Message from Michael - Personal Perspective - April 27, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        April 27, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

      THE ROLE OF JOURNALISTS – A PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

      THE VIEW OF JOURNALISTS – TWO STUDIES

      LESSONS FOR JOURNALISTS – SOME THOUGHTS

 

 

A University of Georgia business professor shot and killed his wife and two others at a fundraising event for a community theater group in Athens.  My daughter is a member of the group, was at the event and saw her friends being killed.  What followed was a day in which I wondered about my role as a person, a father, and my role as a journalist.  So, this is going to be a different kind of weekly message.  An attempt to be objective, as always, but a little more personal.  If you want to hit the email delete key, I understand.  At least you’ve been warned.

Interestingly and coincidentally, my little epiphany comes after two recently released surveys about media and journalism raise questions about the public’s perception.  The annual confidence index by The Harris Poll, measuring American’s confidence in institutions, show “the press” is at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to people’s confidence.  Only 12% of the public express “a great deal of confidence” in ‘the press’ – just barely ahead of ‘major companies’ and ‘law firms’ (11%), Congress (9%) and Wall Street (4%).  As an institution, ‘television news’ scored much better than ‘the press’ with one out of five (22%) saying they have a great deal of confidence in it.  That put television news about the middle of the pack.  However, before my television brethren become overly excited about those numbers, more people (28%) said they had “hardly any confidence at all” in television news as an institution.  That’s still much better than the press which had 41% voting no confidence in them.  Both ‘institutions’ scored about the same with the public in terms of those expressing ‘only some confidence’ with roughly half (48% for television news and 46% for the press) voting that way.

I should note a caveat here.  A reminder that in the 2009 State of the News Media report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, people almost invariably have a higher opinion of the media they use, than of the media in general.  And in case you were wondering, the military scored the highest in terms of confidence level with more than half (58%) expressing a great deal of confidence in it as an institution, followed by small business (48%), major educational institutions (40%) and The White House (36%).  That last number for The White House was double the previous year’s level.  In fact that increase in confidence in the White House appears to have affected all institutions.  Television news was up six points from the previous year and the press was up a meager two points.  Only major companies and Wall Street registered declines year to year.

The other study was a survey of journalists by the Online News Association in conjunction with the Pew Research Center which found that more than half of the journalists surveyed (54%) say journalism is headed on the “wrong track” leaving less than half (45%) saying it is on the “right track.”  The journalists surveyed – most of whom were associated with websites linked to legacy media – believe the Internet is changing the fundamental values of journalism, and mostly for the worse.  The survey which had 300 responses out of the 1,800 members found, on the negative side, that the Internet impact was a ‘loosening of standards’ (45%) but on the positive side, the Internet was allowing for ‘more outside voices’ (31%). Although even that so-called positive had some negatives associated with it – people providing unfiltered, unverified information.  In the end the negatives of the Internet impact outweighed the positives by two to one.  The report notes that despite the fact that more than half of the online journalists believe journalism is headed on the wrong track, that is actually better than a previous survey of ‘legacy national journalists’ which found that nearly two thirds (62%) expressed pessimism about journalism’s future.

Back to my personal perspective.  Because of the fact that I had a daughter involved, as well as being a news person on the scene, I ended up being interviewed by numerous news organizations – half television and half print.  The question I am wrestling with is – am I a father whose daughter is involved in a tragic situation, and who also happens to be a journalist; or am I a journalist who happens to have a daughter involved in a tragic incident; and can you balance both. It is not an esoteric argument.  It goes to the core of what we are about.  In all the surveys, for example, the one that disturbs me most is the public perception that the news media doesn’t care about people.  This was cited as recently as the previous 2008 State of the News Media report.  I tried to balance the two.  I’m not sure I succeeded; I’m not sure I failed.  I am sure though that every journalist should be put through a real life exercise of being the subject of a news report.  On one side you have your media colleagues trying to get information out of you, as well as you yourself trying to provide your news organization with information; on the other side you have someone close to you, trying to be helpful without being hurt themselves or hurting others.  And just for good measure you have officials with your employer yelling at you for supposedly disclosing things.  This last one, while upsetting and a factor in the equation, is less of a factor except as it challenges your belief and understanding of The First Amendment.

Let me offer some pragmatic lessons.  When my daughter texted me about the incident, I contacted the people at my station, WNEG-TV, to get a crew to the scene.  Because of relationships we have with Atlanta stations, I also contacted them.  To the station that has the message on its main line to hang up if you have a news tip and dial another number – that’s dumb.  To the stations that have a lengthy form you have to submit if you want to offer a news tip – that’s dumb.  I walked away with the clear understanding that all the talk about interacting with the viewer/ reader is just that – talk.  I would suggest we all need to figure this out and figure it out fast.  To all of the producers who try to vet the subject interview (in this case, me), lower the questioning level.  Try and rely on your anchors to be semi-intelligent.  The number of stupid questions (even after the vetting process) was amazing.  To the anchors, don’t try to do an interview on air.  Try to have a conversation with another human being.  To the print reporters, get your thoughts at least semi-organized before you call someone.  The number of ums and ahs of some of them was amazing.  Candidly I can’t understand why anybody would agree to an interview.  In print because they were confused; on television because you’re grilled and passed from one person to another and then put on hold for several minutes.  As a semi-humorous side note, when I texted back to my daughter that I was sending a news crew, she responded – not surprised.

Let me also offer some general observations.  There is an old, not-so-funny line that in the television news business, if you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.  I have to say that I seemed to run across a number of people who were faking sincerity, both on the television and print side.  For most, I would like to believe it was an attempt to be sincere, but there were some who were obviously using well rehearsed lines.  I appreciated more the candor of the one booker who was frank and honest and didn’t put on false expressions of sympathy.  He had a job to do, and he tried to do it simply and sensitively.  I’m afraid sensitivity is not a skill we either teach or learn though in the news business.

Two final notes.  To all those friends who sent expressions of sympathy – thank you.  My daughter is coping remarkably well.  She is, after all, for better and for worse, a newsman’s daughter.  To those of you who cover such stories in the future, I want you to think of the two small children, ten and eight, of the professor and his wife.  I want you to think of the eight year old daughter of one of the other victims, who saw her father killed before her very eyes.  And I want you to think of the remarkable courage of the wife of the other victim who told the stunned group who just saw her husband killed, that they should know he died with friends at his side on a beautiful day in Athens.  In short, I want you to think of the victims who are survivors, the survivors who are victims.  And be human.       

 

Message from Michael - April 22, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        April 22, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

      THE U VERSUS I BATTLE

      THE CITIZEN JOURNALIST BATTLE

      THINK LOCALLY

      MORE ON MEDIA CORPORATIONS ANNUAL REPORTS

      A CORPORATE CONSCIENCE

      CONSTANT, CONTINUOUS CONNECTIONS

      DISNEY DAIRY PRODUCTS AND TIME WARNER CHOCOLATE

 

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      THE U VERSUS I BATTLE:  The battle between the media titans is on, and the cannon fodder are citizen journalists.  All right, that’s a little bit of an esoteric statement, but the announcement that Fox News is enlisting the aid of its sister media site, MySpace, to recruit more “citizen journalist” material does raise the bar by pitting it against CNN’s well-established franchise.   At Fox News, they’re called uReporters producing uReports; at CNN they’re called iReporters producing iReports.  According to the CNN iReport site, more than 300,000 iReports have been filed worldwide with 1,240 of them making it to air last month.  The rest are posted on the website which proclaims itself as “unedited, unfiltered news.”  Even though MySpace has been overtaken by Facebook in terms of total unique visitors worldwide, MySpace still holds the lead (albeit marginally) in the U.S. where virtually all of the iReports and uReports originate.  That should give Fox’s uReports a boost, although a visit to the MySpace ureport website showed practically nothing except a pitch by Fox’s Shepard Smith to join. Of course, it is in beta at this point.  So, watch for the battle for the minds and meanderings of citizen journalists to grow in intensity. As Adam Ostrow notes on the social media monitoring site, Mashable, the citizen media efforts produce “more news tips and more content that can be obtained quickly.”

      THE CITIZEN JOURNALIST BATTLE:  According to the Knight Citizen News Network website, there are nearly 800 what it calls “citizen media” sites in the United States.  I don’t know what it says about the respective states, but, for example, there are only 10 citizen media sites listed in Georgia, but double that in South Carolina and five times that number in Florida.  Heck, tiny (population-wise) Montana has four such sites.  The Knight site is a how-to guide for would be ‘citizen journalists’ to use digital media “to enrich community, enhance public discourse and enliven democracy as we know it.”  Many of the sites are created by former mainstream journalists.  For example, the laid off reporters from the Seattle Post Intelligencer have started their own site.  In Atlanta, former Atlanta Journal Constitution reporters have launched a struggling news website GONSO (no relation to Hunter Thompson – it stands for Georgia Online News Service).  Meanwhile, many traditional journalism organizations (like CNN and Fox) have started adding citizen reports to their reporting – most notably The New York Times and The Washington Times.  A recent New York Times article about ‘hyperlocal’ news websites noted that many of the sites have a dual challenge – generating revenue and generating quality content.  The latter would be especially difficult, the article notes, if the heavily relied upon local newspapers shut down. 

One of the more interesting examples of what the Wall Street Journal calls “web journalism” is True/Slant (trueslant.com) which is trying to overcome that dual challenge.  It blends journalism and social networking, by using 65 “knowledge experts” who have their own home page dealing with specific topics which are supposed to generate followers.  And (this is where it gets tricky) it also allows advertisers to create home pages.  Columnist Walt Mossberg notes the blend of journalism and advertising could “prove problematic” but he says it’s another example of how the web is changing traditional journalism.  I should also note another variation of this – Spot.us which has been given seed money by the Knight Foundation to see if it can create “crowd funded” or community funded journalism.  A recent article focused on recycling, with the authors raising $192 to fund the report, but with another $208 needed to fully cover the cost.

       THINK LOCALLY; ACT GLOBALLY:  Or, at least nationally.  That’s what many of the so-called citizen media sites are doing.  There are at least half a dozen organizations launching local citizen media websites, but with some sophisticated national support.  The latest operation is Outside.in which received $7.5 Million in venture capital to further its blend of aggregated content from traditional news sites and blogs.  The website lists 50-plus cities in which it has operations, covering what it says are 11,860 towns and neighborhoods.  But it’s far from alone.  Metroblogging (metblogs.com) just announced that it has added its 57^th city (San Diego) to what it calls its worldwide network.  Okay, it’s pretty much mainly the U.S., with half a dozen sites in Europe and Asia.  (Somehow, a posting about Earth Day on the Islamabad site seemed odd to me.)  Add to that Placeblogger.com founded by former MIT Media Lab contributor Lisa Williams.  It lists out what are really not so much news sites as general blogs, but it is an extensive list.  Website Everyblock.com is only in 11 cities so far, but it has an extensive database of material from local government agencies, newspapers, weeklies and TV websites as using Flickr, Yelp and Craigslist.  In the end, all of them contributing to what the Knight Citizen News Network calls “a more richly informed” 21^st Century.     

      MORE ON MEDIA CORPORATIONS ANNUAL REPORTS:  As promised in last week’s message, there is more to the dozen or so annual reports we reviewed.  What follows are the other ‘key’ words that popped up in the reports, along with insights into the corporate thinking and the corporate reach.

      CONSTANT, CONTINUOUS, CONNECTIONS:  Virtually every media group hit the point in their annual report that the customer expects to be able to connect to the rest of his or her world at their convenience.  But probably none of the groups put it so succinctly as the writers of the News Corporation’s annual report who make the point that, “today you can connect with any one, any time, anywhere, using any device.”  That’s why, they say, the company must continue to create content that consumers want across the “whole spectrum of media.”  Bertelsmann put it even more elegantly, noting that with digitization, “the world is spinning faster.”  That’s why they say (using very similar language) they must be there, “at all times at any place.”  Similarly Media General notes that the consumer has already “embraced a digital future” so the company has to “be there for them” because “the customer is in charge.”  Gannett hits on the media device issue as well, noting that customers expect to get “real time news and information delivered to any device” and adds that it must be “wherever and whenever the customer wants it.”  Disney also uses almost the same exact words, saying they must provide entertainment “when and where” the customer wants it.  Morris Communication puts it very simply when they note that media must become vital, “like a utility.”     

      A CORPORATE CONSCIENCE:  Yes, I can hear the cynics out there saying, ‘yeah, right, that’s a contradiction in terms,’ but take a look at some of the evidence from their annual reports.  German-based Bertelsmann cites citizenship as one of its four core principles and is a signatory to the United Nations Global Compact which promotes the principles of human rights.  Disney understandably cites the “well being of children” as one of its principles along with environmental stewardship.  But the company promises in its annual report to go much further, publishing soon “our first comprehensive, corporate responsibility report.”  On its board of directors is John E.Pepper, co-chair of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center which obviously draws its name from the underground railroad used to free slaves during the Civil War but which has a broader agenda now of freedom in all its aspects.  Gannett in several parts of its annual report talks about the company’s “First Amendment responsibilities” which it calls, “always our highest calling.”  Even the often maligned News Corporation promises in its annual report to be the world’s first carbon neutral global media company by 2010.  Its annual report says, “we can’t solve all of the world’s problems, but we continue to focus on areas where we can bring our experience, our reach and our talents to bear.” 

      DISNEY DAIRY PRODUCTS AND TIME WARNER CHOCOLATE:  It was odd but not surprising that Gannett owns Army Times Publishing or that the New York Times which sold off its television stations still holds on to a 7,000-subscriber weekly, the Petaluma Argus, in California; or even that News Corp is one of the leading newspaper insert companies with a group called NAM.  And, somewhere in the corrupted hard drive known as my brain, I remember that Disney owns cruise ships, but the statement in the company’s annual report that it is planning to launch two new cruise ships in the next two years still came as somewhat of a surprise.  But that’s the least of it when it comes to odd businesses that major corporations are involved in.  Disney also is big into Disney branded fruits, vegetables, dairy products and pasta for “families in dozens of countries.”  It has its own signature brand of home furnishings.  And not too surprisingly, but somewhat strange to see in writing, Disney corporate says in its annual report that “the pre-school segment continues to grow.”  Think about that. Media giant Bertelsmann also sees dollars in toddlers with its investment in Scoyo, an online learning platform for children.  The oddest of all though may be Time Warner’s interest in QSP, which provides school and youth group fundraising activities such as the sale of chocolate and cookie dough. Hmmm. Picture that.    

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State of Media Corporations - A Special Report

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        April 13, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  

 

    THE STATE OF THE MEDIA – ACCORDING TO MEDIA CORPORATIONS – A SPECIAL REPORT

 

 

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      OVERVIEW:  The state of the media is bleak, but not nearly as bleak as the report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism report summarized in a previous Message from Michael would indicate.  At least that’s my take after reading a dozen annual reports from a potpourri of American media corporations.  Yes, I actually did that and, yes, I need a life, but it is fascinating stuff and the subject of this special report created by yours truly.  I should note that some of the information comes from annual reports aimed at shareholders and some of it comes from the annual 10-K report required by the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Now, admittedly, the corporate annual reports can be expected to paint a rosier picture, but even given that, the reports in total are less depressing.  And the reports are not Pollyanna pabulum.  They’re pretty blunt.  Words and phrases like – global economic downturn of epic proportion… global financial meltdown… most severe recession we have endured as a nation… this stinks – okay, I made that last one up.  But the others are from various corporations – Disney, General Electric, McClatchy, and the list goes on.  The Washington Post’s Donald Graham, in fact, opens up his letter to shareholders with, “Well, that was something… we could do without more years like 2008.”  But in the end, it is News Corp’s Rupert Murdoch (sounding more like President Barack Obama than he would probably like to admit) who sums it up as a problem that is more a “crisis of confidence” than a financial crisis.  In a similar vein, Disney’s Robert Iger talks about a “blend of realism and optimism” and the annual report talks about choosing either realistic optimism or optimistic realism.

That’s not to say that any of the groups dismiss or minimize the economic crisis.  In fact, one of the most consistent messages you hear in all these reports is that cost cutting has become part of the corporate culture.  It’s a statement that comes up often.  For example, The New York Times, like so many others says, “stringent expense management has become part of our corporate culture.”  Again, there is a touch of realism when the folks at Media General make the point that “cost reductions are successful for a short time but sustained shareholder value is created by generating revenues.”  Another phrase that comes up in several reports (Gannett, Disney, Bertelsmann) is “financial discipline” as in “we are committed to managing through this period with financial discipline.”  (Disney).

One of the more fascinating financial analyses comes from GE’s Jeffrey Immelt who says the global economy and capitalism will be “reset” by the financial crisis and that the interaction between government and business “will change forever.”  He argues that, “in a reset economy, the government will be a regulator; and also an industry policy champion, a financier and a key partner.”  It tells you something of the size of GE that he talks about its willingness to work with… he doesn’t quite say ‘other’ but it seems to be implied… other countries.  He makes it abundantly clear that while GE will always “invest to win globally” its strategy should always include a preeminent position in the U.S.  In an almost presidential-like statement he talks about how he “learned something about my country”  that while, “I run a global company… I am a citizen of the U.S.”  Immelt goes on to say that the 30-year-old notion that the U.S. can evolve from a technology and manufacturing leader to a service leader “is just wrong.”  In essence, he says, the problem is “real engineering was traded for financial engineering.”   As you can probably tell, I found his letter to shareholders a fascinating read, up there with the likes of Warren Buffett.        

      IMPAIRMENT.  Now, that’s a word you don’t hear often.  Unless you read these annual reports.  And it’s not physical impairment.  It’s financial impairment.  And the numbers are staggering.  AOL/Time Warner had an impairment reduction of $24.3 Billion.  CBS Corporation had a pre-tax non-cash impairment of $14.18 Billion.  Belo Corporation  -- $464,760,000.  Gannett -- $747,368,000.  McClatchy -- $59,799,000.  Media General -- $632 Million.  New York Times -- $197.9 Million.  Morris Communications -- $4.3 Million.  That last one doesn’t sound like much, but it is enough to put them in the position where their company value is “likely significantly less” than its total indebtedness.  Corporate financial expert and Georgia State University professor James Owers was kind enough to explain impairment:  when firms make acquisitions, the price paid is divided into ‘assets purchased’ as measured by an appraisal and the balance over that is ‘goodwill.’  When it is determined that the ‘goodwill’ is no longer worth what was paid, it is said to be ‘impaired’ and must be written down.  Now, this part doesn’t come from Owers but from me – in the case of television stations that means its broadcast license, for example.  In the case of newspapers, it literally can be the masthead.  Back to Owers (although I might have said this, too):  “it looks as if many media firms paid too much for their acquisitions and now must face reality.”  Lastly, the Washington Post’s Donald Graham basically reiterates much of Owers’ point that the impairment charge “points to acquisitions that haven’t worked out as planned.”  Of all the corporate reports, his is the only one that addresses the issue so clearly, saying he has “no quarrel” with the accountants using the impairment process and that, bluntly, media companies better just get used to it. Graham is also the one who candidly admits that it shouldn’t have taken the financial crisis of 2008 for him to tighten up his definition of “very compelling” when deciding on acquisitions, but it did.

Now, here’s an interesting side note.  Of the dozen or so companies I reviewed, guess which was the only one that had no impairment to report?  To quote the annual report:  the company determined that the goodwill and indefinite-lived intangible assets included in the balance sheet were not impaired.  Give up?  The answer – Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation.  Of course, this is the same News Corp which describes itself in the annual report as:  the most global and most competitive media and entertainment company on earth. 

      INNOVATION.  Now, that’s a word you do hear often.  And if you read these annual reports, you’ll hear it even oftener.  (Okay, so that’s not such good English.)  The other word often paired with it is – creativity. It’s striking how often those two words come up.  In fact, mega-media corporation Bertelsmann, which is probably unfamiliar to many Americans, cites “creativity” as one of its core values, along with partnership, entrepreneurship and citizenship.  It is part of what the company calls “the spirit to create” and clearly part of its ‘entrepreneurial’ focus.  In a similar vein, Disney and Iger talk about a commitment to creativity and innovation, providing “high quality creative content and experiences… creative work… (that) differentiates us from our competitors (and makes people say) what will they think of next.”  Gannett’s Craig Dubow says innovation was applied to every process as part of their ‘innovative initiatives’ designed to complete their “transformation into a company that is innovative, nimble and intently focused on the customer” and able to “adjust quickly and creatively.”  Media General’s J. Stewart Bryan and Marshall Morton argue that the “challenging economic times also foster innovation and new solutions.”  Even semi-little Morris Communications affirms in their 10-K report that, “we have remained committed to innovation.”  In much more grandiose terms, News Corp’s Murdoch talks about his company as "women and men with a passion for innovation, an aversion to complacency and a belief that all consumers deserve quality and choice (by) creating choice where none exists.”  And if that isn’t enough for you, he goes on, “we’ve mastered the art of nurturing the creative process to harness this passion.”   Decidedly less hyperbolic, the New York Times Arthur Ochs Sulzberger and Janet Robinson talk about “creating innovative products.”   

Probably the strongest statement comes from GE’s Immelt who, in his fascinating critique of the economic problems, writes, “in the end our businesses, our government and many local leaders lost sight of what makes a nation great – a passion for innovation.  We need an educational system that inspires hard work, discipline, and creative thinking.  The ability to innovate must be valued again.”             

      EMPLOYEES.  Ah, yes, the employees.  Wonderful people.  Salt of the earth.  Can’t live with them; can’t live without them.  I’m sorry, but in the wake of the sometimes understandable and sometimes not understandable layoffs and cutbacks, it is interesting to note that virtually every report extols the values and virtues of their employees.  In some cases, the comments are clearly sincere; in others, it appears to be lip service.  I know I’m violating my rule of not commenting, but this is really more perspective than commentary. In any case, you be the judge.  Here are just some of the statements from the various companies:

Cox:  every employee is valued and every person is respected.  Gannett:  our employees are our greatest asset and the pressure on them has been intense… (they have) performed miracle after miracle.  McClatchy:  despite the difficult measures taken, our employees continue to be exemplary.  Media General:  credit for the progress and transformation goes directly to our 5,600 employees.  Belo:  despite resource constraints, employees have maintained their focus on strengthening the competitive position of our stations.  News Corp:  the 64,000 passionate individuals who make us the world’s most international media company are dedicated… Morris:  we believe that our relations with our employees are generally good… (and we have created an) environment for employees that motivates.  Washington Post:  staffed by talented reporters and editors.  New York Times:  extraordinary support of our employees (and the) collective strength, ingenuity and creativity of our people. Bertelsmann talks about its employees as “entrepreneurs” who show “the willingness to do without on the one hand and a commitment to take responsibility on the other.”  Disney talks about its “safe, inclusive workplaces (and its goal of employees being) positive and productive members of the community.”  Again, I should note that some of the language differences can be attributed to the fact that the more positive statements come from the annual reports and the more ‘down’ statements come from the much more mundane 10-k reports.  Mostly, by the way, I think the statements are sincere, but then again I still believe in the tooth fairy.       

      COMPLETELY EXTRANEOUS FOOTNOTE:  The two ‘coolest’ reports, IMHO (in my humble opinion) are from Disney and from Bertelsmann.  In part that’s because both are really well written.  Some of the CEO’s should have hired writers.  The letter to shareholders by Bertelsmann’s Hartmut Ostrowski is just brilliant.  It is reproduced to look like an actual letter with Ostrowski actually making hand-written notations in the margins and a hand written introduction to “dear friends of Bertelsmann.”  The Disney annual report just contains some fascinating visuals, including my favorite of Mickey and Minnie standing in front of the Taj Mahal.  What does that say about the company?  I also found it interesting that both CEO’s Iger and Ostrowski are shown tie-less and in other reports, GE CEO Immelt is shown tie-less.  I have no idea what that says about them or their company or anything.  As the headline says, an extraneous footnote.

      A NOT EXTRANEOUS FOOTNOTE:  As you can imagine, this is not a complete and comprehensive report on the annual reports.  And there will be more in a future MfM, including some oddities I found out about the companies.  In particular, we need to look further at the annual reports by the world’s five largest media corporations which are in order of size:  Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom and News Corporation.  All of them in the double-digit Billion dollar range.  And all of them fascinating.       

      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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.

 

Message from Michael - March 30, 2009

Message From Michael                                         

                                                                                                                                    March 30, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

      IT’S NOT YOUR SON’S FACEBOOK ANY MORE

      BORN BUT NOT BRED IN THE U.S.A.

      UP, UP AND AWAY WITH VIDEO

      WHITHER GOEST MYSPACE

      THE CHIEF TWEETING OFFICER

      THE LIFE SPAN OF A TWEET

      THE BIGGEST LOSER GETS LOST

      BEAM MY NEWS UP, SCOTTY

      FLATULENT PHONES

 

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      IT’S NOT YOUR SON’S FACEBOOK ANY MORE:  Nope, it turns out that Facebook is turning into your father’s Buick, with the majority of Facebook users over the age of 25.  The 18-25 group still make up the single largest block with more than a third of the users (35%), and the 13-17 teenage crowd still accounts for one in every ten users (11%).  But time marches on, with the over-35 crowd on Facebook more than doubling in just the last two months, according to Facebook tracking site, insidefacebook.com.  There were 6.8 Million new Facebook users added in the 26-34 age group which now comprises a quarter (24%) of all users and an astonishing 7 Million new users added in the 35-44 age group which now comprises one in every six Facebook users (17%).  By comparison, the 18 to 25 age group added less than half each of those age groups (2.3 Million) while the teen group added barely a Million.  And for all my fuddy-duddy friends who have befriended me on Facebook, you’ll be happy to know that your peers are joining in force as well, with 2.3 Million new users (bringing the percentage up to 5% of the total) in the 55 to 65 demo and 3.6 Million new users (now up to 8%) in the 45 to 54 demographic.  Again, a reminder, those are the numbers added JUST in the last two months.

      BORN BUT NOT BRED IN THE U.S.A.:  As surprised as I was to find out (as reported in a previous MfM) that significantly more than half of the Twitterers (60%) come from outside the U.S., I was even more surprised that the latest statistics show that nearly three quarters of Facebook’s users (70%) come from outside the U.S., according to the insidefacebook website.  Translated another way, there are twenty countries where one in ten of the population are Facebook subscribers.  Meanwhile, another website, allfacebook.com, says that Facebook is expected to have officially crossed the 200 Million user mark this past weekend and that it should pass the 300 Million mark by the third quarter of this year.  As a footnote to the footnote, I should note the semi-controversy over the redesign of the Facebook website, the report that Facebook is considering offering its own ‘virtual’ currency a la Second Life and that Microsoft may be making a run at Facebook for…drum roll, please… $50 Billion.

      UP, UP AND AWAY WITH VIDEO:  Online video watching has jumped “massively,” year to year, according to comScore chairman Gian Fulgoni, who says it is up 60%.  In addition, he told an OMMA conference, the time spent viewing has jumped, if not massively, at least significantly, with viewers watching an average five hours a month albeit at only 3.5 minutes per video (although that also is up.)  Also joining the Superman leap up and away is Hulu which, according to the latest comScore figures, moved up to fourth place in the top ten rankings of video properties, with a 42% increase month to month.  Of course, Google with its YouTube site leads the pack with more than 5.3 Billion video views during February of the more than 13.1 Billion total videos viewed during February.  After that it drops dramatically, with Fox Interactive Media second (463Million views and 53.8 Million viewers), Yahoo third (353 Million views and 41.8 Million viewers), Hulu fourth (333 Million and 34.7 Million) and Microsoft’s various sites coming in fifth (259 Million).  In all, three quarters (75.5%) of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video at some point.

      WHITHER GOEST MYSPACE:  As a side note to all this, the question comes up – what happened to MySpace?   As a personal observation (or, as a research friend of mine used to say, my focus group of one) I can’t remember the last time I received an invite or a piece of forwarded material from MySpace people.  It’s still there, of course.  The comScore report says it had 41.2 Million viewers who watched 384 Million videos.  An article in The Telegraph newspaper notes that MySpace now has less than half (124 Million unique viewers) on average than Facebook (276 Million uniques).  Even more critically, that represents an actual two percent decline in viewers.  Apparently MySpace remains “marginally ahead” of Facebook in the U.S., according to the report, but TechCrunch co-editor Michael Arrington notes that less than a year ago, the two were the same size.     

      THE BIGGEST LOSER GETS LOST:  Data compiled by TiVo of time-shifted viewing shows that NBC’s The Biggest Loser is more likely (45%) to be viewed live while ABC’s Lost is more likely (27%) to be viewed a week or more after it airs than most other shows.  So, what does that tell you?  Or the fact that Fox’s American Idol gets its highest ratings (8.4) for viewing that is live, plus one day. So, what does that tell you? The analysis shows that the percentage of people watching a day later more than doubles the percentage of people watching live.  For example, ABC’s The Bachelor is watched by 40% of its audience either live or within an hour, but when you add in another day of time-delayed viewing, that number jumps to three-quarters (75%) of all its viewers.

      BEAM MY NEWS UP, SCOTTY:  According to comScore, the number of people accessing news daily on their mobile has more than doubled in a year to year comparison.  Based on a three month average, comparing January of this year to January of last year, comScore says the numbers jumped from 10.8 Million to 22.3 Million people who access news daily while the number of mobile users who access news in general (meaning at least occasionally during a month) jumped by three quarters, from 36.8 Million to 63.2 Million.
      

      FLATULENT PHONES:  As noted in a previous MfM, the iPhone has an incredible 25,000 applications available with an even more incredible 500 Million downloads.  Some estimates put it much higher, according to websites apptism.com and appcraver.com, both of which are solely devoted to finding and reviewing iphone applications.  The fact that that there are two websites devoted just to tracking the iPhone apps says something.  Anyway, we started down this track after reading that one of the top ten paid applications, a top “breakout hit,” is an application called iFart which, for 99 cents, enables your phone to emit a variety of noises simulating flatulence.  As a New York Times article noted, flatulence humor has been a staple since William Shakespeare wrote about it in The Comedy of Errors.  On a considerably more serious note, one of the top apps on iPhone (which, for the record, I don’t own) is Sully’s Flight which simulates the landing of the Airways jet by pilot Chesley Sullenberger into the Hudson River.  Amazingly, The Oregon Trail which I can remember playing eons ago is one of the top ten paid apps.  One of the top ten free applications is one that converts your iPhone into a dog whistler able to transmit anywhere from 8,000 to 22,000 Hz.

As a side note, and just to add a factoid note to all this, research firm AdMob Mobile Metrics says the iPhone alone accounts for half of ALL mobile web traffic from Smart Phones in the U.S.  Less than half a year ago (August, 2008), the iPhone accounted for only 10% of all such traffic.         

      THE CHIEF TWEETING OFFICER:  It’s hard to believe that Twitter founder Evan Williams was once so broke that he stayed up all night at one point checking his couch cushions for change to buy coffee.  His first business attempt ended with a lot of mad employees and Williams owing the I.R.S. a lot of money.  That tidbit along with several others is buried in a New York Times Sunday Business section profile of Williams who likens the founding of Twitter to a “well-orchestrated accident.”  Twitter was a side project to his original business, ODEO, which finds video and audio on the web, just like Blogger was a side project to another of his earlier businesses, Pyra Lab.  Of course Blogger was sold to Google for un-told amounts and, as we noted in our previous MfM about Twitter, many are speculating that Twitter will be sold to Google.  In Williams’s self-effacing article, he says he’s “always suffered from hallucinogenic optimism.”

As a side note, Odeo has a link on its page to Tweet Week, a compilation of twitterings.  Whoop-de-do, right?  Except here’s what’s odd.  The latest edition is more than two months old.  And as a foot note to the side note, several MfM readers have noted that it seems there are a number of ‘negative’ articles have been written about Twitter lately.  True?  Not true?

      THE LIFESPAN OF A TWEET:  Five minutes.  That’s it.  A test run by website fuelinteractive.com shows that companies that companies that tweet an announcement with a link about a funny video or article got virtually all of their response in the first five minutes of the tweet.  After that…nothing.  As the website authors note, a tweet may lAst ‘forever’ in search.twitter.com, but in reality if they (your semi-faithful followers) don’t catch it at the start, it’s gone.  Their advice, as a result, is that if you want to have impact, you have to tweet regularly and tweet often because “you market to a parade, not a standing army.”  Yeah, I know, it took me a while to figure out what that meant, too.

      WELCOME NEW MEMBERS:  We continue to add new subscribers every week to Message from Michael, and I appreciate each and every one of you.  But I have to say that my best new subscription request came from Patti Wilson of pattiwilson.com who referred to it as “outrageously great.”  Gotta love that.  You also have to love any one who uses the Wizard of Oz in her blog.

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