SWEEPS
GENIE GETS OUT OF THE BOTTLE
REPORTS OF MY DEATH ARE GREATLY EXAGERRATED
I BELIEVE IN UNARMED TRUTH AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
I’M GONNA WAIT TILL THE MIDNIGHT HOUR
APOLLO KNOCKED OUT
FACTOID OF THE WEEK
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS: Okay, all you news directors and marketing managers, it’s over. All right, just for three months. You know what that means. Get ready for May.
GENIE GETS OUT OF THE BOTTLE: That’s how a federal judge described his own decision allowing an international whistleblower site which says it provides “an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking and public analysis” to continue operation The judge’s decision was a reversal of his previous stance shutting down the site after numerous free speech groups protested. The site, wikileaks.org, provides a wiki-like forum for posting information but using ‘advanced cryptographic methods’ to maintain anonymity. The site is registered to an Australian living in Kenya and its advisory board is made up of Chinese dissidents, journalists and mathematicians. The lawsuit was filed by a Swiss bank, which the Wikileaks site contends, runs a Cayman Islands operation for tax evasion and money laundering purposes. The case is being cited as a major test of First Amendment rights in the Internet era. And it’s not over yet. More motions are due this month with another hearing set in May. On the flip side of this, I should note a libel suit filed late last year against ‘citizen journalism’ site iBrattleboro after a comment was posted on the site alleging a sexual affair between a volunteer and a board member at a local medical services organization. The latest posting by the Citizen Media Law Project indicates the lawsuit is still pending.
REPORTS OF MY DEATH ARE GREATLY EXAGERRATED: The two major social networking sites might want to take a page from Mark Twain. Depending on which publication you read (from The Hollywood Reporter to BusinessWeek and others), social networks are either… “hitting a plateau… cooling off… slowing down… waning or even slumping.” How true it is depends on how you look at the numbers supplied by the two leading online research firms. According to comScore, for example, MySpace is showing ‘only’ an 11.6% year-to-year growth in unique visitors and is actually down 10.4% in amount of time spent on the site. The comScore report says Facebook is up 78.6% in terms of visitors (which observers somehow cite as low) and up ‘just’ 1.1% in time spent. According to HitWise, the numbers are reversed although the overall effect is the same. It says the market share of visits for Facebook is down 27% from its peak (of course, that peak happened over the Christmas holidays and the drop is when college kids are back at school) although the time spent on Facebook is up 73% year to year. The BusinessWeek article notes that advertising on social networking sites is growing fast, but at the same time it says the “MySpace Generation” may be getting annoyed with ads and a bit bored with profile pages, and that may account for some of the leveling off. In a similar vein, The Hollywood Reporter quotes the head of research for Hitwise who says part of the reason for the ‘slowdown’ may be “user fatigue” and concern about privacy and advertising issues.
Despite this, Forrester Research predicts that marketers are likely to continue shifting money into social media. The report says word of mouth, blogging and social networking will “withstand tightened budgets.” The website Chief Marketer ran an interview with Shiv Singha, director of global strategic initiatives at Avenue A/ Razorfish who says consumers will continue to spend more time on social networking sites and that social media will continue to influence marketing decisions. A slightly different take comes from Promo Magazine which argues that social media is more important as a way to gain consumer insights rather than drive a viral marketing message. Citing a study by TNS Media Intelligence, the report notes an interesting dichotomy between the early adopters of social media who believe in the former and the late-comers who believe in the latter.
I BELIEVE IN UNARMED TRUTH AND UNCONDITIONAL LOVE: Excuse me appropriating another quote, but when Martin Luther King said this, he probably wasn’t thinking about social networking as we know it today. But a little noted part of the 2008 Digital Future Project by the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication reports that 15% of U.S. Internet users are members of an ‘online community’ and nearly all of them (94%) said the Internet helped inform them about social causes. So, in that vein, let me note the phenomenon known as micro-loans where you lend a small amount of money to a would-be business person in, usually, a third world country. It can be a farmer in Cambodia, a cook in Nicaragua or an embroiderer in Pakistan. You lend them a small amount (often around $25) towards their goal (which usually is a modest amount – rarely over $1,000) and they repay you. The two most famous are Kiva.Org which won a ringing endorsement from former President Bill Clinton and the Grameen Trust founded by Muhammad Yunus who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. But there are others – Microplace.com which is actually run by eBay and Opportunity International founded by a former Bristol Myers executive and which focuses on women entrepreneurs. The reported default rate is less than one percent.
I’M GONNA WAIT TILL THE MIDNIGHT HOUR: That’s when singer Wilson Pickett was waiting for his love to shine but, according to Nielsen Media, some viewers are waiting till Midnight for their shows to shine. The company’s latest report finds that DVR use has actually increased TV viewing, with a five percent increase in viewing from 11:00 p.m. to Midnight and seven percent of the viewers playing back their recorded programs then. In effect, the traditional ‘prime time’ viewing period of 8:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. is expanding. The report shows most viewers prefer to watch news, sports and movies live, while dramas like House, Heroes and Gray’s Anatomy are time shifted along with, to a lesser degree, talk shows like Oprah, soap operas and reality TV shows.
Meanwhile, on a very much related note, Nielsen Online reports that the ONLINE video ‘prime time’ is 12 Noon to 2:00 p.m. for people who want to watch network TV shows during their lunch hour while ONLINE ‘prime time’ is 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. on the weekends for people who want to watch User Generated Content video. And on a related note to the related note, Nielsen also says that three-quarters (73%) of ‘active Web users” watched streaming video in December, a figure that represents 116.7 Million unique viewers.
APOLLO KNOCKED OUT: And it wasn’t Rocky Balboa that did it. No, instead, it was Nielsen and Arbitron that announced they are dropping their Project Apollo joint venture to measure the buying and radio and television habits of people. The reason – very simple. Too few people willing to be part of a survey which had multiple agendas, and too few clients willing to pay for the expensive results. In a similar vein, the New York Times notes that Nielsen has had to scale back on another plan to track Web usage along with TV usage. Again – the same reason. Despite that, Nielsen is pressing ahead with its A2/M2 (Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement) plan, but that has meant the company needs to develop more consumer panels (16) compared to five panels 10 years ago.
FACTOID OF THE WEEK: According to the latest data, people who use the Internet at work are spending one full day out of their work week online. The figure represents a 70% increase since this measurement was started in 2001. Okay, I can’t help it. It seems I’ve always got a second factoid of the week. This week, it’s a report by Forrester Research titled The End of the Music Industry as we know it that predicts that half of all music sold in the U.S. will be digital by the year 2011 and that sales of digitally downloaded music will pass CD sales a year later in 2012.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Gaming company Emotiv is releasing a ‘neuroheadset’ which lets people play a video game using only their thoughts. A demonstration bombed though when wireless interference caused the system to misfire. A solicitation for user-generated content by The Weather Channel for ‘green-ette’ segments building up to Earth Day on April 22nd has drawn thousands of submissions. Two persons have been arrested in Hunan, Cha, for posting ‘scandalous’ naked photos of Hong Kong pop stars on the Internet. An 18-year-old New Zealand computer programmer has been arrested as part of an international cyber crime network which hacked into more than a million computers. For those observant readers who wondered what “Australian clean clothes” in the middle of last week’s Cocktail Chatter segment meant, researchers at Monash University in Victoria, Australia, have found a way for clothes to clean themselves by coating the fibers in titanium dioxide nanocrystals which break down food and dirt in sunlight. In the edit process, I edited out the facts, but now you know.
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 ratings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ratings. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Monday, September 10, 2007
Message From Michael -- September 10,2007
9/11
THE SILVER BULLET
BROADCAST JOURNALISM IN A MULTIMEDIA WORLD
WORD OF MOUTH FOLLOW-UP
WEBLISH VS. LEETSPEAK
9/11: Two numbers that speak volumes. Mark the day. Recognize it. Yes, I know it’s ‘only’ the 6th anniversary. But the fact is that the growing controversy over the Iraq war, the fact that General Petraeus is supposed to release his report on Iraq, the fact that Osama bin Laden has released another tape only adds to the occasion. Even so, that’s not the point. The point is that it is a defining moment in America. Marketers – produce :04 second ID’s, :10 and :15 second spots memorializing the day, saluting the military men and women. Newsies – there should be stories in every newscast (local and national) and your anchor team should acknowledge the event. Let your audience know that you remember… and you care. That’s a powerful message to send viewers.
PS: For those General Managers who do editorials, this is a perfect topic. Hint. Hint.
THE SILVER BULLET: Increase efficiency. Improve morale. Reduce turnover. Raise the ratings. How, you ask? One word – communication. Yes, I know that sounds like a trite answer, but a professor at the University of Miami has done a survey that ‘proves’ just that. Terry Adams at the University’s School of Communication surveyed producers and directors in various markets around the country. Part of what he found out, anybody who has been in a television newsroom knows. Most directors are older males who have been at the same station for a long time while most producers are young females who have only been at the station for a couple of years. Interestingly, although not surprisingly, the producers had a generally positive view of the directors with nearly all of the producers (97%) saying the director helped the process and nearly as many (88%) saying the director provided the information necessary and four-fifths (80%) rating the director as “competent.” It wasn’t quite the opposite with directors, but it was substantially different, with less than half (48%) of the directors agreeing that the producer helped in the process, and only slightly more (54%) saying the producer provided all the information necessary and nearly half (46%) of the directors rating the producer as “incompetent.”
Even more interesting and the key take-away from the survey (at least, to me) was Adams’ finding that there was a “significant relationship” between whether producers and directors held a show meeting and how they assessed each other’s competence. Those who held show meetings were more likely to consider their counterpart either the best they had worked with or at least competent. And it gets even more interesting. Adams found that the “quality of information” the producers and/or directors received from their counterpart was “significantly correlated” to their overall job satisfaction. That, in turn, also showed a relationship to job turnover which Adams rightly noted is a major problem with producers. And both defined the “perfect” producer or director in terms of communication. Finally, the piece de resistance, the stations with the highest reported levels of communication also had the highest ratings. In Academic speak, Adams says, “correlation analysis shows ratings to be significantly related to the amount of information relayed.” To his credit, he also put in plain English: “simply put, companies can make money out of good communication.”
YET… yet… (do you detect a note of frustration?), three quarters of the producers (75.9%) and directors (73%) did not have regular daily show meetings. And most (68%) work in different parts of the building so any ad hoc communication is impossible. Directors are less likely to take part in meetings in the news department than the other way around. Adams says the key finding is that not only do producers and directors not communicate well, they don’t even communicate minimally although, as he rightfully notes, “one cannot succeed without the other’s participation and involvement.”
And that note of frustration? That’s the consultant in me. I have recommended at EVERY station I have either worked at or consulted that the director be part of the editorial meeting. And there’s always excuses why the director can’t do it. As a final footnote, I contacted Adams who turns out to be a former director with ten years in the business.
BROADCAST JOURNALISM IN A MULTIMEDIA WORLD: That’s the title of a new book which argues that “multiplatform journalism is simply a fact of life for any up-and-coming journalist.” The book, designed as a text, looks at the specific strengths and advantages of the different platforms and how students can go beyond re-purposing to actually advancing their stories to the next level for any medium, according to the blurb on publisher CQPress’s website. It was written by MfM friend Deborah Potter, former CBS and CNN correspondent and now NewsLab executive director, and Deborah Wenger, former executive producer and now associate professor media convergence and new media at Virginia Commonwealth University. Okay, I admit this is plugola, and candidly I can’t endorse the book because I have only read the summary, but the fact is that it addresses an issue that seasoned and student journalists have to wrestle with now.
WORD OF MOUTH FOLLOW-UP: My previous MfM talked about the power of Word of Mouth in marketing, advertising and news. Further confirmation of the power of WOM comes from a New York Times article about music producer Rick Rubin and Columbia Records. As part of their marketing effort, they surveyed the 20 college student interns they had brought in who told them that: “a) no one listens to the radio anymore, b) they mostly steal music but they don’t consider it stealing, and c) they get most of their music from iTunes on their iPod. They told us that MySpace is over, it’s just not cool anymore; that Facebook is still cool, but that might not last much longer; and the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That’s how they hear about music, bands, everything.” (Thanks to Tim Livingston of WNWO/ Toledo and David Toma of WECT/ Wilmington for pointing this article out to me.)
Another study, this one by MTV and Nickelodeon found that four out of five (83%) of ‘tech-savvy’ teenagers visited a website based on the recommendation of a friend and half of all teenagers (55%) found out about a viral video through word of mouth. The study also found that 14 to 24 year olds have an average of 53 friends, both online and ‘off-line.’
WIDGETS FOLLOW-UP: I’ll keep this brief. USA Today has become the first major newspapers to develop widgets that can be used on people’s personal websites and that use Flash technology. (Readers will remember me talking about widgets several editions back.)
LEETSPEAK VS WEBLISH: Have you heard of either? Well, “weblish” is, as the name implies, a combination of English and Web-centric words. The latest addition to the so-called “weblish” dictionary – Bacn, which is a variation on spam and spim, and is defined as email consumers may want (such as my newsletter, niche product announcements, social network updates) but which still clog up your e-mail box. Now, there is a version, tentatively nicknamed “leetspeak” in which the shorthand vocabulary is used in regular communication including a spoken version. For example, LOL (Laugh Out Loud) is pronounced ‘lawl’ and PWN (which is gamer talk for annihilating an opponent) is pronounced ‘pone.’ An article in The Wall Street Journal says the changes are already underway and if you don’t believe it, the harbinger of bad taste, South Park, had a recent episode in which one of the characters shouted out, “looks like you’re about to get poned.”
THE SILVER BULLET
BROADCAST JOURNALISM IN A MULTIMEDIA WORLD
WORD OF MOUTH FOLLOW-UP
WEBLISH VS. LEETSPEAK
9/11: Two numbers that speak volumes. Mark the day. Recognize it. Yes, I know it’s ‘only’ the 6th anniversary. But the fact is that the growing controversy over the Iraq war, the fact that General Petraeus is supposed to release his report on Iraq, the fact that Osama bin Laden has released another tape only adds to the occasion. Even so, that’s not the point. The point is that it is a defining moment in America. Marketers – produce :04 second ID’s, :10 and :15 second spots memorializing the day, saluting the military men and women. Newsies – there should be stories in every newscast (local and national) and your anchor team should acknowledge the event. Let your audience know that you remember… and you care. That’s a powerful message to send viewers.
PS: For those General Managers who do editorials, this is a perfect topic. Hint. Hint.
THE SILVER BULLET: Increase efficiency. Improve morale. Reduce turnover. Raise the ratings. How, you ask? One word – communication. Yes, I know that sounds like a trite answer, but a professor at the University of Miami has done a survey that ‘proves’ just that. Terry Adams at the University’s School of Communication surveyed producers and directors in various markets around the country. Part of what he found out, anybody who has been in a television newsroom knows. Most directors are older males who have been at the same station for a long time while most producers are young females who have only been at the station for a couple of years. Interestingly, although not surprisingly, the producers had a generally positive view of the directors with nearly all of the producers (97%) saying the director helped the process and nearly as many (88%) saying the director provided the information necessary and four-fifths (80%) rating the director as “competent.” It wasn’t quite the opposite with directors, but it was substantially different, with less than half (48%) of the directors agreeing that the producer helped in the process, and only slightly more (54%) saying the producer provided all the information necessary and nearly half (46%) of the directors rating the producer as “incompetent.”
Even more interesting and the key take-away from the survey (at least, to me) was Adams’ finding that there was a “significant relationship” between whether producers and directors held a show meeting and how they assessed each other’s competence. Those who held show meetings were more likely to consider their counterpart either the best they had worked with or at least competent. And it gets even more interesting. Adams found that the “quality of information” the producers and/or directors received from their counterpart was “significantly correlated” to their overall job satisfaction. That, in turn, also showed a relationship to job turnover which Adams rightly noted is a major problem with producers. And both defined the “perfect” producer or director in terms of communication. Finally, the piece de resistance, the stations with the highest reported levels of communication also had the highest ratings. In Academic speak, Adams says, “correlation analysis shows ratings to be significantly related to the amount of information relayed.” To his credit, he also put in plain English: “simply put, companies can make money out of good communication.”
YET… yet… (do you detect a note of frustration?), three quarters of the producers (75.9%) and directors (73%) did not have regular daily show meetings. And most (68%) work in different parts of the building so any ad hoc communication is impossible. Directors are less likely to take part in meetings in the news department than the other way around. Adams says the key finding is that not only do producers and directors not communicate well, they don’t even communicate minimally although, as he rightfully notes, “one cannot succeed without the other’s participation and involvement.”
And that note of frustration? That’s the consultant in me. I have recommended at EVERY station I have either worked at or consulted that the director be part of the editorial meeting. And there’s always excuses why the director can’t do it. As a final footnote, I contacted Adams who turns out to be a former director with ten years in the business.
BROADCAST JOURNALISM IN A MULTIMEDIA WORLD: That’s the title of a new book which argues that “multiplatform journalism is simply a fact of life for any up-and-coming journalist.” The book, designed as a text, looks at the specific strengths and advantages of the different platforms and how students can go beyond re-purposing to actually advancing their stories to the next level for any medium, according to the blurb on publisher CQPress’s website. It was written by MfM friend Deborah Potter, former CBS and CNN correspondent and now NewsLab executive director, and Deborah Wenger, former executive producer and now associate professor media convergence and new media at Virginia Commonwealth University. Okay, I admit this is plugola, and candidly I can’t endorse the book because I have only read the summary, but the fact is that it addresses an issue that seasoned and student journalists have to wrestle with now.
WORD OF MOUTH FOLLOW-UP: My previous MfM talked about the power of Word of Mouth in marketing, advertising and news. Further confirmation of the power of WOM comes from a New York Times article about music producer Rick Rubin and Columbia Records. As part of their marketing effort, they surveyed the 20 college student interns they had brought in who told them that: “a) no one listens to the radio anymore, b) they mostly steal music but they don’t consider it stealing, and c) they get most of their music from iTunes on their iPod. They told us that MySpace is over, it’s just not cool anymore; that Facebook is still cool, but that might not last much longer; and the biggest thing in their life is word of mouth. That’s how they hear about music, bands, everything.” (Thanks to Tim Livingston of WNWO/ Toledo and David Toma of WECT/ Wilmington for pointing this article out to me.)
Another study, this one by MTV and Nickelodeon found that four out of five (83%) of ‘tech-savvy’ teenagers visited a website based on the recommendation of a friend and half of all teenagers (55%) found out about a viral video through word of mouth. The study also found that 14 to 24 year olds have an average of 53 friends, both online and ‘off-line.’
WIDGETS FOLLOW-UP: I’ll keep this brief. USA Today has become the first major newspapers to develop widgets that can be used on people’s personal websites and that use Flash technology. (Readers will remember me talking about widgets several editions back.)
LEETSPEAK VS WEBLISH: Have you heard of either? Well, “weblish” is, as the name implies, a combination of English and Web-centric words. The latest addition to the so-called “weblish” dictionary – Bacn, which is a variation on spam and spim, and is defined as email consumers may want (such as my newsletter, niche product announcements, social network updates) but which still clog up your e-mail box. Now, there is a version, tentatively nicknamed “leetspeak” in which the shorthand vocabulary is used in regular communication including a spoken version. For example, LOL (Laugh Out Loud) is pronounced ‘lawl’ and PWN (which is gamer talk for annihilating an opponent) is pronounced ‘pone.’ An article in The Wall Street Journal says the changes are already underway and if you don’t believe it, the harbinger of bad taste, South Park, had a recent episode in which one of the characters shouted out, “looks like you’re about to get poned.”
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
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.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Message from Michael-- February 26, 2007
TICK, TOCK FOR SWEEPS AND CLICK, CLOCK FOR STUDENTS
ARE YOU FEELING SOCIABLE?
I WANT MY NEW MEDIA TV
BUT I DON’T WANT ADVERTISING
TAKING ON A LIFE OF ITS OWN
DO YOU BELIEVE IN PEOPLE?
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.
TICK, TOCK FOR SWEEPS AND CLICK, CLOCK FOR STUDENTS: All of 72 hours left in the February sweeps, give or take an hour. But here I go for the beating-a-dead-horse award, reminding folks that sweeps don’t end when the sweeps end. On a sweeps related note, Nielsen’s decision to include college dorms in its ratings survey has proven a boon for several programs. Although the numbers don’t break out college students versus other 18 to 24 year olds and although Nielsen, officially, can’t ascribe the boon to the change, the fact is Fox’s American Idol is up between 11% and 22% in the 18 to 24 demographic, as is Fox’s House (up 89%), ABC’s Greys Anatomy (up 62%), and Ugly Betty (up 86%), and NBC’s Office (up 57%), according to Media Life Magazine.
ARE YOU FEELING SOCIABLE? Maybe you better. Advertisers spent more than $350 Million on social network marketing and even though that’s only 2% of total online ad spending, research firm eMarketer predicts that number will jump to $2 Billion by 2010. The second, and possibly the more significant, fact is that a quarter of the respondents to a Massachusetts University survey say they are using social networking as part of their overall marketing strategy. The study focused on Inc magazine’s list of the fastest growing companies. Two thirds say social media was either very or somewhat important. Social media was defined as message boards, blogging, podcasting, online video, social networking and wikis. To show you how strong the impact is, the headline on the university’s study says, “The Hype Is Real.” The study by the university’s Center for Marketing Research says, “the social media revolution is coming to the business world.” Social media will be the topic of a Revolution in Marketing conference being held in Phoenix this week, and the Phoenix Business Journal quotes one participant who says if you’re not using social media to talk to your customers, you’re “already behind the power curve.”Everybody of course focuses on MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. But there are several strong contenders including MSN Spaces, Yahoo 360, AIM Pages, Bebo, Piczo, Friendster; and, of course, there is the business network LinkedIn and there’s ReverbNation which was recently named the best Social Music Network. Need more convincing? How about the fact that MySpace has launched a site dedicated to comic book fans, or that Facebook is creating a social network based TV series with Comcast using content produced by its users. Need more? How about the fact presidential candidate Barack Obama’s people have relaunched his website to operate like a social networking site where people can create profiles, start blogs and form on-site networks; or that academic software maker Blackboard has launched a social-bookmarking service; or that there is a social network and online directory, MerchantCircle, specifically tailored to small businesses, or that HGTV has launched its own social network. Anyway, you get the point. As an aside, I would make the argument that social media is an extension of business’s CRM (Consumer Relationship Management) and what I call, for television, VRM (Viewer Relationship Management).
I WANT MY NEW MEDIA TV: A study by IBM estimates new media sales to grow at nearly five times the rate of traditional media. Sounds like bad news, but the same report says the biggest surge will come from the Internet syndication of professional produced programming. In other words, programming produced by the traditional media. A Reuters’ report on the study says the Internet syndication of traditional media companies’ programming will be a small part of the estimated – get this -- $655 Billion of annual media revenue in 2010. Traditional media will account for $340 Billion of that. As a warning note, the IBM report says the music industry will have lost between $85 Billion and $160 Billion in revenue between 1999 and 2010 because it “dragged its heels” meeting the demand for digital media. Saul Berman, described as IBM’s ‘global media and entertainment strategy leader’ (catchy title, what?), says this is not a matter of going from black and white to color television, this is a matter of changing from “an era of stability to an era of constant change.”
BUT I DON’T WANT ADVERTISING: More and more of those young people being courted by advertisers are turning into “ad avoiders,” according to a joint study by Microsoft and Starcom. The report titled “lifestyles of the ad adverse” says between 10% and 15% of adults 17 to 35 fall into this category. The report says there are ‘passive avoiders’ who simply can’t be bothered with ads and ‘active avoiders’ whose message, as reported by Media Week, is ‘be good or be gone.’ The active avoiders are primarily young, tech-savvy men who consume media with no ads, like DVD’s and satellite radio.
TAKING ON A LIFE OF ITS OWN: Now, this is getting weird. You can actually dial into virtual world, Second Life, from your cell phone. So, you never have to leave home without it. Converse, described in Technology Review as a wireless multimedia networking company, has developed software to do just that. On top of which, Amazon.com is developing a way to bridge into Second Life. Sears has built a virtual home in the Second Life world to promote its designs. And a market research firm, Market Truths, has won a contest to build a “realistic and profitable business model” for use in Second Life. And, folks, you heard it here first. Regular readers of MfM will remember reading our prediction about the growth of Second Life some time back. In a similar vein, media conglomerate Viacom, which is in a copyright battle withYouTube, has announced a deal to provide videos to Joost, the Internet video service created by the founders of Skype and Kazaa and highlighted in a MfM report a month ago. Okay I know this is bragging but at least I’m not trying to sell you my services like some consulting newsletters. Here’s the next big one to watch – Blinkx.com. It is a VIDEO searching site, much better than anything Yahoo or Google has come up with… so far. Click on the site and the ‘wall of video’ that comes up is a fascinating snapshot of the world. Do a search and you can ask the site to display the results in a wall of video format.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN PEOPLE? If you’re like most Americans, the answer is a big maybe. A new Pew Research survey finds that less than half of Americans (45%) say most people can be trusted but half (50%) say, “you can’t be too careful.” I know this isn’t media related, but a) I just find such social trends fascinating and b) it kind of relates to this week’s MfM lead story on social networking. The survey of 2,000 people found young people are less trusting than those who are middle aged or older and that higher educated and higher income people are more trusting than the less educated and the lower income; Whites are more trusting than Blacks or Hispanics; the married are more trusting than the unmarried; and men at 38% are more likely than women at 32% to have a “high level of trust.” The group has been doing this survey for more than four decades and the results have been pretty much the same that whole time. Other interesting findings are that three out of five Americans (59%) believe most people would try to be fair while less than a third (31%) believe they would be taken advantage of. Three out of five (57%) say most of the time people try to be helpful while a little more than a third (35%) believe most people are just looking out for themselves. If you want to read the full report, it’s at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/414/americans-and-social-trust-who-where-and-why. The same group did a survey among Gen Next Americans (18-25 year olds) and found three-quarters of them (75%) believe today’s youth are more likely to have casual sex than young people 20 years ago. As Claude Rains said in Casablanca, I’m shocked, shocked I tell you. On a completely unrelated note, but since I am doing this social trend thing instead of Cocktail Chatter, the M.I.T. Technology Review reports that 216 Million Americans are scientifically illiterate. The “good news” is that the science literacy rate is up from what the report called a pathetic 10% in 1988 to a not much better 28%.
FACT OF THE WEEK: The world Internet population has reached One Billion. According to eMarketer, the U.S. is still the single, largest Internet market in the world with 181.9 Million Internet users in 2006, but the research firm predicts China will overtake the U.S. before the decade is out. The number of Internet users in China is already greater than Japan, Germany and the U.K.
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.
ARE YOU FEELING SOCIABLE?
I WANT MY NEW MEDIA TV
BUT I DON’T WANT ADVERTISING
TAKING ON A LIFE OF ITS OWN
DO YOU BELIEVE IN PEOPLE?
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.
TICK, TOCK FOR SWEEPS AND CLICK, CLOCK FOR STUDENTS: All of 72 hours left in the February sweeps, give or take an hour. But here I go for the beating-a-dead-horse award, reminding folks that sweeps don’t end when the sweeps end. On a sweeps related note, Nielsen’s decision to include college dorms in its ratings survey has proven a boon for several programs. Although the numbers don’t break out college students versus other 18 to 24 year olds and although Nielsen, officially, can’t ascribe the boon to the change, the fact is Fox’s American Idol is up between 11% and 22% in the 18 to 24 demographic, as is Fox’s House (up 89%), ABC’s Greys Anatomy (up 62%), and Ugly Betty (up 86%), and NBC’s Office (up 57%), according to Media Life Magazine.
ARE YOU FEELING SOCIABLE? Maybe you better. Advertisers spent more than $350 Million on social network marketing and even though that’s only 2% of total online ad spending, research firm eMarketer predicts that number will jump to $2 Billion by 2010. The second, and possibly the more significant, fact is that a quarter of the respondents to a Massachusetts University survey say they are using social networking as part of their overall marketing strategy. The study focused on Inc magazine’s list of the fastest growing companies. Two thirds say social media was either very or somewhat important. Social media was defined as message boards, blogging, podcasting, online video, social networking and wikis. To show you how strong the impact is, the headline on the university’s study says, “The Hype Is Real.” The study by the university’s Center for Marketing Research says, “the social media revolution is coming to the business world.” Social media will be the topic of a Revolution in Marketing conference being held in Phoenix this week, and the Phoenix Business Journal quotes one participant who says if you’re not using social media to talk to your customers, you’re “already behind the power curve.”Everybody of course focuses on MySpace, YouTube and Facebook. But there are several strong contenders including MSN Spaces, Yahoo 360, AIM Pages, Bebo, Piczo, Friendster; and, of course, there is the business network LinkedIn and there’s ReverbNation which was recently named the best Social Music Network. Need more convincing? How about the fact that MySpace has launched a site dedicated to comic book fans, or that Facebook is creating a social network based TV series with Comcast using content produced by its users. Need more? How about the fact presidential candidate Barack Obama’s people have relaunched his website to operate like a social networking site where people can create profiles, start blogs and form on-site networks; or that academic software maker Blackboard has launched a social-bookmarking service; or that there is a social network and online directory, MerchantCircle, specifically tailored to small businesses, or that HGTV has launched its own social network. Anyway, you get the point. As an aside, I would make the argument that social media is an extension of business’s CRM (Consumer Relationship Management) and what I call, for television, VRM (Viewer Relationship Management).
I WANT MY NEW MEDIA TV: A study by IBM estimates new media sales to grow at nearly five times the rate of traditional media. Sounds like bad news, but the same report says the biggest surge will come from the Internet syndication of professional produced programming. In other words, programming produced by the traditional media. A Reuters’ report on the study says the Internet syndication of traditional media companies’ programming will be a small part of the estimated – get this -- $655 Billion of annual media revenue in 2010. Traditional media will account for $340 Billion of that. As a warning note, the IBM report says the music industry will have lost between $85 Billion and $160 Billion in revenue between 1999 and 2010 because it “dragged its heels” meeting the demand for digital media. Saul Berman, described as IBM’s ‘global media and entertainment strategy leader’ (catchy title, what?), says this is not a matter of going from black and white to color television, this is a matter of changing from “an era of stability to an era of constant change.”
BUT I DON’T WANT ADVERTISING: More and more of those young people being courted by advertisers are turning into “ad avoiders,” according to a joint study by Microsoft and Starcom. The report titled “lifestyles of the ad adverse” says between 10% and 15% of adults 17 to 35 fall into this category. The report says there are ‘passive avoiders’ who simply can’t be bothered with ads and ‘active avoiders’ whose message, as reported by Media Week, is ‘be good or be gone.’ The active avoiders are primarily young, tech-savvy men who consume media with no ads, like DVD’s and satellite radio.
TAKING ON A LIFE OF ITS OWN: Now, this is getting weird. You can actually dial into virtual world, Second Life, from your cell phone. So, you never have to leave home without it. Converse, described in Technology Review as a wireless multimedia networking company, has developed software to do just that. On top of which, Amazon.com is developing a way to bridge into Second Life. Sears has built a virtual home in the Second Life world to promote its designs. And a market research firm, Market Truths, has won a contest to build a “realistic and profitable business model” for use in Second Life. And, folks, you heard it here first. Regular readers of MfM will remember reading our prediction about the growth of Second Life some time back. In a similar vein, media conglomerate Viacom, which is in a copyright battle withYouTube, has announced a deal to provide videos to Joost, the Internet video service created by the founders of Skype and Kazaa and highlighted in a MfM report a month ago. Okay I know this is bragging but at least I’m not trying to sell you my services like some consulting newsletters. Here’s the next big one to watch – Blinkx.com. It is a VIDEO searching site, much better than anything Yahoo or Google has come up with… so far. Click on the site and the ‘wall of video’ that comes up is a fascinating snapshot of the world. Do a search and you can ask the site to display the results in a wall of video format.
DO YOU BELIEVE IN PEOPLE? If you’re like most Americans, the answer is a big maybe. A new Pew Research survey finds that less than half of Americans (45%) say most people can be trusted but half (50%) say, “you can’t be too careful.” I know this isn’t media related, but a) I just find such social trends fascinating and b) it kind of relates to this week’s MfM lead story on social networking. The survey of 2,000 people found young people are less trusting than those who are middle aged or older and that higher educated and higher income people are more trusting than the less educated and the lower income; Whites are more trusting than Blacks or Hispanics; the married are more trusting than the unmarried; and men at 38% are more likely than women at 32% to have a “high level of trust.” The group has been doing this survey for more than four decades and the results have been pretty much the same that whole time. Other interesting findings are that three out of five Americans (59%) believe most people would try to be fair while less than a third (31%) believe they would be taken advantage of. Three out of five (57%) say most of the time people try to be helpful while a little more than a third (35%) believe most people are just looking out for themselves. If you want to read the full report, it’s at http://pewresearch.org/pubs/414/americans-and-social-trust-who-where-and-why. The same group did a survey among Gen Next Americans (18-25 year olds) and found three-quarters of them (75%) believe today’s youth are more likely to have casual sex than young people 20 years ago. As Claude Rains said in Casablanca, I’m shocked, shocked I tell you. On a completely unrelated note, but since I am doing this social trend thing instead of Cocktail Chatter, the M.I.T. Technology Review reports that 216 Million Americans are scientifically illiterate. The “good news” is that the science literacy rate is up from what the report called a pathetic 10% in 1988 to a not much better 28%.
FACT OF THE WEEK: The world Internet population has reached One Billion. According to eMarketer, the U.S. is still the single, largest Internet market in the world with 181.9 Million Internet users in 2006, but the research firm predicts China will overtake the U.S. before the decade is out. The number of Internet users in China is already greater than Japan, Germany and the U.K.
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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