SWEEPS
THE REPLACEMENT FOR NEWS
THE SHIFTING SANDS OF TV
LET ME COUNT THE WAYS
CONSULTANTS ARE YOUR FRIENDS
COCKTAIL CHATTER
HARRY POTTER’S CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY
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: Hear that tick, tick, tick sound? It’s not the clock in the stomach of the alligator in Peter Pan. It’s the countdown to sweeps. Eight days to go. Here are some things for you to mull over as we go into sweeps.
The REPLACEMENT FOR NEWS: According to The Conference Board, television broadcasts have replaced news as the most widely viewed content online. That fact was buried in the board’s Consumer Internet Barometer which found that one out of six (16%) of American households use the Internet to view TV broadcasts. That number was double that of a year ago. The other online preferences from the survey are entertainment (three quarters of online households use the Internet for entertainment purposes on a daily basis), sports, previews and “additional content.” Three out of five online TV viewers say the main reason for watching TV broadcasts online was “convenience.” More than a third choose online viewing in order to avoid commercials. The executive vice president of study co-author TNS says that even though only a small percentage of people say online viewing has reduced their traditional TV viewing, watching TV shows online “is going to have a huge impact on the way brands and advertisers communicate with viewers.”
THE SHIFTING SANDS OF TV: Here’s another one of those ‘buried’ statements in a press release. Digital video recording service TiVo reports that nearly two-thirds of ALL viewing during PREMIERE week was done on a time-shifted basis. What is equally interesting was that sports programming was NOT time shifted as much as other programs. For example, according to the company’s news release, ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy in the number one spot had a LIVE rating of 7.399% but an additional RECORDED rating of a whopping 19.865%. NFL Football in that same week had a LIVE rating of 8.378% but its RECORDED rating was only 0.668%. That almost seems counter-intuitive. In the same vein, you would think that a contest program like ABC’s Dancing With the Stars would score high, but nope. It was the #4 program in premiere week in LIVE rating, but it was much lower (7.551%) when it came to RECORDED rating.
LET ME COUNT THE WAYS: That all points out that there is no longer just one way to rank a television program. There is of course “Live” – Nielsen’s measure of who watched the program while it actually aired. Live-plus-SD (same day), which is the semi-official standard and Live-plus seven – all indicating recorded programming viewed after the actual live airing. Then there is the new measurement -- C3, which is who watched commercials either live or in a recorded form. But there is also the most Tivo’d shows, Video On Demand shows, and television show websites. And, from looking at a number of these over the past two weeks, they don’t always match up. Now, forgive me if I don’t get this 100% right; it obviously changes week to week; but there is some message in all this that smarter people than me could probably figure out.
For example, the top rated program, using Live&SD, for the week just ended (10/21) was CBS’s CSI, with 14.5 Million homes, followed by ABC’s Dancing with the Stars, with 14.4 Million homes, and then ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy with 13.5 Million homes. But then, as noted above, the most Tivo’d program by a wide margin in premiere week was Grey’s Anatomy. But it drops to number five when it comes to popular TV websites (at least for the week of October 6th) with only 3.26% of the Internet market share. The most popular website, by a wide margin, was NBC’s Deal or No Deal which didn’t even make the top 10 in ratings (it was #21) but which had a whopping 13.6% of the Internet market share, followed by Dancing With the Stars in the #2 position with 10.63% of the market share.
Consultants are your friends: Oh, well, maybe not all of them, but at least my clients would say that… I think. Actually, a study by a professor at Arizona State University says that despite all the stories about how news directors hated consultants, in actual fact most of them endorsed consulting as “one of the (field’s) greatest tools.” Critics charged that consultants represented “a rape of journalistic responsibility by upper management” because they urge stations to provide news that is “not what the public needs but what it wants.” But writing in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, professor Craig Allen quotes early reports from the Radio Television News Directors’ Association that “consultancy is the best thing that ever happened to talented newscasters.” And news directors who recognized that it is a business. Or, as Craig put it, “television news was a business-journalism dialectic long before this concept (consulting) was popularized in empirical studies.”
In the same journal publication, Indiana University professor Mike Conway reviews the beginnings of television from 1941 to 1948 when the focus was on “content and visualization” and argues that “news would be best served if today’s news executives take a page from television’s news pioneers and put the emphasis on the stories and remember the newscaster is best utilized as a guest in our living room.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: George Harrison became the final Beatle to make his solo albums available digitally on iTunes, Amazon.com, and the Zune Marketplace. The world is still waiting for the Beatles catalog to become available after Paul McCartney was quoted saying a deal was imminent in May. According to Ars Technica, the starting salary for a computer sciences graduate is $53,051. Frito-Lay which scored lots of publicity for its consumer generated television spot in last year’s Super Bowl is doing it again, calling for the best consumer-written song to be played in the game in February. At Tokyo’s Ceatec 2007 exhibition, Mitsubishi which is better known for its cars and Japan’s NTT DoCoMo mobile service provider unveiled a cell phone which has a built-in bad-breath monitor, along with a pulse meter, body-fat analyzer and pedometer. Senior executives prefer getting their news and information by print rather than by electronic means, according to a survey by Marketing firm Doremus along with the Financial Times. Pharmaceutical giant Merck reports that the number of people with Alzheimer’s is expected to soar over the next 40 years from 5.5 Million to 14 Million as baby boomers reach retirement.
HARRY POTTER’S CLOAK OF INVISIBILITY: I admit it. This is way over my head, but it’s so interesting, I thought it worth sharing. There is a substance called “metamaterial” which is used to make distortion free lenses, powerful microscopes AND “cloaking devices that make objects invisible.” Normally, light bends slightly when it hits material. “Metamaterials” bend light the OTHER way – what scientists call a “negative index of refraction.” Metamaterials kind of route the light around the object, making it invisible. Now, researchers at Princeton University have demonstrated “metamaterials” that are both higher performing and easier to make, which metamaterials and invisibility applicable and more of a reality.
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.
Showing posts with label Sweeps. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sweeps. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Message From Michael -- May 21, 2007
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License.
SWEEPS AND WEBSITES
UPFRONT
TELEVISION’S FUTURE – A CQ REPORT
A MECHANICAL LOOK AT TELEVISION
OUTSOURCING JOURNALISM
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.
SWEEPS: Theoretically you should be receiving this about 8:00 a.m. Monday morning. That means you have exactly 88 hours left in the May sweeps. Here is an interesting sidebar to the ratings race. According to Nielsen/ Net Ratings the leading network site (in April, so it’s a little old) was Fox with 8.5 Million unique visitors, up 39% from last year. Close behind was ABC with 8.3 Million, up 75% from last year and still close behind was NBC with 8.2 Million unique visitors, up 14% from last year. Trailing in definite last place was CBS with 4.5 Million unique visitors, up only 13% from last year.
UPFRONT: Just as I couldn’t produce this week’s MfM without mentioning sweeps, I couldn’t not mention (yes, I know, a double negative) the Network Upfront presentations for the Fall programming schedule. No comment. Just a mention. Newsletters like Cynopsis and The Programming Insider give better reports.
TELEVISION’S FUTURE – A CQ REPORT: A recently released special report by leading political journalism publication Congressional Quarterly raises the question – Will TV remain the dominant mass medium? Unfortunately, it never actually answers the question, although it provides a nice summary of the various issues. That’s not to say it doesn’t make some interesting points such as audience fragmentation. Then again, you already know about that. But how about the idea that fragmentation has disintegrated the concept of a common culture created by television with its mass audience. Everybody watched I Love Lucy and The Ed Sullivan Show or listened to Top 40 or read the Book-of-the-Month Club selection. No more. What the report does best though is provide some insightful, thought-provoking quotes which are worth repeating. And so I’m going to do just that:
“We’re gonna surround consumers with media. We’re not gonna let them cut us off and move away from our brand.” -- John Skipper, ESPN’s executive vice president for content, making the point that ESPN is no longer a television company, but instead is a ‘sports media company.’
“We’re in a moment in time when media power operates top down from corporate boardrooms and bottom up from teenagers’ bedrooms.” -- Henry Jenkins, director of the comparative media studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“The Internet has behaved like a serial killer. First, the print media suffered, and then the music industry suffered. Perhaps television is next.” -- Daniel Franklin, executive editor of The Economist.
“The barrier to entry – the once-formidable cost of shooting and editing footage – has almost disappeared. But what’s still in short supply, and always will rise to the top, is good ideas.” -- Jeffrey Cole, director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future, talking about online video and user generated content.
“In 1991 when a bystander videotaped the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, the incident was almost unbelievable – not the violence but the recording of it. (But now) the distinction between amateur and professional photojournalists (is) wearing away.” -- James Poniewozik, media critic for Time magazine, talking about cell phone videos.
“The TV is actually growing to other devices… because of the programming.” -- Chris Pizzuro, vice president of digital and new media advertising sales and marketing for Turner Entertainment, making the point that computers and iPods are becoming, in effect, TV sets.
“Advertising is suffering because of the sheer amount of it, the lack of innovation within traditional advertising formats and the power that media fragmentation and technology give to consumers to tune out the noise.” -- Tom Himpe, author of Advertising is Dead: Long Live Advertising.
“It’s a case of the rich getting richer. If people are passionate about your programming, they will watch it and find ways of watching it.” -- Mark Loughney, vice president of sales and strategy research for ABC-TV.
“When we see that big box in the living room, we think of channels. There’s no reason for television to be divided by that, other than convention.” -- Andrew Kantor, technology reporter for the Roanoke Times and columnist for USAToday.com.
“The changes of the next five years will dwarf the changes of the last 50.” -- Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal’s television group.
“It’s great to be given the keys to the Library of Congress, but if there’s no card catalog, it’s not much use.” -- Todd Herman, new media strategist for Microsoft, talking about the need for search engines.
“It is now possible – even common – to go about your day in America and consume only what you wish to see and hear.” -- Brian Williams, Anchor, NBC News.
“Ultimately the biggest story of the 21st Century will be the fracturing of the 20th Century audience.” -- Robert J. Thompson, founding director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television, Syracuse University.
“The common culture of my youth is gone for good… splintered beyond repair by the emergence of the Web-based technologies that so maximized and facilitated culture choice as to make the broad-based offerings of the old mass media look bland and unchallenging by comparison.” -- Terry Treachout, media critic.
“If I had to describe the future of TV in one word, it would be -- ‘more’.” -- Mike Bloxham, director of research at Ball State University’s Center for Media Design.
A MECHANICAL LOOK AT TELEVISION: Okay, if the exalted Congressional Quarterly won’t tell us about the future of television, who will? Popular Mechanics will. You remember Popular Mechanics. The magazine that showed your Dad how to put together a tube TV in the 50’s. The magazine’s Senior Technology Editor Glenn Derene makes the point that 70% of Americans go online according to the latest research while Televisions are in 98% of American homes. Anywhere from 15% to 30% of the U.S. population still does not use computers even though they’ve been around for 30 years. Televisions were in 70% of the U.S. homes within 10 years of being introduced and DVD players were in 82% of households within 9 years of introduction. And in case you think he’s being a technological Neanderthal, Derene makes no bones about the fact that PC’s are “far more useful” than TV’s. Instead he argues that PC’s have always been an “awkward consumer electronics” device while TV’s have been easier to understand and use. Of course he notes that will change as people grow up with the more complex computer and, ironically, as TV’s are made more complicated.
And as a side note to this, HDNet founder Mark Cuban and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley argued before a Congressional subcommittee looking at new technology that online TV is not a threat to traditional TV. They see it as a complementary service, rather than a primary one. And as a side note to the side note, a study by Forrester Research shows that half of European broadband users (who have been earlier adopters than U.S. users) are watching at least some television on their computers.
OUTSOURCING JOURNALISM: All right, I try to avoid reporting on stories that have already been headlined elsewhere, but this is so weird that it’s worth repeating. A ‘news’ operation in California (I was going to say – where else – but that’s too sarcastic) is outsourcing coverage of its local city council meeting to two journalists in India. As I get it, the city council airs its meetings on the local cable channel. That channel is being sent by the folks at Pasadenanow.com over broadband pipes to India where two ‘journalists’ watch it and report on it. I should note that the two journalists were selected from an online ad, and they are both graduates of the UC-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. BTW, the editor and publisher of the Pasadena Now website used to run a clothing business with manufacturing help from Vietnam and India.
STTYWYAK: It’s time to revive an old MfM feature – Studies That Tell You What You Already Know. (BTW -- Pronounced Stee-Wee-Ak.) The latest is a report by eROI that nearly nine out of 10 email marketers (87%) say relevant content within the e-mail message is --- shock of shocks – “very important.” That stunning news is only matched by the fact that eight out of 10 marketers (81%) say deliverability is “very important.”
On the flip side of the relevance coin, a study by market research and consulting firm Focalyst found that – contrary to popular marketing opinion – older people, most notably Baby Boomers, are not as brand loyal as thought. Less than a quarter were loyal to a particular brand of television (22%) or computers (24%) or clothing (27%). The report which notes that adults over age 42 account for $3 Trillion in consumer spending annually ARE loyal when companies give customized service or more personalized attention.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: An enviromental website called zerofootprint.net has designed an online system that allows you to calculate your “carbon footprint” – as in how much carbon you personally generate. More than 12.8 Million new websites have been added to the net in the last five months, according to Netcraft LTD., an increase from 7.5 million in the same period last year. More than half of Americans (59%) say religion’s influence on life is waning, according to a Pew Research poll. And more than half (55%) of global executives say they use, or plan to use, blogs as a business tool, according to research firm Melcrum.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com 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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
SWEEPS AND WEBSITES
UPFRONT
TELEVISION’S FUTURE – A CQ REPORT
A MECHANICAL LOOK AT TELEVISION
OUTSOURCING JOURNALISM
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.
SWEEPS: Theoretically you should be receiving this about 8:00 a.m. Monday morning. That means you have exactly 88 hours left in the May sweeps. Here is an interesting sidebar to the ratings race. According to Nielsen/ Net Ratings the leading network site (in April, so it’s a little old) was Fox with 8.5 Million unique visitors, up 39% from last year. Close behind was ABC with 8.3 Million, up 75% from last year and still close behind was NBC with 8.2 Million unique visitors, up 14% from last year. Trailing in definite last place was CBS with 4.5 Million unique visitors, up only 13% from last year.
UPFRONT: Just as I couldn’t produce this week’s MfM without mentioning sweeps, I couldn’t not mention (yes, I know, a double negative) the Network Upfront presentations for the Fall programming schedule. No comment. Just a mention. Newsletters like Cynopsis and The Programming Insider give better reports.
TELEVISION’S FUTURE – A CQ REPORT: A recently released special report by leading political journalism publication Congressional Quarterly raises the question – Will TV remain the dominant mass medium? Unfortunately, it never actually answers the question, although it provides a nice summary of the various issues. That’s not to say it doesn’t make some interesting points such as audience fragmentation. Then again, you already know about that. But how about the idea that fragmentation has disintegrated the concept of a common culture created by television with its mass audience. Everybody watched I Love Lucy and The Ed Sullivan Show or listened to Top 40 or read the Book-of-the-Month Club selection. No more. What the report does best though is provide some insightful, thought-provoking quotes which are worth repeating. And so I’m going to do just that:
“We’re gonna surround consumers with media. We’re not gonna let them cut us off and move away from our brand.” -- John Skipper, ESPN’s executive vice president for content, making the point that ESPN is no longer a television company, but instead is a ‘sports media company.’
“We’re in a moment in time when media power operates top down from corporate boardrooms and bottom up from teenagers’ bedrooms.” -- Henry Jenkins, director of the comparative media studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“The Internet has behaved like a serial killer. First, the print media suffered, and then the music industry suffered. Perhaps television is next.” -- Daniel Franklin, executive editor of The Economist.
“The barrier to entry – the once-formidable cost of shooting and editing footage – has almost disappeared. But what’s still in short supply, and always will rise to the top, is good ideas.” -- Jeffrey Cole, director of the University of Southern California’s Center for the Digital Future, talking about online video and user generated content.
“In 1991 when a bystander videotaped the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, the incident was almost unbelievable – not the violence but the recording of it. (But now) the distinction between amateur and professional photojournalists (is) wearing away.” -- James Poniewozik, media critic for Time magazine, talking about cell phone videos.
“The TV is actually growing to other devices… because of the programming.” -- Chris Pizzuro, vice president of digital and new media advertising sales and marketing for Turner Entertainment, making the point that computers and iPods are becoming, in effect, TV sets.
“Advertising is suffering because of the sheer amount of it, the lack of innovation within traditional advertising formats and the power that media fragmentation and technology give to consumers to tune out the noise.” -- Tom Himpe, author of Advertising is Dead: Long Live Advertising.
“It’s a case of the rich getting richer. If people are passionate about your programming, they will watch it and find ways of watching it.” -- Mark Loughney, vice president of sales and strategy research for ABC-TV.
“When we see that big box in the living room, we think of channels. There’s no reason for television to be divided by that, other than convention.” -- Andrew Kantor, technology reporter for the Roanoke Times and columnist for USAToday.com.
“The changes of the next five years will dwarf the changes of the last 50.” -- Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal’s television group.
“It’s great to be given the keys to the Library of Congress, but if there’s no card catalog, it’s not much use.” -- Todd Herman, new media strategist for Microsoft, talking about the need for search engines.
“It is now possible – even common – to go about your day in America and consume only what you wish to see and hear.” -- Brian Williams, Anchor, NBC News.
“Ultimately the biggest story of the 21st Century will be the fracturing of the 20th Century audience.” -- Robert J. Thompson, founding director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television, Syracuse University.
“The common culture of my youth is gone for good… splintered beyond repair by the emergence of the Web-based technologies that so maximized and facilitated culture choice as to make the broad-based offerings of the old mass media look bland and unchallenging by comparison.” -- Terry Treachout, media critic.
“If I had to describe the future of TV in one word, it would be -- ‘more’.” -- Mike Bloxham, director of research at Ball State University’s Center for Media Design.
A MECHANICAL LOOK AT TELEVISION: Okay, if the exalted Congressional Quarterly won’t tell us about the future of television, who will? Popular Mechanics will. You remember Popular Mechanics. The magazine that showed your Dad how to put together a tube TV in the 50’s. The magazine’s Senior Technology Editor Glenn Derene makes the point that 70% of Americans go online according to the latest research while Televisions are in 98% of American homes. Anywhere from 15% to 30% of the U.S. population still does not use computers even though they’ve been around for 30 years. Televisions were in 70% of the U.S. homes within 10 years of being introduced and DVD players were in 82% of households within 9 years of introduction. And in case you think he’s being a technological Neanderthal, Derene makes no bones about the fact that PC’s are “far more useful” than TV’s. Instead he argues that PC’s have always been an “awkward consumer electronics” device while TV’s have been easier to understand and use. Of course he notes that will change as people grow up with the more complex computer and, ironically, as TV’s are made more complicated.
And as a side note to this, HDNet founder Mark Cuban and YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley argued before a Congressional subcommittee looking at new technology that online TV is not a threat to traditional TV. They see it as a complementary service, rather than a primary one. And as a side note to the side note, a study by Forrester Research shows that half of European broadband users (who have been earlier adopters than U.S. users) are watching at least some television on their computers.
OUTSOURCING JOURNALISM: All right, I try to avoid reporting on stories that have already been headlined elsewhere, but this is so weird that it’s worth repeating. A ‘news’ operation in California (I was going to say – where else – but that’s too sarcastic) is outsourcing coverage of its local city council meeting to two journalists in India. As I get it, the city council airs its meetings on the local cable channel. That channel is being sent by the folks at Pasadenanow.com over broadband pipes to India where two ‘journalists’ watch it and report on it. I should note that the two journalists were selected from an online ad, and they are both graduates of the UC-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. BTW, the editor and publisher of the Pasadena Now website used to run a clothing business with manufacturing help from Vietnam and India.
STTYWYAK: It’s time to revive an old MfM feature – Studies That Tell You What You Already Know. (BTW -- Pronounced Stee-Wee-Ak.) The latest is a report by eROI that nearly nine out of 10 email marketers (87%) say relevant content within the e-mail message is --- shock of shocks – “very important.” That stunning news is only matched by the fact that eight out of 10 marketers (81%) say deliverability is “very important.”
On the flip side of the relevance coin, a study by market research and consulting firm Focalyst found that – contrary to popular marketing opinion – older people, most notably Baby Boomers, are not as brand loyal as thought. Less than a quarter were loyal to a particular brand of television (22%) or computers (24%) or clothing (27%). The report which notes that adults over age 42 account for $3 Trillion in consumer spending annually ARE loyal when companies give customized service or more personalized attention.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: An enviromental website called zerofootprint.net has designed an online system that allows you to calculate your “carbon footprint” – as in how much carbon you personally generate. More than 12.8 Million new websites have been added to the net in the last five months, according to Netcraft LTD., an increase from 7.5 million in the same period last year. More than half of Americans (59%) say religion’s influence on life is waning, according to a Pew Research poll. And more than half (55%) of global executives say they use, or plan to use, blogs as a business tool, according to research firm Melcrum.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com 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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Message from Michael -- April 23, 2007
VIRGINIA TECH
SWEEPS
AN MFM MEDIA MATTERS MINUTE
BILLIONAIRES WANTED
BILLIONAIRE’S ADVICE ON NEWSPAPERS
THE BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN’S PRINCIPLES
TAXPAYERS WANTED
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.
VIRGINIA TECH: Those two words are going to take on an added meaning after the events of last week, just like… 9-11… Columbine… and Oklahoma City. I am not going to add to the avalanche of words written, but I can’t and won’t ignore it. And neither should you. I would urge every news operation to do a self-examination to see if they would be ready to handle such a catastrophic event in their community, and I would urge every member of the media to do a self-examination to define the ethical and moral principles that would guide their coverage. And do it now, before it happens; it’s too late to sort these things out when it happens. Oooh, that’s very preachy of me. Sorry. Let’s go on.
SWEEPS: Yes, here it comes – the May sweeps, the most critical ratings period of the year, the one that will determine your sales department’s future, the most hotly contested time of the year, the… Okay, you get it. Don’t get nervous or anything.
AN MFM MEDIA MATTERS MINUTE: In last week’s MfM, I warned or promised that I would spend much of this week’s report on the world’s 2nd richest man -- Billionaire Warren Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders. There is a wealth of insights and ideas worth thinking about. And just to make it more interesting, I am also including remarks from Fox/ News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch’s letter to shareholders. But I didn’t want to ignore some of the media stories from the last week. So, here it is:
Coincidental to the incident in Virginia Tech, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report on media violence that shows ‘improvement’ but indicates the entertainment industry has more work to do. Despite the so-called information revolution, a study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that today’s citizens’ know about the same as people 20 years about news leaders and major news events. Fewer people could name the vice president, their state’s governor, the president of Russia or knew that America has a trade deficit. More though rightly identified Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hillary Clinton and knew that the Democrats control Congress. MySpace has launched a new aggregation service that will rank news stories and headlines on the basis of user feedback. Controversial broadcaster Al Jazeera which has been unable to get clearance on any U.S. Cable operation, is launching an English-language news channel on YouTube. A survey by consulting firm Accenture found that more than half (57%) of people in the media identified ‘user generated content’ as one of the biggest threats to the global media and entertainment industry. A survey by research firm Zogby International found that more than half (53%) of Americans would replace their satellite or cable TV in their homes with broadband TV if the content were similar. Page views for newspaper websites increased 27% year to year during the second half of 2006, according to Newspaper Audience Data.
BILLIONAIRES WANTED: Buffett is looking for his replacement. Of course the person should have an impressive investment record, but he says they also need to be “genetically programmed” to recognize and avoid serious risks. Underlying this is “temperament” which Buffett says should include independent thinking, emotional stability and, “a keen understanding both human and institutional behavior (because it) is vital to long-term investment success.” Okay, maybe you don’t qualify, but you might qualify for a position on his board of directors which pay upwards of a quarter million dollars. The ‘long-standing’ criteria is that you be “owner oriented, business-savvy, interested and truly independent.” Buffett emphasizes the independence because he says too many directors become enamored of the salary and perks which have soared in recent years thanks to what Buffett jokingly says is corporate America’s favorite consultant – Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo – which emphasizes things like being a woman… or a Hispanic… or from abroad… when what is needed is someone who thinks “like an intelligent owner.” Buffett facetiously notes that his cynicism about corporate compensation has meant that he has become the “Typhoid Mary” of compensation committees and has never been nominated for the compensation committee of any of the 19 boards he sits on.
To provide some perspective, here are the newest additions to their board. Buffett chose Susan Decker, the CFO of Yahoo, because, he says, she scores well on his four criteria, plus at age 44 is young – “an attribute, as you may have noticed, that your chairman has long lacked.” Murdoch on the other hand chose two: former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige because of his insistence on system-wide accountability and because “his deep knowledge of education will be an asset for a company whose lifeblood is the literacy of its consumers;” and Jose Maria Aznar who, as President of Spain, “enacted a bold array of reforms that catapulted the Spanish economy to the forefront of Europe” and who showed “courage as a leader in the war on terror.”
BUFFETT ON NEWSPAPERS: The fundamentals of the business are eroding. The slide will continue. They’re losing ground in the ‘battle for eyeballs.’ The economic potential of newspaper Internet site is only a fraction of the past performance of newspapers. Yet Buffett says he has no intention of selling his ownership in the Buffalo News. (He also has an 18% stake in the Washington Post group.) And it isn’t because he reads five newspapers a day or that he believes, as he does, that a free press is key to a free democracy. No, it’s because of Principle #11 in his list of Business Principles – he doesn’t believe in “gin rummy managerial behavior” which he defines as discarding your least promising business at each turn. As long as there is a reasonable expectation of cash flow, good managers in place and good labor relations and barring an irreversible cash drain, he says he will hold on to a business. Besides he is hopeful that some combination of print and online activity will ward off an economic doomsday for papers. Interestingly, he predicts that wealthy local citizens – or, as he phrases it -- ‘non-economic individual buyers’ – will emerge as owners, just like the sports franchise owners.
MURDOCH ON NEWSPAPERS: Except for the fact that Murdoch makes no pretense of holding onto under-performing business, his comments about newspapers are remarkably similar to Buffett’s. Murdoch shows some of the same affection, calling the print business “the heart of this company” and he argues that it is much too early to pronounce the death of print media. But there are challenges, as he says, with survey after survey showing newspapers are less integral to people’s lives with each passing year and that younger people are prefer alternative means of getting the news. “Yet,” Murdoch writes, “the hunger for news and information – for content – is not fading. It is intensifying.”
As a side note, News Corporation chair Rupert Murdoch says sporting events – along with live news – are as close to “DVR-proof” as programming gets.
THE BUFFETT BUSINESS PRINCIPLES: In 1983, Buffett set down 13 principles to help shareholders understand his managerial approach. In addition to Principle #11 mentioned above, here are just a few to give you a flavor of his thinking: Our attitude is partnership and (we) think of our shareholders as owner partners… We eat our own cooking (as in he invests in the same companies he recommends)… We use debt sparingly… We will only do with your money what we would do with our own… We feel noble intentions should be checked periodically against results… We will be candid in our reporting to you… As a company with a major communications business, it would be inexcusable for us to apply lesser standards of accuracy, balance and incisiveness when reporting on ourselves than we would expect news people to apply when reporting on others… Despite our policy of candor, we will discuss our activities in marketable securities only to the extent legally required… Good investment ideas are rare, valuable and subject to competitive appropriation just as good product or business acquisition ideas are.
This year, Buffett added in the concept of Intrinsic Value. The simple definition is that it’s the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. But how to calculate intrinsic value is not so simple and two people looking at the same set of facts with come up with different figures.
THE MURDOCH BUSINESS PRINCIPLES: The principles are laid out during Murdoch’s examination of his cable business. Topping his list – be willing to ignore or even take on conventional wisdom. Just behind that is the admonition to “invest wisely and early in a new business.” Third, be patient as the new effort finds its footing. Fourth, enjoy the growth and profitability as the business matures but always be thinking about and building the next generation of new channel offerings. As Murdoch says, “the elements are simple to understand, if not always easy to implement.”
TAXPAYERS WANTED: To put Buffett’s wealth in perspective, consider this: his company Berkshire-Hathaway will pay about $4.4 Billion in federal income tax on its 2006 earnings. In its last fiscal year the U.S. government spent $2.6 Trillion – about $7 Billion a day. Thus, Buffett notes, his company picked up the tab for ALL federal expenditures (social security, medicare, the armed services) for more than half of one day. He notes that if there were 600 taxpayers like his company, no one else in American would need to pay ANY federal income or payroll taxes.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com 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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
SWEEPS
AN MFM MEDIA MATTERS MINUTE
BILLIONAIRES WANTED
BILLIONAIRE’S ADVICE ON NEWSPAPERS
THE BILLIONAIRE BUSINESSMAN’S PRINCIPLES
TAXPAYERS WANTED
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VIRGINIA TECH: Those two words are going to take on an added meaning after the events of last week, just like… 9-11… Columbine… and Oklahoma City. I am not going to add to the avalanche of words written, but I can’t and won’t ignore it. And neither should you. I would urge every news operation to do a self-examination to see if they would be ready to handle such a catastrophic event in their community, and I would urge every member of the media to do a self-examination to define the ethical and moral principles that would guide their coverage. And do it now, before it happens; it’s too late to sort these things out when it happens. Oooh, that’s very preachy of me. Sorry. Let’s go on.
SWEEPS: Yes, here it comes – the May sweeps, the most critical ratings period of the year, the one that will determine your sales department’s future, the most hotly contested time of the year, the… Okay, you get it. Don’t get nervous or anything.
AN MFM MEDIA MATTERS MINUTE: In last week’s MfM, I warned or promised that I would spend much of this week’s report on the world’s 2nd richest man -- Billionaire Warren Buffett’s annual letter to shareholders. There is a wealth of insights and ideas worth thinking about. And just to make it more interesting, I am also including remarks from Fox/ News Corporation chairman Rupert Murdoch’s letter to shareholders. But I didn’t want to ignore some of the media stories from the last week. So, here it is:
Coincidental to the incident in Virginia Tech, the Federal Trade Commission issued a report on media violence that shows ‘improvement’ but indicates the entertainment industry has more work to do. Despite the so-called information revolution, a study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that today’s citizens’ know about the same as people 20 years about news leaders and major news events. Fewer people could name the vice president, their state’s governor, the president of Russia or knew that America has a trade deficit. More though rightly identified Arnold Schwarzenegger and Hillary Clinton and knew that the Democrats control Congress. MySpace has launched a new aggregation service that will rank news stories and headlines on the basis of user feedback. Controversial broadcaster Al Jazeera which has been unable to get clearance on any U.S. Cable operation, is launching an English-language news channel on YouTube. A survey by consulting firm Accenture found that more than half (57%) of people in the media identified ‘user generated content’ as one of the biggest threats to the global media and entertainment industry. A survey by research firm Zogby International found that more than half (53%) of Americans would replace their satellite or cable TV in their homes with broadband TV if the content were similar. Page views for newspaper websites increased 27% year to year during the second half of 2006, according to Newspaper Audience Data.
BILLIONAIRES WANTED: Buffett is looking for his replacement. Of course the person should have an impressive investment record, but he says they also need to be “genetically programmed” to recognize and avoid serious risks. Underlying this is “temperament” which Buffett says should include independent thinking, emotional stability and, “a keen understanding both human and institutional behavior (because it) is vital to long-term investment success.” Okay, maybe you don’t qualify, but you might qualify for a position on his board of directors which pay upwards of a quarter million dollars. The ‘long-standing’ criteria is that you be “owner oriented, business-savvy, interested and truly independent.” Buffett emphasizes the independence because he says too many directors become enamored of the salary and perks which have soared in recent years thanks to what Buffett jokingly says is corporate America’s favorite consultant – Ratchet, Ratchet and Bingo – which emphasizes things like being a woman… or a Hispanic… or from abroad… when what is needed is someone who thinks “like an intelligent owner.” Buffett facetiously notes that his cynicism about corporate compensation has meant that he has become the “Typhoid Mary” of compensation committees and has never been nominated for the compensation committee of any of the 19 boards he sits on.
To provide some perspective, here are the newest additions to their board. Buffett chose Susan Decker, the CFO of Yahoo, because, he says, she scores well on his four criteria, plus at age 44 is young – “an attribute, as you may have noticed, that your chairman has long lacked.” Murdoch on the other hand chose two: former U.S. Secretary of Education Rod Paige because of his insistence on system-wide accountability and because “his deep knowledge of education will be an asset for a company whose lifeblood is the literacy of its consumers;” and Jose Maria Aznar who, as President of Spain, “enacted a bold array of reforms that catapulted the Spanish economy to the forefront of Europe” and who showed “courage as a leader in the war on terror.”
BUFFETT ON NEWSPAPERS: The fundamentals of the business are eroding. The slide will continue. They’re losing ground in the ‘battle for eyeballs.’ The economic potential of newspaper Internet site is only a fraction of the past performance of newspapers. Yet Buffett says he has no intention of selling his ownership in the Buffalo News. (He also has an 18% stake in the Washington Post group.) And it isn’t because he reads five newspapers a day or that he believes, as he does, that a free press is key to a free democracy. No, it’s because of Principle #11 in his list of Business Principles – he doesn’t believe in “gin rummy managerial behavior” which he defines as discarding your least promising business at each turn. As long as there is a reasonable expectation of cash flow, good managers in place and good labor relations and barring an irreversible cash drain, he says he will hold on to a business. Besides he is hopeful that some combination of print and online activity will ward off an economic doomsday for papers. Interestingly, he predicts that wealthy local citizens – or, as he phrases it -- ‘non-economic individual buyers’ – will emerge as owners, just like the sports franchise owners.
MURDOCH ON NEWSPAPERS: Except for the fact that Murdoch makes no pretense of holding onto under-performing business, his comments about newspapers are remarkably similar to Buffett’s. Murdoch shows some of the same affection, calling the print business “the heart of this company” and he argues that it is much too early to pronounce the death of print media. But there are challenges, as he says, with survey after survey showing newspapers are less integral to people’s lives with each passing year and that younger people are prefer alternative means of getting the news. “Yet,” Murdoch writes, “the hunger for news and information – for content – is not fading. It is intensifying.”
As a side note, News Corporation chair Rupert Murdoch says sporting events – along with live news – are as close to “DVR-proof” as programming gets.
THE BUFFETT BUSINESS PRINCIPLES: In 1983, Buffett set down 13 principles to help shareholders understand his managerial approach. In addition to Principle #11 mentioned above, here are just a few to give you a flavor of his thinking: Our attitude is partnership and (we) think of our shareholders as owner partners… We eat our own cooking (as in he invests in the same companies he recommends)… We use debt sparingly… We will only do with your money what we would do with our own… We feel noble intentions should be checked periodically against results… We will be candid in our reporting to you… As a company with a major communications business, it would be inexcusable for us to apply lesser standards of accuracy, balance and incisiveness when reporting on ourselves than we would expect news people to apply when reporting on others… Despite our policy of candor, we will discuss our activities in marketable securities only to the extent legally required… Good investment ideas are rare, valuable and subject to competitive appropriation just as good product or business acquisition ideas are.
This year, Buffett added in the concept of Intrinsic Value. The simple definition is that it’s the discounted value of the cash that can be taken out of a business during its remaining life. But how to calculate intrinsic value is not so simple and two people looking at the same set of facts with come up with different figures.
THE MURDOCH BUSINESS PRINCIPLES: The principles are laid out during Murdoch’s examination of his cable business. Topping his list – be willing to ignore or even take on conventional wisdom. Just behind that is the admonition to “invest wisely and early in a new business.” Third, be patient as the new effort finds its footing. Fourth, enjoy the growth and profitability as the business matures but always be thinking about and building the next generation of new channel offerings. As Murdoch says, “the elements are simple to understand, if not always easy to implement.”
TAXPAYERS WANTED: To put Buffett’s wealth in perspective, consider this: his company Berkshire-Hathaway will pay about $4.4 Billion in federal income tax on its 2006 earnings. In its last fiscal year the U.S. government spent $2.6 Trillion – about $7 Billion a day. Thus, Buffett notes, his company picked up the tab for ALL federal expenditures (social security, medicare, the armed services) for more than half of one day. He notes that if there were 600 taxpayers like his company, no one else in American would need to pay ANY federal income or payroll taxes.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com 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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
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