some of its own research advice and launched a social networking site, heynielsen.com. It is, according to the site description, “a place where you can make a name for yourself while trading opinions on TV, movies, music, personalities, web sites and more.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: According to linguist K. David Harrison, author of When Languages Die, every two weeks one of the world’s 7,000 languages falls out of use. Some 2.5 Million U.S. adults took part in online dating in the last 30 days, according to research firm Mediamark Research Inc., with men accounting for 52% and women 48% of the users. Researchers at the University of Campinas in Brazil (where sugarcane-based ethanol accounts for a third of its fuel), say they boosted ethanol yield by 17% and shaved two hours off the fermentation process by circulating the fermentation brew past six magnets. Nicholas Negraponte and the folks at the One Laptop Per Child effort have announced a buy one get one program, starting in November, in which you can buy a computer for your child and one for a child in a developing nation.
Showing posts with label Network TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Network TV. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Message From Michael -- September 24, 2007
WHO’S ON FIRST
AMERICANS’ NEWS IQ
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
WHO’S ON FIRST: The answer, when it comes to network programming, is EVERYBODY. ABC programming is on iTunes and AOL. NBC isn’t on iTunes, but it is on Amazon’s answer to iTunes, unBox, and NBC is creating its own video delivery system called NBC Direct. Fox programming is on iTunes and Unbox. And CBS is on all of the above including its own streaming video site Innertube because, says CBS Interactive chief Quincy Smith, the network is “all about open, nonexclusive, multiple partnerships.” In fact, iTunes carries ABC, CBS, MTV, ESPN, the Sci Fi Channel, Comedy Central, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Showtime and the list goes on and on. The same goes for AOL which also has A&E, The Biography Channel, CMT, Comedy Central, and again the list goes on and on. And as for Unbox, add in Adult Swim, Animal Planet, the BBC, Biography Channel, Bravo, Fuel TV, MTV, and again the list goes on and on. Then add Yahoo, Google, and of course YouTube to the plethora of online video outlets. And, of course, the networks all provide their own streaming versions of their programs. The point is that the networks are trying to get their shows in front of viewers any way they can, even if they are on sites that don’t add to the ratings. As reporter Dawn Chmielewski notes in the Los Angeles Times, network websites like CBS.com get 6 Million visitors while sites like Yahoo get 135 Million visitors.
Sidenote: I became fascinated with the number of TV shows being streamed at various sites after I looked up the newest Fox TV show, Back To You, which stars Kelsey Grammer, Fred Willard and Patricia Heaton and revolves around life in a television newsroom. No, it’s not realistic; after all, it’s a comedy, but it is funny and there are some zingers that other news people will recognize. My favorite is the 26 ½ year old News Director.
Footnote: A very good overview of the Fall 2007 Primetime TV programs can be found through MediaWeek. Marc Berman who produces the daily Programming Insider is featured on a webcast outlining ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ this season. Just to make life easier for you, I will even provide the link: http://www.nielsencast.com/ws/content_display/event/e3i700d8a6e85cce5080bf54fd95cd91fe5. And, as a side note to the footnote, you can actually try your hand at network programming on a website, tvbigshot.com, which is running a contest to test people’s programming skills.
AMERICAN NEWS IQ: A quiz created by the folks at the Pew Research Center showed that most Americans are familiar with key facts in the news about politics and Iraq. Only 6% of those surveyed could answer all 12 of the questions, but a quarter (26%) could answer 10 out of the 12 questions. Men (7.6 correct answers) scored better than women (6.3). College grads (8.2) not surprisingly scored better than high school grads (5.5). Interestingly there was a clear ascending scale in news knowledge that correlated with age with 18-29 year olds scoring the lowest (5.5 correct answers); followed by 30-49 (7.1); 50-64 (7.4) and 65+ (7.6). Now, in case you’re wondering why I’m not telling you some of the details, it’s because you can take the quiz yourself. You can check your own news IQ and then compare yourself to others by going to http://pewresearch.org/pubs/601/political-knowledge-update. (PS: I scored 12 out of 12.)
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD: That’s the lament of Newser.com’s Michael Wolff writing in Vanity Fair magazine. He makes the point that all those pushing news ventures online are ‘old’ – Barry Diller (65); Rupert Murdoch (76); Ariana Huffington (57); Jeff Jarvis (53); and the list goes on. Where are the 20-somethings like Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, he asks. He argues that some how, some way, some one will find the “Holy Grail” of news in this new media world using some kind of algorithm that defines the news process because “every advance in technology has seen the invention of a new form of news.” One of the problems is how do you do that in this multi-multi world when, for example, The New York Times makes $2 Billion a year with its paper version that reaches 1.1 Million daily readers, but only makes $250 Million on its online version that reaches 40 Million readers a month; AND while its newsgathering process costs $300 Million; AND then turns around and charges $600 a year for a subscription for material that is provided free online. In the end, he says, “news is, for better or worse, a card trick… (and) holding people’s attention is the trick.” Yet he still believes that news is meaningful and has a public purpose; that’s why he’s doing newser.com.
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS: It probably says something, although I’m not sure what, that half of the M-I-T Technology Review’s list of leading young innovators deal with computers and the Internet. The TR35 lists the 35 leading innovators under the age of 35. On the list are Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, (no explanation needed); Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon (which is a toolbar which will link you to odd websites that you have a special interest in, based on recommendations from other people who have ‘stumbled upon’ the sites), and Kevin Rose of Digg (which mixes blogging, social networking and crowdsourcing to create an online newspaper of ‘stories selected by the masses’). By the way, their respective ages are 23, 28 and 30. But even more interesting are people like the University of Washington’s Tapan Parikh, named TR35’s humanitarian of the year, for helping fishermen in Indian improve their profits by using cell phones; and TR35’s innovator of the year David Berry who, at the age of 29, is a Venture Capitalist helping to develop renewable petroleum from microbes. My favorite though may be Ivan Krstic, and not just because he is developing a system to make antivirus software unnecessary, but because, apparently, at the age of 21, it seems he has yet to finish his degree at Harvard because he keeps taking leaves to… write software interpreting data for a neuroscientist, build a patient management computer system for a hospital, scale up Facebook’s software architecture and develop security architecture for the One Laptop Per Child program, building inexpensive laptops for Third World children.
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE: According to MediaMark Research, the United States has passed a telecommunications milestone with cell-phone only households for the first time out-numbering landline-only households. The landline-only population has been larger than the cell-phone only population ever year since 2000 when the company first began measuring this. But in the latest survey, the cell-only population reached 14% compared to the 12.3% for the landline-only population. The researchers say the percentage of the population with at least one cell phone (86.2%) also passes the percentage of people who have a landline in their home (84.5%).
COCKTAIL CHATTER: A survey by the Pew Research Center found Americans evenly split on the belief that the country is divided along economic lines. Nearly half (48%) say we’re a country of “have’s and have not’s” while the same number (48%) say we are not. This is a dramatic increase from nine years ago when only a quarter of the American public (26%) believed we are a country of have’s and have not’s. Even more interesting, the number of Americans who see themselves as ‘have not’s’ has doubled in that time from 17% to 34%. Another survey by the folks at Pew, this one by Pew Global Research, finds that nearly as many countries (17) consider the United States to be an enemy as consider the country to be an ally (19). Internet giant Google has put up a prize of $30 Million to the first private enterprise that that can land a rover on the moon and beam back a gig of high definition images. A father-son research team has released a report that shows studying improves grades. I know this sounds like a Homer Simpson “doh” but apparently no-one has quantified the issue before. In an article published in the National Journal of Economic Research, they found that studying an hour a day increases student GPA’s by an average 0.36 points while playing video games for an hour each day led to a 0.24 drop in GPA for males and a 0.13 drop for females.
CONGRATULATIONS: To MfM friend and CBS Anchor Russ Mitchell, being named one of the ten outstanding leaders in the field of journalism and being award the University of Missouri’s Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.
AMERICANS’ NEWS IQ
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
WHO’S ON FIRST: The answer, when it comes to network programming, is EVERYBODY. ABC programming is on iTunes and AOL. NBC isn’t on iTunes, but it is on Amazon’s answer to iTunes, unBox, and NBC is creating its own video delivery system called NBC Direct. Fox programming is on iTunes and Unbox. And CBS is on all of the above including its own streaming video site Innertube because, says CBS Interactive chief Quincy Smith, the network is “all about open, nonexclusive, multiple partnerships.” In fact, iTunes carries ABC, CBS, MTV, ESPN, the Sci Fi Channel, Comedy Central, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Showtime and the list goes on and on. The same goes for AOL which also has A&E, The Biography Channel, CMT, Comedy Central, and again the list goes on and on. And as for Unbox, add in Adult Swim, Animal Planet, the BBC, Biography Channel, Bravo, Fuel TV, MTV, and again the list goes on and on. Then add Yahoo, Google, and of course YouTube to the plethora of online video outlets. And, of course, the networks all provide their own streaming versions of their programs. The point is that the networks are trying to get their shows in front of viewers any way they can, even if they are on sites that don’t add to the ratings. As reporter Dawn Chmielewski notes in the Los Angeles Times, network websites like CBS.com get 6 Million visitors while sites like Yahoo get 135 Million visitors.
Sidenote: I became fascinated with the number of TV shows being streamed at various sites after I looked up the newest Fox TV show, Back To You, which stars Kelsey Grammer, Fred Willard and Patricia Heaton and revolves around life in a television newsroom. No, it’s not realistic; after all, it’s a comedy, but it is funny and there are some zingers that other news people will recognize. My favorite is the 26 ½ year old News Director.
Footnote: A very good overview of the Fall 2007 Primetime TV programs can be found through MediaWeek. Marc Berman who produces the daily Programming Insider is featured on a webcast outlining ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ this season. Just to make life easier for you, I will even provide the link: http://www.nielsencast.com/ws/content_display/event/e3i700d8a6e85cce5080bf54fd95cd91fe5. And, as a side note to the footnote, you can actually try your hand at network programming on a website, tvbigshot.com, which is running a contest to test people’s programming skills.
AMERICAN NEWS IQ: A quiz created by the folks at the Pew Research Center showed that most Americans are familiar with key facts in the news about politics and Iraq. Only 6% of those surveyed could answer all 12 of the questions, but a quarter (26%) could answer 10 out of the 12 questions. Men (7.6 correct answers) scored better than women (6.3). College grads (8.2) not surprisingly scored better than high school grads (5.5). Interestingly there was a clear ascending scale in news knowledge that correlated with age with 18-29 year olds scoring the lowest (5.5 correct answers); followed by 30-49 (7.1); 50-64 (7.4) and 65+ (7.6). Now, in case you’re wondering why I’m not telling you some of the details, it’s because you can take the quiz yourself. You can check your own news IQ and then compare yourself to others by going to http://pewresearch.org/pubs/601/political-knowledge-update. (PS: I scored 12 out of 12.)
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD: That’s the lament of Newser.com’s Michael Wolff writing in Vanity Fair magazine. He makes the point that all those pushing news ventures online are ‘old’ – Barry Diller (65); Rupert Murdoch (76); Ariana Huffington (57); Jeff Jarvis (53); and the list goes on. Where are the 20-somethings like Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, he asks. He argues that some how, some way, some one will find the “Holy Grail” of news in this new media world using some kind of algorithm that defines the news process because “every advance in technology has seen the invention of a new form of news.” One of the problems is how do you do that in this multi-multi world when, for example, The New York Times makes $2 Billion a year with its paper version that reaches 1.1 Million daily readers, but only makes $250 Million on its online version that reaches 40 Million readers a month; AND while its newsgathering process costs $300 Million; AND then turns around and charges $600 a year for a subscription for material that is provided free online. In the end, he says, “news is, for better or worse, a card trick… (and) holding people’s attention is the trick.” Yet he still believes that news is meaningful and has a public purpose; that’s why he’s doing newser.com.
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS: It probably says something, although I’m not sure what, that half of the M-I-T Technology Review’s list of leading young innovators deal with computers and the Internet. The TR35 lists the 35 leading innovators under the age of 35. On the list are Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, (no explanation needed); Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon (which is a toolbar which will link you to odd websites that you have a special interest in, based on recommendations from other people who have ‘stumbled upon’ the sites), and Kevin Rose of Digg (which mixes blogging, social networking and crowdsourcing to create an online newspaper of ‘stories selected by the masses’). By the way, their respective ages are 23, 28 and 30. But even more interesting are people like the University of Washington’s Tapan Parikh, named TR35’s humanitarian of the year, for helping fishermen in Indian improve their profits by using cell phones; and TR35’s innovator of the year David Berry who, at the age of 29, is a Venture Capitalist helping to develop renewable petroleum from microbes. My favorite though may be Ivan Krstic, and not just because he is developing a system to make antivirus software unnecessary, but because, apparently, at the age of 21, it seems he has yet to finish his degree at Harvard because he keeps taking leaves to… write software interpreting data for a neuroscientist, build a patient management computer system for a hospital, scale up Facebook’s software architecture and develop security architecture for the One Laptop Per Child program, building inexpensive laptops for Third World children.
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE: According to MediaMark Research, the United States has passed a telecommunications milestone with cell-phone only households for the first time out-numbering landline-only households. The landline-only population has been larger than the cell-phone only population ever year since 2000 when the company first began measuring this. But in the latest survey, the cell-only population reached 14% compared to the 12.3% for the landline-only population. The researchers say the percentage of the population with at least one cell phone (86.2%) also passes the percentage of people who have a landline in their home (84.5%).
COCKTAIL CHATTER: A survey by the Pew Research Center found Americans evenly split on the belief that the country is divided along economic lines. Nearly half (48%) say we’re a country of “have’s and have not’s” while the same number (48%) say we are not. This is a dramatic increase from nine years ago when only a quarter of the American public (26%) believed we are a country of have’s and have not’s. Even more interesting, the number of Americans who see themselves as ‘have not’s’ has doubled in that time from 17% to 34%. Another survey by the folks at Pew, this one by Pew Global Research, finds that nearly as many countries (17) consider the United States to be an enemy as consider the country to be an ally (19). Internet giant Google has put up a prize of $30 Million to the first private enterprise that that can land a rover on the moon and beam back a gig of high definition images. A father-son research team has released a report that shows studying improves grades. I know this sounds like a Homer Simpson “doh” but apparently no-one has quantified the issue before. In an article published in the National Journal of Economic Research, they found that studying an hour a day increases student GPA’s by an average 0.36 points while playing video games for an hour each day led to a 0.24 drop in GPA for males and a 0.13 drop for females.
CONGRATULATIONS: To MfM friend and CBS Anchor Russ Mitchell, being named one of the ten outstanding leaders in the field of journalism and being award the University of Missouri’s Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Message From Michael -- February 18, 2007
DO IT YOURSELF JOURNALISM
DO IT YOURSELF TV AND RADIO
TV BEING BEATEN AT THEIR OWN GAME
THE SECRETS OF MARILYN MONROE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
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 newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
DO IT YOURSELF JOURNALISM: In the San Francisco Bay area, Clear Channel owned KFTY-TV has fired its news staff and is going to rely primarily on viewer-submitted items for its local coverage. Reading between the lines, this appears more of a cost-cutting move than any kind of social experiment. It is almost humorous to visit their website and find one person listed under the biographies link and every story on the news page appears to have been submitted by one other person. For a more serious local version of citizen journalism, a Danish newspaper (Nyhedsavisen) is merging reader submitted material with its staff material in a sort of competition between the professionals and the amateurs. And on a much more serious, and much broader scope, The Associated Press announced a partnership with website NowPublic.com to bring citizen content under the AP newsgathering umbrella. The news release notes that NowPublic.com is the world’s “largest participatory news network” with more than 60,000 contributors from 140 counties, and the AP is the world’s “largest newsgathering organization” with a staff of more than 4,000 employees in 240 bureaus in 97 countries. The AP move follows earlier, similar announcements by Reuters and the British Broadcasting Corporation.And, of course, they’re not the only ones.
The “grand-daddy” of citizen journalism initiatives may be ohmynews.com which originated in South Korea but which now has an English version. Website cyberjournalist.net lists 79 citizen journalism sites around the world. It lists everything from Al Gore’s Current.tv to WikiNews, Your Hub and down to MyMissourian.com, Ourlittlenet in Atlanta and even Blufton, Georgia’s Bluftontoday.com. Most are, as you would expect, amateurish and most are un-paid. But that is rapidly changing as well. Trend-watching website springwise.com says Generation C (for Content) is fast becoming Generation C (for Cash). Examples cited include CNN’s Exchange, Yahoo/ Reuters’ YouWitnessNews, Scoopt along with ScoopLive and SpyMedia which pay for pictures, Reporter in South Africa, and Ohmynews of course. In previous MfM’s we’ve cited all the various video sites that are now paying for content, forcing giants like YouTube to follow.
DO IT YOURSELF TV AND RADIO: It adds a whole new meaning to the term ‘reality tv,’ according to MIT’s Technology Review. It’s called Splashcast and it lets you create your own shows and broadcast channels, viewable on the web. In a previous MfM, we mentioned the website Brightcove.com which allows you to create your own online TV station. The Splashcast version combines the concepts of video blogging with dynamic syndication using the RSS concept. The article says more than 1,000 “publicity-minded users” have created channels offering a selection of multi-media shows with pictures, video, music and text even though the software was only introduced in January of this year. And if you decide you have a great face for radio, instead, the BBC Worldwide reports the development of a software called Campcaster that allows you to run an entire radio station operation off a laptop. You can store and schedule music, line up news clips and interviews and preview before going to air.On a very much related note about the personalization of the web, Yahoo has announced the release of a tool which it calls Pipes and which lets you pick and choose different feeds from the Internet and create your own online program. The beauty of the program, according to the Technology Review, is its simplicity, with an editor and execution engine that doesn’t require you to know C++ or Java to operate. Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media online publisher, calls it a “milestone in the history of the Internet… (with) enormous potential to turn the Web into a programmable environment for everyone.” And on a related note to the related note, Blip.TV has introduced a do-it-yourself, interactive advertising tool that lets people create ads to go along with their online programming. Company CEO Mike Hudack says it shifts power from the big-time networks to the content creators. Veoh Networks claims it has the most comprehensive platform for Internet video, providing DVD quality content. Video is uploaded to the Veoh website which then syndicates the video to all the other video providers, such as Facebook, YouTube, etc.
TV BEING BEATEN AT THEIR OWN GAME – VIDEO: Newspapers are actually doing a better job of selling LOCAL online video ads than television, according to research and consulting firm Borell Associates. The company says LOCAL (let me emphasize that word) online video advertising will reach $5 Billion in five years. And, as the company says in its news release, “believe it or not” newspapers are outselling television with $81 Million a year versus $32 Million. Frank Barnako who writes a media blog for MarketWatch, cites video classifieds from the San Antonio Express-News as examples of how newspapers are doing a better job than TV. But he also credits Time Warner Cable in North Carolina for doing it right, producing video advertisements for local merchants at GrandStrandNow.com. (Congratulations to friend and MfM reader Alan Mason, who is GM of the operation.)As a side note to this, research firm eMarketer predicts that podcasting will become a $400 Million a year advertising market by the year 2011, quintupling the ‘paltry’ $80 Million spent in 2006. The research says podcasting, which it called “the hot new media darling before YouTube stepped in,” failed to match the sales you would expect when you consider the proliferation of iPods andMP3 players but that is about to change.
THE SECRETS OF MARILYN MONROE: So, who did the blonde bombshell actress become infatuated with in Mexico? And, no, it wasn’t President John F. Kennedy. I don’t know who it was, but it’s all part of the intriguing 100-page dossier the Federal Bureau of Investigation put together on her and it’s one of the many documents you can find on a website http://foia.fbi.gov/alpha.htm. Did you know comedian Bud Abbott showed pornographic films at parties at his house. According to the FBI, he did. He also snuck such subversive words as “kick in the France” into his radio scripts. Olympic medal winner Jesse Owens once sent greetings to the National Negro Conference. There are files on everybody from Desi Arnaz to Andy Warhol, about groups ranging from the Black Panthers to the Ku Klux Klan. It ranges from the entertaining to the strange. For example, there’s a file on Gracie Allen, but none on George Burns. Why’s that? Regardless, there’s hours and hours of entertaining reading.
WORTH NOTING: ABC News with Charlie Gibson has taken over the #1 spot in the evening news race with 9.7 Million viewers, over-taking NBC News with Brian Williams which had 9.52 Million viewers. Now you may have heard that, but a tidbit that was over-shadowed in that news was the fact that the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric scored its best week since the show premiered, with 8 Million viewers. All of the syndicated magazine programs (Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, Extra) saw a “significant” spike in ratings with their coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
WEBSITES TO WATCH: The owners of WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., Allbritton Communications has lanched a website – politico.com, aimed at – just what its name implies – Washington politics. The site is the focus on a recent article on TVNewsday.com, which is another site to watch. ABC has a similar website in which it tracks what’s going on inside the beltway – http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 64% of Americans support teaching creationism in school. The rock group Queen have won the unofficial title of Greatest British Band of all time, actually beating out the Beatles, according to a poll in Britain. The survey said Queen got a boost in the survey because teen rock group McFly said they had been inspired by the group. The Rolling Stones came in third. The Washington Post asked its readers to come up with alternate meanings for common words. Some of the winning submissions include: Coffee, the person upon whom one coughs; Negligent, a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown; Lymph, to walk with a lisp; Testicle, a humorous question on an exam; Pokemon, a Rastafarian proctologist; and Frisbeetarianism, the belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
DO IT YOURSELF TV AND RADIO
TV BEING BEATEN AT THEIR OWN GAME
THE SECRETS OF MARILYN MONROE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
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DO IT YOURSELF JOURNALISM: In the San Francisco Bay area, Clear Channel owned KFTY-TV has fired its news staff and is going to rely primarily on viewer-submitted items for its local coverage. Reading between the lines, this appears more of a cost-cutting move than any kind of social experiment. It is almost humorous to visit their website and find one person listed under the biographies link and every story on the news page appears to have been submitted by one other person. For a more serious local version of citizen journalism, a Danish newspaper (Nyhedsavisen) is merging reader submitted material with its staff material in a sort of competition between the professionals and the amateurs. And on a much more serious, and much broader scope, The Associated Press announced a partnership with website NowPublic.com to bring citizen content under the AP newsgathering umbrella. The news release notes that NowPublic.com is the world’s “largest participatory news network” with more than 60,000 contributors from 140 counties, and the AP is the world’s “largest newsgathering organization” with a staff of more than 4,000 employees in 240 bureaus in 97 countries. The AP move follows earlier, similar announcements by Reuters and the British Broadcasting Corporation.And, of course, they’re not the only ones.
The “grand-daddy” of citizen journalism initiatives may be ohmynews.com which originated in South Korea but which now has an English version. Website cyberjournalist.net lists 79 citizen journalism sites around the world. It lists everything from Al Gore’s Current.tv to WikiNews, Your Hub and down to MyMissourian.com, Ourlittlenet in Atlanta and even Blufton, Georgia’s Bluftontoday.com. Most are, as you would expect, amateurish and most are un-paid. But that is rapidly changing as well. Trend-watching website springwise.com says Generation C (for Content) is fast becoming Generation C (for Cash). Examples cited include CNN’s Exchange, Yahoo/ Reuters’ YouWitnessNews, Scoopt along with ScoopLive and SpyMedia which pay for pictures, Reporter in South Africa, and Ohmynews of course. In previous MfM’s we’ve cited all the various video sites that are now paying for content, forcing giants like YouTube to follow.
DO IT YOURSELF TV AND RADIO: It adds a whole new meaning to the term ‘reality tv,’ according to MIT’s Technology Review. It’s called Splashcast and it lets you create your own shows and broadcast channels, viewable on the web. In a previous MfM, we mentioned the website Brightcove.com which allows you to create your own online TV station. The Splashcast version combines the concepts of video blogging with dynamic syndication using the RSS concept. The article says more than 1,000 “publicity-minded users” have created channels offering a selection of multi-media shows with pictures, video, music and text even though the software was only introduced in January of this year. And if you decide you have a great face for radio, instead, the BBC Worldwide reports the development of a software called Campcaster that allows you to run an entire radio station operation off a laptop. You can store and schedule music, line up news clips and interviews and preview before going to air.On a very much related note about the personalization of the web, Yahoo has announced the release of a tool which it calls Pipes and which lets you pick and choose different feeds from the Internet and create your own online program. The beauty of the program, according to the Technology Review, is its simplicity, with an editor and execution engine that doesn’t require you to know C++ or Java to operate. Tim O’Reilly, founder of O’Reilly Media online publisher, calls it a “milestone in the history of the Internet… (with) enormous potential to turn the Web into a programmable environment for everyone.” And on a related note to the related note, Blip.TV has introduced a do-it-yourself, interactive advertising tool that lets people create ads to go along with their online programming. Company CEO Mike Hudack says it shifts power from the big-time networks to the content creators. Veoh Networks claims it has the most comprehensive platform for Internet video, providing DVD quality content. Video is uploaded to the Veoh website which then syndicates the video to all the other video providers, such as Facebook, YouTube, etc.
TV BEING BEATEN AT THEIR OWN GAME – VIDEO: Newspapers are actually doing a better job of selling LOCAL online video ads than television, according to research and consulting firm Borell Associates. The company says LOCAL (let me emphasize that word) online video advertising will reach $5 Billion in five years. And, as the company says in its news release, “believe it or not” newspapers are outselling television with $81 Million a year versus $32 Million. Frank Barnako who writes a media blog for MarketWatch, cites video classifieds from the San Antonio Express-News as examples of how newspapers are doing a better job than TV. But he also credits Time Warner Cable in North Carolina for doing it right, producing video advertisements for local merchants at GrandStrandNow.com. (Congratulations to friend and MfM reader Alan Mason, who is GM of the operation.)As a side note to this, research firm eMarketer predicts that podcasting will become a $400 Million a year advertising market by the year 2011, quintupling the ‘paltry’ $80 Million spent in 2006. The research says podcasting, which it called “the hot new media darling before YouTube stepped in,” failed to match the sales you would expect when you consider the proliferation of iPods andMP3 players but that is about to change.
THE SECRETS OF MARILYN MONROE: So, who did the blonde bombshell actress become infatuated with in Mexico? And, no, it wasn’t President John F. Kennedy. I don’t know who it was, but it’s all part of the intriguing 100-page dossier the Federal Bureau of Investigation put together on her and it’s one of the many documents you can find on a website http://foia.fbi.gov/alpha.htm. Did you know comedian Bud Abbott showed pornographic films at parties at his house. According to the FBI, he did. He also snuck such subversive words as “kick in the France” into his radio scripts. Olympic medal winner Jesse Owens once sent greetings to the National Negro Conference. There are files on everybody from Desi Arnaz to Andy Warhol, about groups ranging from the Black Panthers to the Ku Klux Klan. It ranges from the entertaining to the strange. For example, there’s a file on Gracie Allen, but none on George Burns. Why’s that? Regardless, there’s hours and hours of entertaining reading.
WORTH NOTING: ABC News with Charlie Gibson has taken over the #1 spot in the evening news race with 9.7 Million viewers, over-taking NBC News with Brian Williams which had 9.52 Million viewers. Now you may have heard that, but a tidbit that was over-shadowed in that news was the fact that the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric scored its best week since the show premiered, with 8 Million viewers. All of the syndicated magazine programs (Inside Edition, Entertainment Tonight, Extra) saw a “significant” spike in ratings with their coverage of the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
WEBSITES TO WATCH: The owners of WJLA-TV in Washington, D.C., Allbritton Communications has lanched a website – politico.com, aimed at – just what its name implies – Washington politics. The site is the focus on a recent article on TVNewsday.com, which is another site to watch. ABC has a similar website in which it tracks what’s going on inside the beltway – http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: According to a survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, 64% of Americans support teaching creationism in school. The rock group Queen have won the unofficial title of Greatest British Band of all time, actually beating out the Beatles, according to a poll in Britain. The survey said Queen got a boost in the survey because teen rock group McFly said they had been inspired by the group. The Rolling Stones came in third. The Washington Post asked its readers to come up with alternate meanings for common words. Some of the winning submissions include: Coffee, the person upon whom one coughs; Negligent, a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown; Lymph, to walk with a lisp; Testicle, a humorous question on an exam; Pokemon, a Rastafarian proctologist; and Frisbeetarianism, the belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.
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