Media Consultant

Message from Michael - News Corp - Debt Crisis - July 26, 2011

2011-09-26T16:35:00.000-04:00

RULE NEWS CORP, NEWS CORP RULES THE AIR WAVES

THE CROWN JEWEL OF THE MEDIA EMPIRE

A MACY’S VERSUS GIMBEL’S SHOUT-OUT

DEBT CRISIS AND MEDIA CRISIS

RULE NEWS CORP, NEWS CORP RULES THE AIR WAVES: It doesn’t have quite the ring of the British anthem, but it’s possibly more appropriate. Rupert Murdoch may be losing his influence in the United Kingdom, but his News Corporation is actually expanding in another part of the former British Empire – India. And not just there, but throughout the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions. In India, the expansion is through the introduction of more Fox International and National Geographic Channels. In the Middle East, Sky News is adding Sky News Arabia and two new Farsi language channels. The ventures are part of News Corp’s various partnerships, including the Afghanistan-based (Yes, you read right – Afghanistan) media company, The Moby Group, and the Saudi-based media company, Rotana Media, whose principal shareholder is News Corp’s second largest shareholder, Prince Alaweed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz al Saud. According to the Fox International Channels website, the company has 183 ‘wholly and majority owned’ channels broadcasting in 36 languages around the world. The other part that makes News Corp the world’s second largest media conglomerate (behind the Walt Disney Company) is Sky News, which, its website says, is “valued for its fairness, balance and journalistic objectivity by both viewers and regulators.” It is based in the U.K. but with operations in many parts of Europe and Asia. Add to that, Star News, which is focused on India. Finally, it has nothing to do with the Murdoch empire reach, but I can’t help being a little tabloidish and note that, in addition to all that, Murdoch has four homes worldwide – Los Angeles, New York, London and Melbourne, Australia.

THE CROWN JEWEL OF THE MEDIA EMPIRE. Once the Crown Jewel of the British Empire (hey, I’m on a theme here), India is fast becoming one of the crown jewels of every company’s media empire. The U.S. is still the world’s media leader, but just as China is challenging America economically, India is challenging America in terms of media groups. In addition to the News Corp investments, several other major groups are making investments in the sub-continent, with its own local media groups expanding rapidly. It is the world’s second largest newspaper market, and the fourth largest in terms of broadcast stations with 1,400 stations, just behind the U.S. at (2,218), according to Wikipedia and The World Factbook. Russia is the largest (7,308) followed by China (3,240). Add to that the fact that India is expected to overtake China in population by 2030, and that its middle class is expanding rapidly. This thought process about India was triggered by the fact that just about every other edition of the newsletters from the global media reporting website RapidTVNews had something about India in it. The Fox International expansion with Dish TV in India. A 13.2% increase in broadcast revenues. Corporate restructuring of its Network18. The merger of four cable MSO’s into one major cable TV network. Discovery adding four new channels in India. Hollywood film channel Movies Now expanding into India. Satellite Growth. Cable Growth. Internet Growth. And, on a personal note, having worked in India, I can attest to the fact that the Indian media market is, to put it mildly, “robust.”

A MACY’S VERSUS GIMBEL’S SHOUT-OUT. For those interested, the website and newsletter, RapidTVNews, provides a much more global look at media developments. I have no idea how I ended up being a subscriber. A lot of newsletters end up in my email box, sometimes for reasons unknown. But it is interesting. Where else would I hear about Arabsat, Nilesat and Eutelsat which, by the way, is being jammed by Iranian broadcasting, trying to block the BBC’s Persian channel. Thanks to RapidTVNews, I now know that Al Jazeera is now available in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and which television groups are carrying the Olympics in France and South Korea. Okay, not exactly exciting stuff to an American audience, but interesting still. For example, I had no idea that so many countries were still making the transition to digital broadcasting from analog, or as they spell it, analogue. If you can stand one more mention of India, its government have ordered the four major Metros to switch to digital by March of next year which is expected to further expand that growing market. Japan just completed the transition with the country’s broadcasters making the final switch Sunday. A small number of households in the prefectures where the earthquake and tsunami hit are still using analogue temporarily. Austria has just switched over the last 24 transmitters to digital. The U.S. made the switch in June, 2009. By 2016, 33 countries will be fully digital compared with only one (Finland) at the end of 2010, according to a RapidTVNews article quoting Digital TV Research. Based on its survey of 73 countries, digital penetration will have reached 80% by 2016 compared to the 42.5% now. (And, okay, I’m not the Macy’s of newsletters, although they may be the Gimbel’s.)

DEBT CRISIS AND MEDIA CRISIS. Having watched all the news stories about the political machinations going on inside the Beltway, did you know that Washington's spending has recently been higher as a percentage of the nation's economic output than at any time since World War II? But by the same measure, Washington's revenues are the lowest in more than 60 years. No? Neither did I. Those figures come from the non-partisan website factcheck.org, which is a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. After watching the debate AND the coverage with some dismay, I thought I would share those points with you. IMHO, every journalist should subscribe to the site. Here are some other factoids from the website to end this newsletter on:

* Federal spending ("outlays" in budget jargon) is expected to equal 24.1 percent of the nation's gross domestic product in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. The figure was 25 percent in fiscal year 2009, highest since 1945.

* On the other hand, federal revenues are expected to drop to 14.8 percent of GDP this year, lower even than the 14.9 percent attained in both 2009 and 2010. There has been only one year since World War II when revenues have been as low as in any of these years: 1950, when the figure was 14.4 percent.

* These historically high rates of spending and low rates of taxation have combined to produce a chain of deficits that are also the highest since WWII. The deficit was 10.0 percent of GDP in fiscal 2009. It declined to 8.9 percent last year as the economy started to recover, but is projected to go up to over 9 percent this year. Each of these deficits is larger than in any year since 1945, measured as a percentage of GDP.

* The U.S. is borrowing about 36 cents of every dollar spent so far this year. It borrowed 37 cents on the dollar last year, and 40 cents in fiscal 2009.

* The largest components of federal spending are Social Security and Medicare programs for the elderly (33.5 percent of total outlays in 2010) and national defense (20.1 percent). Interest payments on the federal debt alone accounted for 5.7 percent of all federal spending, and that percentage is rising.

* The federal income tax accounted for 41.5 percent of federal receipts in 2010 (down from 49.6 percent prior to the Bush tax cuts of 2001 – 2003). Corporate taxes brought in only 8.9 percent, also down sharply since the recent recession. Payroll taxes and other "social insurance" payments accounted for 40 percent of total receipts in 2010.

Subscriptions: We encourage people to share the Message with friends and colleagues. If you wish to subscribe send an email to Michael@MediaConsultant.tv, with subscribe in the subject line. Current issues of the Message are posted on the MediaConsultant.tv website, as well as the website, http://www.the247newsroom.com. Back issues, along with current issues, can be found at http://www.media-consultant.blogspot.com.

Message from Michael - Local News Website Questions - July 18, 2011

2011-07-19T07:45:00.001-04:00

Message From Michael

July 18, 2011

Questions About Local News on the Internet – A Special Report

A report to the Federal Communications Commission by a professor at George Washington University basically says that local online news websites aren't worth buying. The analysis by Matthew Hindman finds that online local news websites have a revenue problem for the very simple reason that they have a readership problem.

It paints a stark picture of local online news use that is dramatically different from everything we've been told so far about the future of digital journalism. IF what he says is correct, local online news fails all the key Internet metrics. Or, maybe more accurately, and even worse, traffic to local online news websites is so small that it doesn't even count as minuscule. You may be surprised – or shocked may be the better word -- at how small it is.

For starters, he put together a list of 18-hundred local news websites from the top 100 television markets using data from comScore. From that he determines that 1,074 actually qualify as true LOCAL news websites by looking at the categories provided by comScore, determining where there is significant local versus national usage and making sure that the site reaches at least one percent of the audience. Then he goes into the analysis of the four key measures of a website.

First is audience reach which is arrived at by counting the number of unique visitors. Hindman dismisses this measurement, noting that most websites report a high 'bounce rate' which is when a person visits a single page and then leaves. He argues that counting a person who visits for less than 30 seconds is like counting someone who is channel surfing on TV and happens to flip through CNN, or someone who catches a headline on a newspaper at a news stand. He points out that people use multiple computers and multiple browsers; each time they do, they're counted as a 'unique' visitor. He notes that the Project for Excellence in Journalism found that three-quarters (77%) of site visitors are "extremely casual visitors" who may go to a site only once or twice a month while another report, by Borrell Associates, estimates the actual ratio of unique visitors to 'real people' is four to one.

Hindman makes many legitimate points about why 'unique visitors' is a questionable metric, but he provides very little in the way of actual numbers and facts. At one point he even says, "more detailed traffic metrics show that the total audience for local news outlets is uniformly small." But then no numbers. The closest he comes to that is when he reports that the largest local news site in any given market reached a fifth (17.8%) of the local users – which sounds pretty good to me. The second largest a tenth (11.6%) and so on down the line.

Now, get ready for shock number one. Hindman does provide some numbers for page views, the next and most critical metric. According to the analysis, local news websites averaged only one half of one percent (0.51%) of the total page views in any given market in a month. Out of an average of 2,700 page views per person per month, only 13.8 page views are spent on local news.

The next big shocker is how little time people spend at local online news sites. Brace yourself again because it turns out that the average user spends less than one half of one percent (0.45) of their time visiting local news websites each month. In an average month that translates to 9.1 minutes for all news websites in the median (note – not average) market. The top-ranked local news website in any given market averaged 5 minutes with the lowest ranked website averaging 30 seconds.

To put a little perspective on this, comScore says that the average page view is only 26 seconds. The overwhelming majority (98%) of page views last less than two minutes. And just about every page views (99.8%) lasts less than ten minutes.

The report makes the case that LOCAL news websites are often 'collateral damage' (my words) to national news websites. The average market sends 74 monthly page views to "news sites of all stripes." Sixty of those page views are to NON-LOCAL news sites, leaving 14 page views for the local news sites. It's the same for time spent, with the user in the average market spending 60 minutes on NON-LOCAL news sites compared to just 11 minutes on LOCAL news websites.

(Getting a little discouraging at this point, isn't it? I have to admit that about this time, after having re-read the report for the third time, a line from a children's story kept echoing in my head: everybody hates me, nobody loves me, guess I'll go eat worms.)

Not surprising, the study finds that local online news is dominated by the mainstream, traditional news sources – newspapers and television websites. In fact, so much so, that Hindman makes the case that many markets are virtually in violation of the Department of Justice's antitrust rules governing over-concentration of control. So much for the diversity of news voices that the Internet was supposed to bring to the marketplace. But maybe not. The report, in one of its many unusual definition of parameters, says that this applies only on the basis that you look at the online news community only, and don't include the actual print and broadcast products.

Get ready for the next shocker, or maybe semi-shocker. Out of all those local news websites, only 17 sites are classified as true web-only local news websites. 17 out of 1,074. Kind of reminds me that there are only 30 true all-news radio stations in the entire country. All 17 are listed in the report including to my great surprise, one in little Greenwood, South Carolina.

Oh, yes, all those innovative, future-of-journalism, news websites that you see written about in trade and journalism publications as well as non-profit and foundation reports? The report says Phfft. Okay, so phfft isn't a word, and no, the report doesn't actually say that, but that's the net effect. The point is they don't even show up in the comScore data – zip, nada, zero, nothing. The study cites several examples of how these sites are non-entities. Probably the most telling: The Gotham Gazette in New York which in two months received 12 visitors out of the 19,998 panelists. As to AOL's Patch hyper-local effort creating news websites in communities throughout America. Another phfft. In New York, where the Patch program started, there were between 37 and 50 visitors in the entire three months studied.

Out of the 1,074 local news websites, more than half (590) were newspaper websites and more than a third (390) belonged to television stations. There were 41 that belong to weekly news publications and 31 that belonged to radio. That averages out to 10.5 local news sources in a market which breaks out as 6.1 newspaper sites, 3.8 television sites, 0.3 radio and less than 0.2 web-only sites. Some more number crunching perspective: the newspaper websites averaged 0.25 percent (yes, one fourth of one percent) of their market's monthly page views while television websites averaged 0.20 percent. Time wise they're a little more equal, both averaged 0.25 percent of the total time spent.

Criticisms of the report are that it relies heavily on the comScore data which, in turn, relies heavily on user panels. But in all fairness, it should be noted that all three of the online measurement services (comScore, Nielsen NetRatings and Experian's Hitwise) use panels. Also, the study does seem at times to be comparing not just apples and oranges, but sometimes pears and peaches as well, with a mango or two thrown in occasionally. For example, sometimes the report cites numbers, sometimes percentages; sometimes medians, sometimes averages; sometimes numbers, sometimes percentages. But, as noted before, industry researchers, Borrell Associates had very similar findings. They recently released a report warning about the over-counting of unique visitors and the fact that many users are casual users, or the term they like to use – passers-by.

Hindman's study is one of six submitted to the FCC which, you may recall, did its own study titled The Information Needs of Communities. That report raised questions about the financial viability of digital journalism, noting for example that search gets the majority of digital advertising dollars. Even more critically it raised two other points. One, it noted that as the Internet business model evolves, "local advertisers will have more ways to reach the consumers without using content-creating media." Two, it posed the equation an average website with 2 Million page views with three ads per page and an average CPM of $2.52 would only generate about $15,000 a month.

Hindman's study raises the question whether advertisers will need the local-news-content-creating media, and whether local news CPM's are enough, or even valid, in the total universe of CPM's. So, no, this isn't some chardonnay-sipping academic's report. It may not have the ring of "be afraid, be very afraid," but it would be prudent to say, after considering the report, "be concerned, be very concerned."

Message from Michael - News of the World - July 11, 2011

2011-07-11T06:22:00.001-04:00

Message From Michael

July 11, 2011

SHOCK AND AWE IN THE MEDIA WORLD

LIVE FROM YOUR TV SET, THE LATEST STUDY

EVERYBODY WHO IS ANYBODY HAS ONE

JOURNALISTIC SHOCK FELT AROUND THE MEDIA WORLD: UK Prime Minister David Cameron has ordered an inquiry into "press ethics" after the scandal about phone hacking by the News of the World. It is expected to be far more critical than the Federal Trade Commission or the Federal Communication Commission studies of the media here in the U.S. Three fairly recent surveys of public opinion of the news media raise the question of how the U.S. media would fare in such an inquiry.

Only a quarter of Americans say they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in newspapers (28%) and television news (27%), according to a Gallup survey. In fact, more (one third) say they have very little or no confidence in newspapers (31%) or television news (32%).

A fourth of all Americans (26%) say they are "very angry" with the media with nearly two thirds (61%) saying they are at least "somewhat angry" with the media, according to a survey by Rasmussen Reports.

More than half of Americans (54%) say they are not at all confident about the media's impartiality in reporting political and economic issues, according to Harris Interactive survey. Just under half (45%) say the media in America portray conditions in the country less accurately than they did five years ago. As the authors of the Harris survey say, the story about media bias is an old one. But, they say, "The media needs to do a good job of not just using slogans, but actually proving that they provide all sides of each and every story."

If it's any consolation, the Harris survey, which looked at the public perception of media in five other countries, seems to indicate that the public perception of the media in the U.S. is about in the middle. Germans have much more confidence in their media than any other country, with a fifth (20%) saying they are either "extremely" or "very" confident in their media's impartiality. That is four times more than the U.S. (5%), which, in turn, was double most other countries. The Italians have the least confidence in their media's impartiality with three quarters (74%) saying they are not at all confident. That could be attributed to the fact that the head of their country, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconni, is also the head of the country's largest media empire and could probably also claim the title of head scandal maker in the country as well. Interestingly, in light of the News of the World incident, Britons were the most unsure about their country's media's impartiality. One in five (20%) answered "not sure" when asked about media impartiality. That was more than double any other country.

In the Gallup survey of 16 'institutions", newspapers and television news ranked 10^th and 11^thin terms of confidence, just ahead of banks, organized labor, big business, HMO's and Congress which ranked last. The Presidency ranked 8^th, and the institution that gets the greatest vote of confidence in American – the military with more than three quarters (78%) saying they have a great deal or lot of confidence in it.

For a little more perspective on the ranking of newspapers and television news, weigh the percentages of people who have little or no confidence against the percentage who have a great deal or a lot of confidence. The net result is you get a negative three points for newspapers and a negative four points for television. For even more perspective, the high point for newspapers came in 1990 when more than a third (39%) had much confidence while for television, the high point was 1993 when it was nearly a half (46%). Since then there has only been a point or two difference between the two.

The Rasmussen Reports make a distinction between what it calls the mainstream and the "political class" with the political class being defined by three loaded questions – do you trust the judgment of the American people or political leaders more, has the federal government become a special interest group, and does government and big business work together in ways that hurt consumers and investors. So, yes, their survey should probably be taken with a grain of salt. The Rasmussen and Gallup surveys were both done last month while the Harris survey is from February of this year.

The British tabloids have long been noted for their sensationalistic coverage, often acquired through – pick your term – pay-to-play journalism or checkbook journalism. It's a charge that is now being leveled more and more often at American media. The New York Times had a lengthy report titled "The Gossip Machine" which looked at how celebrity and gossip shows and websites are "feeding the public's seemingly bottomless appetite for dirt about the famous." And it's not just the TMZ's and Radar's of the world. Many so-called "mainstream" media are doing the same, although disguised as paying for pictures, not interviews. AdWeek recently did a profile piece on Barcroft Media which "serves up oddities from around the world to major TV outlets – for a price." Once primarily focused on British news organizations, the group has expanded into the American market and so-called 'traditional' media outlets. Remember the story about the Indonesian infant with the two-pack-a-day cigarette habit? You can thank Barcroft Media for that.

The other criticism is the "cozy relationship," as PM Cameron put it, between the British media and British politicians. Exhibit A: The Prime Minister himself who hired fa ormer News of the World editor as his official spokesperson. The American version: Comcast hiring FCC commissioner Meredith Atwell Baker, who after voting for the merger of Comcast and NBCUniversal, left the FCC to head NBCUniversal's 'governmental affairs' division. Or, if you want more, take a look at the various reports detailing the media members on the cocktail circuit "inside the beltway."

Okay, okay, enough, you say. The real reason that News of the World is being shut down has nothing to do with any journalistic principles. It is a business decision. Advertisers were fleeing along with readers. The Murdoch family was willing to sacrifice the News in hopes of preserving the BSkyB deal. Besides, News Corporation British subsidiary News International was planning to expand The Sun newspaper into a Sunday edition any way. And I agree with all that. Just as I agree with the New York Times public editor, Arthur Brisbane, when he says the media needs to cover "events and culture wherever they may lead" even if it seems "the culture is headed for the curb." (And, no, I don't know exactly what that means.) But, as he also says, there is a question of standards as you cover stories "loitering on the edge of propriety."

LIVE FROM YOUR TV SET, IT'S THE LATEST STUDY: Despite all the reports about consumers time-shifting their viewing, despite all the talk about consumers' desire for convenience and choice in their viewing and despite all the ways to watch video, most people prefer to watch TV programs the Leave it to Beaver way – Live and at its regular time. That's according to a survey by Knowledge Networks which found that twice as many people (47%) preferred watching TV shows live versus watching it on DVR's (23%). Not surprisingly, two-thirds (66%) of the Beaver generation (aka Baby Boomers aged 46 -64) preferred Live TV viewing. Somewhat surprising, nearly half (44%) of the Gen Y-er's (13 to 31) also preferred Live TV – more than double the percentage who preferred watching on DVR's (16%). Actually the Gen Y group's second choice was Internet viewing (24%). More surprising, it was the so-called Gen X group (32 to 45) which showed the least interest, with nearly equal percentages preferring DVR's (35%) as Live (38%). The Gen X group was not far behind Gen Y when it came to Internet viewing with a fifth (18%) voting for Internet viewing. Also in the not-surprising category, very few Baby Boomers (6%) expressed any interest in Internet video viewing. And, if you can take one more "despite"… despite all the emphasis on VOD by cable and ADS systems, only four percent of the Gen Y group, two percent of the Gen X group and one percent of the Baby Boomers picked VOD or pay-per-view as their favorite way to view.

EVERYBODY WHO IS ANYBODY HAS ONE: According to the latest comScore report, more than 234 Million Americans from the age of 13 and up, use a mobile device. For a little perspective, the Census Bureau says there are 243 Million people aged16 and up in the U.S. Add another 10 Million to that number to account for the three extra years and you get roughly 253 Million 13-plus-year-olds. By my calculation, that means roughly 92% of everybody over the age of 13 has a cell phone. The firm says nearly 77 Million of those mobile devices are Smart Phones. More than two-thirds (69.5%) send text messages on their mobiles while more than a third use it either to browse the Internet (39.8%) or use mobile Apps (38.6%). Other uses are games, of course, (26.9%) and listening to music (18.6%).

Another survey, this one by Prosper Mobile Insights, found that SmartPhones and Tablets are taking the place of many common household electronic devices including alarm clocks (61.1% say they have replaced them with their SmartPhone), GPS (52.3%), Digital Camera (44.3%), Landline Phone (40.3%), MP3 Player (37.6%) and Video Cameras (34.2%). And more than half (57.7%) say they would be comfortable using their SmartPhone to make a purchase in a store. A caveat here – the survey is based on a panel of people created by Prosper and only 149 people took part in the survey.

Subscriptions: We encourage people to share the Message with friends and colleagues. If you wish to subscribe send an email to Michael@MediaConsultant.tv, with subscribe in the subject line. Current issues of the Message can be found on the website http://www.the247newsroom.com. Back issues, along with current issues, can be found at http://www.media-consultant.blogspot.com .

Message from Michael -- FCC Media Report - Part Two - June 22, 2011

2011-06-22T06:58:00.000-04:00

Okay, help me pick a lead for my story on the Federal Communications Commission report on the news media. Here are the choices:

1. A report on the news media by the Federal Communications Commission finds that there is a shortage of local, professional accountability reporting.

2. The Federal Communications Commission report on the news media is like the story of two men whose plane crash lands in the desert. While one works on the plane, the other scouts the area, returning several hours later with good news and bad news. The bad news – the only thing to eat is camel dung. The good news – there's lots of it. Well, the current media landscape is sort of like that desert, according to the report.

3. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. The Biblical admonition could easily be the motto for journalism organizations, except for one problem. As the recently released Federal Communications Commission report on the media notes, while information may want to be free, labor wants to be paid. And that is the challenge facing news groups.

4. Despite all the financial problems facing the media, people are actually paying more for media and information now than ever before. But the money is not going to the ones who create the content. Instead it is going to those who distribute it. And that, according to a Federal Communications Commission report, is a problem.

5. A wide-ranging series of recommendations by a special Federal Communications Commission group, designed to help improve news media, have been described as disappointing by so-called liberals and conservatives alike.

Okay, here are my thoughts:

Lead #1. It is probably the main point the study authors want to make, but it's a line straight out of the report. And that's not reporting. What few news organizations that covered the report have used the same line, so it's old. Anyway, I wouldn't let my journalism students use it, or at least not without very clear attribution, so why would I?

As I say, it is the main point that the authors want to make. Much further down in the report, they make the point much more strongly, saying, "To be clear the shortage is not in news or information but a very specific kind of journalism: labor-intensive reporting on civically important topics." It's what you sometimes hear referred to as Big J Journalism.

To back that up, here are some factoids from the report: Membership in the Investigative Reporters and Editors' association has dropped a fourth, from 5,391 in 2003 to 4,000 in 2010. And submissions to the Pulitzer Prize investigative awards has dropped by nearly a half (43%) in that time. A study by the Annenberg School of Communication, cited in the report, says that only a little more than one minute of the average 30 minute newscast in LA was devoted to education, health or government. The same study found local government was the lead on local LA newscasts only 2.5% of the time and the state's budget crisis was the lead only once in a hundred newscasts. Another 'old fact' from previous Messages, but also still worth noting is that one out of six people (17%) have gone 'newsless', meaning they didn't use any news media the before before. The percentage is almost double (31%) that in the 18 – 24 demographic. The Independent News Network produces newscasts out of Iowa that are used for 'local' newscasts in a dozen markets around the country.

Lead #2. Good start. Different. Kind of folksy, but maybe trying a little too hard to be clever. As I tell my students, clever is hard to pull off. Jon Stewart might get away with it, but not many of us can.

The report makes the point that there is a polarization in news viewing with people watching what news programs that corresponds to their views, raising the question --   Does that make it harder for "less-opinionated news" to reach the scale to become a successful business model. The report also makes the point that there is a 'power shift' in news coverage from the media to government because, it says, the demands on journalists are such that many news releases and statements from governmental agencies are getting on air or on line or in print unedited, un-reviewed, 'as is.'

The report notes that the ratio of public relations professionals to reporters is four to one; compared to a one to one ratio 30 years ago. Then there are the national efforts to develop hyperlocal websites. Examiner.com, for example, has operations in 233 cities "employing" – yes, that word is deliberately in quotes – 67,000 'examiners.' AOL's Patch has started news websites in 800 communities with a paid editor-reporter in each site. The report – rightfully or wrongfully – gives short shrift to these efforts saying, they "add tremendously to the media ecosystem, but they also leave many crucial gaps unfilled."

Oddly (to me at least), the report had nothing about "content farms" which generate so-called content in the guise of news and information but aimed purely at driving search engine results. The report authors do acknowledge the issue obliquely, noting that advertisers are finding ways to reach consumers directly without using content creation sites. The report also says little about the growing practice of deciding what stories to cover, based on their click rates or popularity. It does make a big point about so-called "pay for play" in which video news releases are used in news stories – a practice that is questionable, but what is also questionable is just how widespread it is.

As a counter to this, the report cites a study by James Hamilton of Duke University who contends that a web user in the U.S. today has more 'raw data' on foreign cities available to him or her now than a network news producer had ten years ago.

#3. Another effort that may be too 'cutesy.'    We used to call this a 'drop lead.' It has the advantage of not being the obvious, over-used lead, and it is 'different' although different in what may be an off putting way. It does though hit one of the key points made by the lengthy report in a kind of pithy way, although it should be noted that shareholders also want to get paid.

The study says it would take between $265 Million and $1.6 Billion to "bridge the gaps we now see in the provision of civically important information."   If you're like me, you probably just went… wwwhhhhaaattt???? Okay, here's how they calculated it…. At the height of local journalism in the 1990's, about 20% of reporters were on beats – so-called accountability reporting, as they call it. Based on current staffing, coming from Burrelle's Media Director, news media would need 5,000 reporters at $265 Million. Yes, if you do the math, that's about $53,000 per person. Or if you want to go whole hog and get 30,000 reporter positions, that would be $1.6 Billion.

#4. Like this one. It is more of a straight lead. Gets right to the point. What I would normally tell my students to do – when in doubt, play it straight. But actually it's intriguing and interesting as well. And it is probably the standout factoid in the report, in my view.

Personally I found this factoid incredibly interesting -- From 2003 to 2008 the average annual spending per person on media and information rose from approximately $740 to $882, an increase of 19%. The average for consumer spending was 9.8%. But the report says most of the increases went to Cable and Inernet Service providers.

The report notes that cable providers are supposed to provide 15% of their channel capacity to independent programming. In reality it's less than one percent and in one of the few strong statements in the recommendations, the authors say this so called lease capacity is 'grossly ineffective.' Similarly, satellite providers are supposed to allot 4% of their capacity to PEG (Public, Education, Government) programming but complain they can't because of carriage capacity challenges. Oddly the report makes a strong recommendation about the FCC looking at the 'leased access' rule for cable providers but waffles about the set aside rule for satellite providers. I will resist the temptation to say anything about the dozens of paid programming and shopping channels on satellite.

#5. Probably too much of a reaction lead, and not the report itself, although the argument could be made that the media's coverage is the point of the report. It also would provide a segue into the recommendations themselves, which have been the focus of coverage.

The report does make some clear recommendations – for example, recommending terminating the localism initiative because it says it contains "unworkable or burdensome rules" and recommending against reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine. But in an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, primary author Steve Waldman admitted the main complaint was the recommendations were too "restrained." Here's an example of their 'restraint.' Talking about the question of cross-ownership, the report authors say they could see how tv newspaper mergers could help localism but also could see how it would just help the bottomline and not local news. Then they add, "we are not persuaded that relaxing the ownership rules would inevitably lead to more local news, information or reporting or that it would inevitably lead to less." Okay, commentary on my part, but it says NOTHING.

Also, in the line of commentary, the authors hardly ever say "do" in the recommendations. Instead they say "consider" as in the commission should consider this, or 'policymakers' should consider that. In fact, the words consider or consideration appear 41 times in the report. Their other favorite word is "hope," as in the authors "hope" foundations will spend more money on media; they "hope" that support will be non-partisan and non-ideological. Makes you want to introduce them to Jedi warrior/philosopher Yoda whose famous quote is, "There is no 'try.' There is only 'do.'" Except in the FCC report.

Probably worth noting at this juncture is a factoid from the report that only one-tenth of one percent of total foundation spending goes to support media efforts. But, gee, "if" foundations were to spend 5% and "if" philanthropists were to donate 5% and "if" 1% of Americans charitable giving went to non-profit media groups…. Well, that would be a lot of money and wouldn't that be nice.

Much of the report focuses on partnerships – between for-profit and non-profits, commercial and public, professional journalists and citizen journalists, ending on the note, "if the strengths of the new and old media economies can be combined, Americans will have the best local media system they have ever had." And, no, that didn't figure into any of my leads, although, I think, for obvious reasons. But then again maybe it should have. The fact is the report – despite my caveats – is very comprehensive, and there are any number of potential leads in it. So, yeah, if you have a better lead idea, let me know, because the next big question is – will anything come of the report or will it sit on a shelf collecting dust.

Message from Michael -- FCC Report on Media - June 14, 2011

2011-06-14T11:00:00.001-04:00

Message From Michael

June 14, 2011

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT VERSUS THE MEDIA ON THE MEDIA

The Federal Communications Commission has just released a lengthy report on the state of journalism, but if you want to understand the state of journalism, take a look at how the report itself was covered. Or not covered. An informal survey of news websites (by yours truly) found many media outlets had nothing on it. Or at least nothing I could find. And the ones that did have something, mainly relied on the Associated Press' Technology Writer Joelle Tessler. Even in those news operations that didn't use her actual story, you could still see the main theme of her story running throughout their story.

That may be explained, in part, because of the report itself. For starters it's 475 pages long. For another thing, you remember that news cliché – the key word in NEWS is 'new.' Well… here's how some of the other reporters say it. Reporters Jeremy W. Peters and Brian Stelter of the New York Times say while some things in the report were "alarming," many of the report's findings were "often self evident"… Rem Reider, Editor and senior vice president of American Journalism Review says it was "packed with useful if not staggeringly surprising information"… Megan Garber of Nieman Labs says that while the report is "perhaps the most substantial and comprehensive look at the state of the news media that's been so far produced… much of it is a summary of what we already know." It's worth noting here that much of the report relied on the Pew Center's annual State of the News Media report, which has been covered in previous Messages.

The main theme – as pronounced by Tessler and re-pronounced by other media outlets – is that there is a lack of so-called "accountability reporting" – in-depth, local journalism needed to hold government agencies, schools and businesses accountable. "Professional reporting." Yes, there are many, many more news sources, or news platforms, or news delivery systems, but there isn't any more real reporting. The report doesn't say this, but it's implied – it's regurgitated news. Sort of like the report itself. A concurrent problem that arises out of this, and the more critical one in my view, is that the 'spin-meisters' in government and business are setting the news agenda because, in the rush to feed the news hole, their news releases and statements are being published and broadcast almost intact, with very limited editorial review.

Those media outlets that just re-posted the AP story include the Huffington Post which prides itself on its political and media coverage. But not on this story. The Washington Post which apparently couldn't afford to send its own reporter a few blocks down the road to cover a national story in its own backyard. ABC News and NBC News/ MSNBC also used the AP story. Fox News had its own report by Shannon Bream on the study focusing on the recommendation that the FCC repeal the Fairness Doctrine. But several major news organization websites didn't have anything, or at least anything I could find. It may be a fault of my online search abilities, but I could find no mention on CBS News' website, USA Today, or for that matter, The St. Petersburg Times or the Atlanta Journal Constitution. The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune had pieces written by their columnists. And both were good. The LA Times Joe Flint focused on the part of the report that talked about the newspapers investigation of Bell, California, town officials who padded their payrolls. The Trib's Phil Rosenthal had a cute line, talking about how a huge report like this used to land on your desk with a "thud" but now it's a "digital belch." Both columnists used Tessler's "shortage of local, professional, accountability reporting" point.

The report's primary author is Steve Waldman, former national editor for U.S. News and World report as well as a Wall Street Journal Columnist and co-founder of Beliefnet.com. That last part may explain the several mentions in the report of the role of religious broadcasters in the media market. It should be noted though that the National Religious Broadcasters' association says that 40% of their product is news and information. The religious broadcasters association probably also have the best quote in defining the role of the federal government, saying its job is just to "fertilize the conditions under which the media works." The report titled Information Needs of Communities also contains a disclaimer about a governmental agency looking at journalism because, "the media, after all, should be examining the government – and not vice versa."

As Nieman's Garber and AJR's Reider note, the report is packed with some interesting factoids, and you know how I love factoids. Here are just a few: Quoting former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the report says humans now create as much information in just two days as we did since the first appearance of home sapiens did through 2003. Facebook didn't even exist in 2003, but now it reaches more people than all the other major media outlets combined. And here's one of the more unusual factoids. Noting that Reuters originally started its service using carrier pigeons, the report says a pigeon today could carry a 256-gigabyte flash disc which is the equivalent of eight million times the amount of information one of the original pigeons could carry. The report gives a 'shout-out' to Time Warner and Cablevision for their regional cable news operations while at the same time noting that only 25% to 30% of TV homes have access to such operations. The federal government spends roughly $1 Billion on advertising everything from military recruitment to public health messages – money which the report authors recommend should be directed to local media.

Newspaper ad revenue dropped by half (48%) from 2005 to 2010. In 1920, nine out of ten newspapers were independent; eighty years later, only one in four newspapers is independent. Just about as many people subscribe to newspapers now as did in 1945… But, the population in the meantime has more than tripled. Online ad revenue at newspapers has risen a Billion dollars in five years, from 2005 to 2010… But, losses in print advertising have risen to $24.6 Billion. That is why the report says each 'print dollar' is replaced by four digital pennies. More than 47 Million people visit Craigslist every month in the U.S. Aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes links to more than 200,000 movie reviews.

The transformative event which changed radio from a one-to-one to a one-to-many service was the boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Frenchman George Carpentier which was transmitted to town halls in 61 cities using a 600 foot antenna strung between a clock tower and an office building. While newspapers saw their ad revenue drop by nearly half (from $800 Million to $450 Million) during the Great Depression, radio saw its ad revenue double, from $40 Million to $80 Million. In 1933 newspaper and radio owners reached an agreement called the Biltmore Agreement in which radio agreed not to do news gathering, to air only five minutes of news at a time and not to air morning news only after 9:30 am., and evening news only after 9 p.m. so as not to impact the newspapers. The agreement only lasted a few years. There are 185 self-defined all-news public radio stations. The number of news/ talk public radio stations has risen to 681 from 595 from 2005 to 2009. Only 15% of public radio stations have more than three reporters. A quarter (23%) of Americans have downloaded a podcast, but only four percent have downloaded a 'news' podcast. In November, 2010, there were 1,110 news podcasts, compared to 2,991 business podcasts, 10,524 music podcasts and 48,984 general podcasts.

The U.S. began licensing "experimental" television stations in 1937. No advertising was allowed during that time. After WWII, the FCC was hit with 158 new applications for licenses, many from newspaper and radio groups trying to stave off the competition. Using data from the National Association of Broadcasters, the report says the average local TV station cash flow is 23%. And you know that experiment by the Houston station to introduce anchor-less news, that was tried in the mid 1950's by another Texas station, WBAP.

So, at this point, the smart readers are saying, 'hey, Michael, you're as guilty as those media groups you criticize, for not saying anything about the report recommendations." Got me. Well, not really. That's going to be in part two of this report… coming soon to a newsletter and website near you.

Message from Michael -- The Digital Future -- June 8, 2011

2011-06-08T08:21:00.001-04:00

Message From Michael

June 8, 2011

§ A LOOK AT THE DIGITAL FUTURE

§ Trust Me, I'm From the Government. It's a line attributed to former President Ronald Reagan who used it sarcastically. Well, sarcasm or not, a survey released by the University of Southern California Annenberg shows more people (79%) believe government websites are "generally accurate and reliable" than believe in mainstream media websites (75%). But the gap is narrowing. Two years ago there was an eight-point difference between the two as opposed to the four-point difference in the latest survey. The finding is one of many from the school's annual Digital Future Project which, for the last ten years, has surveyed people about their use of the Internet and views of the Internet.

The reliability quotient for government and media though is nearly double the percentage (40%) that believes information generally on the Internet is reliable. A slightly different measures finds that less than half (45%) of those surveyed said they have "some trust or a lot of trust" in the Internet. Despite that, three quarters of the Internet users 17 and older say the Internet was an "important or very important" source of information to them. And that, my news brethren, is higher than the percentage reported for television, newspapers or radio. Further emphasizing the growing news role of the Internet, the survey shows Internet users spend more time going online for "non-sports news" than any other media.

To finish up the trust and reliability issue, the study shows only one in seven Internet users (15%) believe – not surprisingly – that information on individual websites is reliable. At first it may seem somewhat surprising, and the report authors make a big deal of the fact, that a majority of Internet users "have almost no faith" that information on social networking sites is reliable or accurate. But then look at the numbers. That is 51%. Now, stack that against the numbers for the Internet in general. If only 40% believe that information is reliable, then theoretically that means 60% don't believe the information is reliable.

§ Big Brother Is Watching You. In keeping with the government reliability result and despite the anti-government rhetoric dominating politics, the survey shows people are more worried about big business than big government. A little more than a third (38%) are concerned about the government checking what they do online, but nearly half (48%) are worried about big business checking up on them online. BUT… But… but… despite those concerns, the study says concerns about privacy and security when buying online has declined AND the percentage of Internet users who say you put your privacy at risk by going online has declined to the lowest level in the ten years the study has been going. Go figure. And while you're trying to figure that one out, consider this. While a third (33%) of Internet users believe it is "safe" to voice their opinions about politics while online, even more (36%) believe it is NOT safe. Yet two thirds (66%) "agree or strongly agree" that people should be able to criticize their government while online. More than half (52%) go so far as to say you should be able to express your ideas online "even if those ideas are extreme." So, let me say it again, a little differently, just to drive the point home. Most people believe you "should be" able to express your opinions freely online, but many of them believe it isn't safe to do so. Yes, this should have been the lead for this report, but I wanted to build up to it.

As a footnote to this, it should be noted that the study found two-thirds of those surveyed (69%) don't believe the government should try to further regulate the Internet.

§ Make The World Go Away. They're not exactly singing those lines, but a substantial minority of people just doesn't want to have anything to do with the Internet. It's easy for those of us who spend most of our time crouched over a computer to forget that there is another world out there. For one in five people (18%) that world does not include the Internet. They are the ones the study classifies as "non-users" and that figure has been pretty consistent throughout the time of the study. Most (37%) for the simple reason that they don't have a computer or an Internet connection. But a quarter (25%) of them say it's just because they're not interested. What is interesting is that more than a third (39%) of those 'non-users' are people who have kicked the habit. They used to go online but have stopped for various reasons.

When they do go online, the report says the average Internet user spends 18.3 hours a week. That actually is a slight dip from the year before, say the authors, and the first time there has been a dip in use. If they're at home, they spend an average of 12.3 hours online; if they're at work, they spend an average of 12.9 hours online. And they make "active use" of the Internet at work for an average 9.2 hours a week. Yes, I know the numbers don't quite add up, but I am presuming there are issues of overlap and of definition.

Anyway, to provide a little more perspective on the Internet interest, here's another number to consider. Four out of five Internet users (82%) "sometimes or often go online without a specific destination." That is what the study authors call "a new high response." I should note that the figure is in line with other reports, such as the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which also found that a lot of people are just surfing the Web. Anyway, in a separate part of the report, the authors note that the largest percentage of Internet users go online simply to browse (79%) versus online banking (47%), or getting product information (46%), or visiting social networking sites or video sharing sites (also 46%), or playing games (39%), or downloading or watching videos (39%), or downloading or listening to music (38%).

§ SOME GENERIC FACTS AND FIGURES. Or, put another way, things the study reports that probably confirm what you already suspect. For example, most of those surveyed have more than one computer in their home with one in six (17%) having three or more computers. Most people now use laptops, with laptops accounting for three quarters of computers owned, up from just one in five (18%) seven years ago. Most people have Broadband access, which at 84% is an 800% increase in the ten years the survey has been done. Most people (68%) have made an online purchase with the average adult user making 31 purchases online a year. But while many people buy online, even more people do research online before buying. Young people continue to be the dominant users of text messaging, averaging 104 messages a day – more than twice the number (48) sent by the average Internet users. In the previous year, the average Internet user sent 38 text messages while the average 'young' Internet user sent 81 messages. In both cases, the increase over the past four years has been 300%. Not just "most" but nearly "all" Americans (97%) use e-mail, with users maintaining contact with an average 7.5 persons a week, up from 6.7 the year before.

Finally, the report says the percentage of people visiting social networking sites or video sharing sites continues to increase, with under half (44%) visiting such sites at least once a day, compared to a year ago when just over a third (36%) said they visited such sites daily. And, just under a third (32%) create content for such sites. The report makes a distinction between social networking sites and "online communities" which it defines as groups that "share thoughts or ideas, or work on common projects, through electronic communication only." Yes, I am struggling with that, too; but in any case, the report says more than half (56%) of such online community members are involved in their communities on a daily basis. The vast majority of these online community members (93%) is involved in, or wants to be informed about, social causes.

Message from Michael -- May 21, 2011 -- Media CEO's Part Two

2011-05-20T07:51:00.000-04:00

Message From Michael

May 20, 2011

MEDIA CEO'S LETTERS TO SHAREHOLDERS – PART TWO

You get the impression from reading the various letters to shareholders from the CEO's of the major media groups in America that the cost cutting is over. Okay, that may be wishful thinking, but it does appear that the majority believes that they have done as much of that as they could in 2009 and 2010 and that the new emphasis is on generating more revenue. Two approaches stand out in that regard. One is the so-called pay-walls. And related to that is the use of news Apps and, more particularly, paid news Apps. Virtually all of the groups with news interests are pursuing these, with News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch, most famously, leading the charge to, as he put it, "ensure fair payment for our journalism." As he says, it's time to "re-imagine" and "reinvent" the news model. But he is far from alone. Gannett Chairman and CEO Craig Dubow says they have tested various paid content models and here's the good news for the other companies and advertisers -- they have found that subscribers are much more engaged than non-subscribers, consuming four and five times as many page visits to their websites. One of the models Gannett is pursuing, along with The New York Times and Washington Post, is ONGO, a kind of personalized, digital news service built along the cable pay model. Similarly, Media General Chairman J. Stewart Bryan and President and CEO Marshall Morton talk about experimenting with the Google "One Pass" concept. They, too, have tried pay walls, starting with their little paper, the Hickory Daily Record. Now, they say they're going to try it in the flagship newspaper in hometown Richmond. Also, good news for other companies, they have found "heavy users are willing to pay a reasonable fee for unique local content." A.H. Belo's Robert Decherd says after testing the concept in Dallas, they are looking at moving it to other markets as well.

But the third approach that most of the multi-media groups are looking at is cross selling their content across all their platforms. At Cox Enterprises, Chairman Jim Kennedy and President and CEO Jimmy Hayes talk about taking an "integrated media approach." That translates into leveraging research, digital functions and, most importantly, sales, across all their newspaper, television and radio properties. In other words, one stop shopping. Several of the letters refer to growing advertiser interest in buying across all the platforms. Media General's Bryan and Morton refer to it as a "consultative sales approach… understanding customers business needs… and offering solutions across multiple media platforms."

For the larger, multi-national groups, the focus is on overseas and for good reason. This factoid comes from Viacom's Chairman and Founder Sumner Redstone and President and CEO Philippe Dauman: 96% of the world's population resides outside the U.S. Interestingly, Redstone and Dauman make very similar statements about global opportunities as Disney CEO Robert Iger. Redstone and Dauman talk about the rising demand and "rising middle class in developing markets combined with falling regulatory barriers" while Iger talks about the "stunning rise of family incomes in countries like China and India (with) demand rising while barriers are falling." As part of their global expansion, Iger also notes that Disney opened 19 Disney stores worldwide. News Corp's Murdoch says in his letter that Fox International launched 29 new channels worldwide. Another example of the media globalization comes from AT&T's Randall Stephenson who carries three titles – chairman, CEO and President. Stephenson says that on an average day, the AT&T backbone alone carries nearly 24 Petabytes of data traffic – 100 times the digitized library of Congress.

Every one of the CEO's managed to get at least one jab in at their competitors, or at least gloat a little at their competitor's expense. But that's to be expected in a letter to shareholders. For example, you can understand Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts bragging a bit when he notes that when his father Ralph took the company public in 1972, the annual revenues were $5.7 Million. The pro forma annual revenue of the combined Comcast and NBCUniversal for 2010 was… drum roll please… $54 Billion. Redstone and Viacom CEO Dauman brag that their networks get nearly a third (30%) of all 12 to 34 year old viewing in the U.S. That is why, they suggest, the President of the U.S. chose their network to speak directly with young voters. Other company highlights/ factoids are that MTV captured all 20 of the top 20 telecasts on cable, except for sports, among that same demographic, 12-34, and that Nickelodeon took the top spot among all basic cable networks in total day viewing not just among kid demographics but total viewers for the 11^th consecutive year. Apparently that demographic is a new holy grail. Disney's Iger makes a point about the Disney Channel's success in that area and its executives doing "a fantastic job of staying in touch with what kids and tweens want to see and hear."

Redstone in his role as Chairman and Founder of CBS along with CBS President and CEO Leslie Moonves make the point that e-books are becoming an increasingly meaningful part of publishing sales, with publishing subsidiary Simon and Schuster recording a 160% increase in e-book sales in 2010, with more than 10,000 digitized titles. They also brag that CBS "retained the title as America's most watched network for the seventh time in the past 8 years." Leading the pack, they note, was NCIS which is the #1 ranked drama and which broke another series record, attracting nearly 23 Million viewers to the show in its 8^th season. The network website was also the #1 television network website for 25 straight months in terms of unique visitors. AT&T's Stephenson says his company spent $70 Billion in spectrum and wireless and wireline networking in the past three years. Their domestic wireless network covers 300M people with 24,000 Wi-Fi hotspots nationally while globally their networking reaches 82 countries. Comcast's Roberts notes that the cable giant is becoming a telecom giant, as the fourth largest residential voice provider in the country.

Of course when it comes to bragging… excuse me, citing company facts, no one can beat Rupert Murdoch. But then he does back it up with facts in most cases. For starters, he notes that the Fox News Channel outperformed CNN, MSNBC and CNBS combined in total viewers for both prime time and total day categories. And while all the major networks showed impressive growth, "the Fox News Channel is simply unstoppable." And, probably rightfully, he calls the mega-mega hit Avatar "the most successful film of all time." He adds, "I am only half joking when I wonder if there is anyone left on this planet who has yet to see Avatar." But Disney's Iger has equal bragging rights, noting that Toy Story 3 is the #1 animated movie of all time at the global box office. In fact, two of Disney's movies could claim records. Toy Story and Alice in Wonderland both crossed the Billion Dollar mark at the global box office. Iger says the moves succeeded because they share the same "DNA" of Disney classics like Snow White, Pinocchio and Beauty and the Beast. It may not be in quite the same league but Gannett's Dubow also claimed some top spots. Gannett stations KSDK, KARE and KUSA claimed the #1, #2 and #3 spot in election night coverage in the 25-54 demographic in the top 25 markets. They then claimed the #1, #3 and #4 spots in Olympic coverage.

Finally, under the heading of company factoids, it was interesting to see how many employees the different companies had. The surprise (to me at least) was News Corporation which has, as Murdoch put it, 50,000 "innovative colleagues." I say surprising because that seemed low, considering Cox Enterprises has 60,000, Comcast 120,000, and of course, the biggie – AT&T with 267,000 employees worldwide. The smallest was Charter with 16,000. But at least they acknowledged their employees. Many did not.

Just about all of the CEO's and Presidents provided interesting quotes in one way or another. For example, it may not be brilliant but I like Charter Communications President and CEO Mike Lovett talking about acting "as the solutions provider to our customers." AT&T's Stephenson (who may rival Murdoch as most quotable CEO) says their focus on mobile has put the "internet in the palm of America's hand." He goes on to say AT&T gives students in small town same resources as one in a major metropolitan area and the small family business the tools to compete with the largest companies. An interesting perspective on the value of entertainment comes in a quote from Disney's Iger who writes, "no one has a better job than to transport people from their every day lives to worlds that could only be created by Disney." The company mission statement for Gannett talks about informing and inspiring consumers, but the provocative part that I find particularly interesting is when it talks about "being a catalyst for the conversations that are taking place every day." Then in the vision statement the company talks about being in a "new era in human engagement." Okay, this quote is one I mention semi-facetiously as worth noting. Gannett's Dubow says… and I quote… "Print continues to be important to many of our readers." Don't you like that? It's somewhere between "huh?" and 'damning with faint praise.' However, after saying that, he does note their focus on improving Sunday home deliveries.

Then there are the things in the various letters that I just find interesting. For example, the use of the phrase "free cash flow" or the word "de-risk" that I talked about in Part one. Another example, Comcast's Roberts talks about offering twice as many channels for "ethnically diverse audiences." A statement by Murdoch provides an interesting insight into his thinking. After saying Fox Broadcasting is the top TV network in the U.S., he adds a cautionary note that they have to "balance Fox profitability goals with a longer term objective of maintaining its ratings lead as TV audiences fragment." Anybody else find that as interesting as I do? Or how about this from Disney's Iger. While saying he had a strong management bench strength, he goes on to say he's always looking 'outside' to make sure they have new perspective and the right expertise "in a media environment where conditions are changing constantly and where insurgent companies have much to gain and little to lose."

There are two variations of a theme, which again are remarkably similar from two different groups – Gannett and Media General. Gannett's Dubow makes the point that the company has transformed its brand so that "we no longer decide what consumers and businesses need… customers decide and we provide them what they want." Similarly, Media General's Bryan and Morton talk about taking their "cues from the marketplace." They talk about switching from a platform-focused structure to a market structure because they say, in eloquent simplicity, it is about "getting us much closer to those who use our products."

And finally, emphasizing the technology aspect of the media business today, a prediction from AT&T's Stephenson. He says, "we expect very soon every machine and appliance we have in our homes and our businesses will operate better and more intelligently with wireless connectivity." Yes, folks, your fridge will be telling you that you need to buy milk at the store. And here's a little prediction of my own. In next year's letters to shareholders, you will see two new words being used bythe CEO's and Presidents – transmedia and curation. Transmedia because all of the groups are talking about tailoring content to the platform and curation because all of the groups talk about the need to organize, store and communicate the content.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 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. 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 - May 18, 2011 - Media CEO's

2011-05-18T06:51:00.001-04:00

Message From Michael

May 18, 2011

A SPECIAL REPORT – MEDIA CEO'S LETTERS TO SHAREHOLDERS

The after shocks of the 2009 recession can be seen running as a sub-theme through virtually all of the annual reports of the country's largest media companies. Clearly, 2010 was a rebuilding year. Every year about this time I do a semi-random review of ten media company CEO's letters to shareholders, looking for, and usually finding, interesting insights. This year was no different. Despite the financial struggles, virtually all of the letters, with one or two odd exceptions, were upbeat and positive. Of course you would expect that from such letters. That's part of their purpose, but, maybe my naivety, but the upbeat tone seemed genuine. One example: It's a somewhat unscientific analysis on my part, but the word "growth" may have been the most popular word in all of the letters. News Corporation's Rupert Murdoch used it 16 times in his letter; AT&T's Randall Stephenson also 16 times; Viacom's Sumner Redstone 'only' used growth 6 times but the word 'grow' 16 times (coincidentally). Similar instances can be found in the letters from the various other CEO's. The point is that the worst is behind them and the future (another popular word) looks brighter. Charter Communication's Mike Lovett even puts the two together when he talks about "being prepared for future growth"— the main theme throughout the letters.

Another recurring theme throughout these letters is the massive changes that have taken place in the media world. Here again, the tone was upbeat. One might even say giddy. In the proverbial – do you see the changes as a half full or half empty cup -- virtually every CEO sees it as not just half full, but overflowing. AT&T's Stephenson says, "the amount of innovation taking place in our industry is unprecedented; it's more comprehensive and moving more quickly than anything I've seen in my lifetime." Interestingly Disney's Iger and News Corporation's Murdoch both made statements about technologythat are eerily similar. Iger says, "new technology can make entertainment even more compelling," while Murdoch says, "audiences everywhere are still hungry for good storytelling, particularly when it's merged with the new technology." Pretty close to the same point was made by Redstone in his role as chairman of Viacom along with Philippe Dauman (President and CEO). They argue that because of the new technology consumers today "spend more time engaging in entertainment than ever before." The new technologies are creating a "seemingly endless supply of opportunities." Redstone echoes that sentiment in his other role as CBS chairman, (actually his title is Executive Chairman and Founder of both Viacom and CBS). Along with Leslie Moonves (President and CEO), they say that even in a world where consumers have more choices, prime time programs along with hard-hitting investigative journalism and big television events "remain more popular and more relevant than ever."

Of course, the quote-meister in all this is Rupert Murdoch who, when you read his letter, you really do believe him when he says that he personally sat down "to write this letter to you" and not some public relations or marketing underling. In typical Murdoch fashion he makes the very valid point that media companies must partner their media talent with their engineering talent to "create new consumer experiences", and he draws a simple equation that disruption equals long-term opportunity. He warns though that this era of innovation, as he calls it, is "asymmetric" meaning that "the winners will be rewarded handsomely and the laggards will be left languishing far behind.". But then, in typical Murdoch fashion, he can't stop there. He says this disruptive technology is the "prelude to a new golden era" for companies like News Corporation and that "innovation accelerates as human freedom advances." The result, he says, is "a digital renaissance that is bringing us closer to a global meritocracy than at any time in human history." Whew, no fear of understatement here.

The other word and recurring theme is 'mobile' and 'anytime, anywhere.' AT&T's Stephenson, who carries the titles Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, goes so far as to say, "mobile broadband forever changed how the world does business." That is why he says they are "beginning to mobilize everything" as well as "layering on the power of the cloud." Stephenson calls wireless spectrum the "invisible lifeblood of sustained innovation and growth." He predicts that when media historians look back on this time, they will see it as "an inflection point." What exactly an inflection point is, I don't know. But in a very similar vein, Gannett's Craig Dubow says 2010 "was a breakout year for mobile content consumption" led by what he calls the "smart phone revolution." But he reserves his hyperbole for the growing use of Apps, calling them "the greatest game changers we have seen." Comcast's Brian Roberts, talking about the takeover of NBCUniversal, says putting together content and distribution was necessary to meet the "anytime anywhere digital future consumers demand." Media General's J. Stewart Bryan (chairman) and Marshall Morton (President and CEO) also talk about that multi-platform access but put it in much more down to earth terms when they talking about "engaging with communities on their own terms." They also note their involvement in the Mobile Digital TV consortium, as does Gannett's Dubow.

But, back to the financial issues. A new term has come into vogue for the CEO's, or at least it's a term I haven't noticed in the five years I've been reviewing such letters. It's "free cash flow" which is not a term I recall from my college accounting courses. It is defined as operating cash flow minus capital expenditures. My presumption is that it has gained significance because companies have become sensitive to having a 'cushion' in case of another economic downtown. It's also there to allow companies to buy up other companies. Cox Enterprises' Jim Kennedy (chairman) and Jimmy Hayes (President and CEO) make the point that, "free cash flow is the fuel for our growth." Charter Communication's Mike Lovett makes a point of having $704 Million in FCF. CBS's Redstone and Moonves have twice that much -- $1.45 Billion. Interestingly, Redstone in his Viacom, with Dauman, say they have less than that -- $1 Billion. News Corp's Murdoch talks instead about the company's cash balance which is a whopping $8.7 Billion, and that appears to be after its bid for the remaining shares of BskyB. As a side note, another term that probably wasn't in the accounting lexicon comes from Sumner Redstone who talks about the need to diversify and "de-risk our business model," such as the steps they took to "de-risk" CBS's "exposure" related to the broadcast of the NCAA Division 1 Men's Basketball Game.

Another noticeable difference in this year's various media group letters is that the CEO's and presidents engage in a lot more tech talk in their missives. For example, Charter's Lovett and Comcast's Roberts talking about investment in DOCSIS 3.0. It stands for Date Over Cable Service Interface Specification. Basically it is technology that provides for additional high speed data transfer. Along with IPv6, it is one of the major technological changes. Humorously, Roberts makes a point about the need to "rapidly deploy" DOCSIS 3.0. I say humorously because DOCSIS 3.0 was introduced in August 2006, according to Wikipedia. When Gannett's Dubow talks about making on demand video "scalable," he is talking tech talk.

One of the other key words that came out was the word "content." More of the companies talked about the importance of combining content and distribution – most notably Comcast. But you could see a difference between companies that are content focused versus distribution focused. Again, it's a somewhat unscientific analysis, but still interesting, that, for example, the word 'content' appeared 32 times in the Media General report, 21 times in the Gannett report and 18 times in the CBS report. In the CBS letter, after noting it was the most watched network seven out of the last 8 years, Redstone and Moonves say it has been winning because it is delivering the content "today's discerning audience demands" and better yet, "increasingly being paid a premium for it." As the saying goes, it's not bragging if it's true, and for CBS it's true with the CSI and NCIS series consistently ranked as the top programs in world markets. In fact, Redstone and Moonves talk about selling more shows overseas. Although Sumner's Viacom letter only used the word half as many times (9) as in his CBS letter, the Viacom letter is much more effusive. Talking about all the new devices, Redstone and Dauman write, "all of these innovative devices share one thing in common: they all need content. That makes this the best time ever to be in the content business."

And on that note, we will stop. For now. Consider this to be Part One of a two part series on the CEO letters. In the next part we'll look at some interesting factoids from the companies, along with some visionary projections for the future.

Message from Michael - May 9, 2011

2011-05-09T07:27:00.000-04:00

OSAMA BIN LADEN

BILLIONS AND BILLIONS AND BILLIONS

A MISGUIDED MARKETING MYTH

ANOTHER MYTH MYSTERY

COCKTAIL CHATTER – ROYAL WEDDING AND DR WHO

OSAMA BIN LADEN. Not surprisingly, the announcement about the killing of the Al Qaeda leader drove a lot of traffic to news websites. Somewhat surprising though, the traffic volume reached a three year high, according to both Hitwise and comScore. Even more surprising, the number one search item was actually "bin laden wives" followed by "bin laden dead." The 'bin laden mansion' was the third most searched for item, followed by 'seal team six,' according to Hitwise. Thirty of the top 100 search items were Bin Laden related. Traffic to the news websites doubled, tripled and even quadrupled in some cases. Leading search site, Yahoo news, went from nearly 9 Million the previous Monday to nearly 27 Million the Monday following the announcement. MSNBC was the second highest with nearly 15 Million visits compared to just over 4 Million the week before. After that it was the Huffington Post (8.6 Million visits), CNN.com (6 Million),and ABCNews.com (3 Million). Oddly (to me) Yahoo News had more than ten times the amount of visits as Google News (2.3 Million), and the New York Times website had one of the lowest increases, jumping 'only' 50% from 1.2 Million the week before to 1.8 Million. Not oddly, even though Fox News consistently gets more viewers than CNN, CNN's website, as usual, more than doubled the traffic of Fox News (2.8 Million).

BILLIONS AND BILLIONS AND BILLIONS. And you could add a few more billions to that and you still would not have come up with the amount of data in the world today. According to an analysis by a team led by a professor at the University of Southern California, the amount of data stored around the world adds up to 295 Exabytes, which translates to 295 Billion Gigabytes. This includes everything from papers to books and newspapers, videotape and hard discs, all the way down to the microchips on your credit cards. In an article in the journal Science, professor Martin Hilbert and co-researcher Priscilla Lopez Chavez of the University of Catalonia in Santiago, Chile, note several milestones in the world's data (r)evolution. According to them, the semi-official start of the digital age is the year 2002. That's when the amount of data stored digitally exceeded the amount of analog data stored. The next big milestone came five years later in 2007. That's when the vast majority of our memory (94%)was in digital form. In an accompanying article in the magazine, the editors note another milestone that I have not seen cited elsewhere. According to the editors, we have reached the point that we are generating more data than we can store. And that is even though Hilbert and Lopez estimate that the storage capacity of computers doubles every 18 months. What the Science editors call the "data deluge" cuts across all scientific disciplines. The challenge, and the opportunity, according to them, lies in better organizing and accessing the data.

Regular readers of the message know that I love a factoid as much as the next person, but Hilbert comes up with some doozies. For example, if all the data were converted to CD's, the stack would reach to the moon and beyond another quarter of the distance. If you put the same information in books, it would spread over the entire United States in layers 13 thick. Hilbert and Lopez Chavez spent four years calculating not only the amount of data stored but also the amount communicated and computed. They calculate that the amount of data broadcast worldwide daily (that includes television and GPS devices and everything in between) would be the equivalent of every person in the world getting 174 newspapers every day. The amount of bi-directional data (talking, for example) generated daily would be the equivalent of six newspapers a day. He even calculates the amount of 'pigeon posts' that the data equates to, but that is so esoteric that I don't get it.

Hilbert also provides some kind of cool perspective factoids as well, drawing comparisons to that great scientist, Mother Nature. For example, all that information stored worldwide is a pittance compared to the information stored in the human body. Hilbert says the information stored in the DNA of one human body is 300 times larger than all the information stored in all the technological devices in the world. And another one of those weird factoids – he says if every star in the heavens were given a name, we wouldn't have the capacity to store all those names. I know. It takes a little bit to wrap your head around that one. Here's another – the nerve impulses generated by the human brain in one second is equal to all the computers in the world being run simultaneously in one second. But at the same time, Hilbert and Lopez Chavez note that the storage and calculation capacity of computers continues to grow while we humans have pretty well peaked out.

A MISGUIDED MARKETING MYTH. For some time, AARP ran an ad campaign that said marketing and advertising people had declared old people dead, in essence because they didn't advertise or sell to anybody over the age of 55. Well, no more. The so-called Baby Boomers have changed all that. The latest example comes from a series of reports by Nielsen looking at local news in various markets. One of the key findings is that the 55 and over crowd are becoming an important audience for both advertisers and media companies because a) the demographic is growing, b) they maintain an active lifestyle, c) they're using media to stay connected and, here's the kicker, d) they control three quarters (77%) of all financial assets. The report contains a number of interesting, and sometimes odd, insights. For example, iPhone owners are more likely (53%) than iPad owners (44%) to access news regularly. Three quarters of App downloaders say they are willing to pay for news apps and just under half (40%) perceive the price of news content on the iPad as too low. Here are two factoids from the report for you to try and reconcile. During the late news time period (11pm), little more than a third (40%) of all household rating points to broadcast stations are generated by homes with incomes over $100K, but nearly two thirds (62%) of all household rating points for cable news operations come from those higher income homes. During the early evening news daypart (6pm), just under half (44%) of all household rating points for broadcast stations come from homes with no landline service, but for cable news operations the percentage drops to a third (33%).

ANOTHER MYTH MYSTERY. In today's 140-character Twitter world, it's accepted belief that consumers all have short attention spans. Well, maybe not, says advertising agency JWT in its latest monthly Intelligence report. They argue that the ability to shift reading time and location in the digital age allows people to consume longer form material at their convenience. The latest example is Jon Krakauer's Three Cups of Deceit which raised questions about Three Cups of Tea author Greg Mortenson and which generated considerable publicity. Amazon has launched a Kindle Singles section for long-form journalism as well as short fiction. But it's not the only one. The JWT editors note that there are several start-ups, offering the same long-form service, including ByLiner which published the Krakauer piece, Atavist which adds multimedia elements to the offering, along with Longform.org, LongReads and InstaPaper. As a footnote, the same JWTIntelligence report notes that a second TEDx conference to be held in a slum is being held in Cidade de Deus in Rio De Janiero.

COCKTAIL CHATTER: Americans were apparently more interested in the royal wedding than the Britons, or at least the American media were more interested than British media, according to data compiled by Nielsen. U.S. media had twice as much coverage online of the royal wedding as U.K. media. The royal wedding racked up 0.20 percent of all coverage online for American newspapers and magazines but only 0.08 percent of the coverage in their British counterparts. And as long as we're on a British kick, TVGuide.com reports that the first part of the new Dr. Who series on BBC America was the network's highest-rated and most-watched telecast for live and same day viewing. But here's the kicker – that 'only' amounted to 1.27 Million viewers. In the interest of transparency, I should note that number includes one of my daughters who is a treasure trove of trivia about Dr. Who.

It doesn't match some of the milestones noted above, and it may be something of an apples and oranges comparison, but a tipping point of sorts has been reached with video services and cable operators. Video service Netflix has the same number of subscribers as the country's largest cable company, Comcast, has viewers . 22.8 Million. The New York Times Media Decoder blog notes that the service did that by adding 1.1 Million subscribers a month since the beginning of this year. So it will continue to grow. The blog notes, of course, that the two don't directly compete.

Message from Michael - YouTube Sensation - April 25, 2011

2011-04-25T06:06:00.001-04:00

Message From Michael

April 25, 2011

BLACK IS BLACK

LET'S DO THE WIME WARP AGAIN

WOMEN VERSUS MEN IN MEDIA

THE ROYAL WEDDING

PLUGGED AND UNPLUGGED

COCKTAIL CHATTER – SORT OF

BLACK IS BLACK. I don't want my baby back. Not if her name is Rebecca Black. But more than 300-thousand people do. But gray is gray for 2.3 Million people who would be happy if she went away. Yes, yes, yes, this is another one of those headlines of mine that is a reach. Rebecca Black is a 13-year-old California girl who paid (all right, her parents paid) an estimated $20,000 to have a music video produced featuring her. So, why should this rate the lead story on this week's message? Because… hold on to your 45 RPM's here, folks… her video has had 114 Million views on YouTube. I don't know about you, but I find this stunning. Let me put a little perspective on this. That 114 Million is five times as many people as watch American Idol. For a little more perspective, the number one video of all time on YouTube is Baby by Justin Bieber (who I am assuming she is attempting to emulate), with his 523 Million views. But (here we go again), her 114 Million would still put her in the Top 40 (isn't that appropriate?) of all time YouTube videos. All this for a 'bubble-gum' style music video titled Friday with the enlightening lyrics explaining that Friday comes after Thursday and before Saturday.

Now, for some perspective gone mad, let me throw some more figures and factoids at you. That 300-Thousand represents the number of people who say they "like" the video. The 2.3 Million represents the number of people who "dislike" the video. Bieber's video had roughly 635K likes and 1.3 M dislikes. That is a 2 to 1 ratio. Her ratio of dislikes to likes is 7 to 1. Hers was the only video I could find in a review of the top 100 videos where the dislikes so far outweighed the likes. She and Bieber were the only ones I could find, in fact, where there were more dislikes than likes, which says something about the polarizing reaction to their music. For example, the second most watched video of all time is Lady Gaga's Bad Romance which has so far had 371-Million views but with 400-thousand likes versus 86-thousand dislikes. Shakira's Freshly Ground which comes in at number three with 334-Million views, had 319-thousand Likes and only 16-thousand Dislikes. Still (more perspective here), with 114 Million views, her video scored nearly twice as many views as teen idol Miley Cyrus's Can't Be Tamed (69 Million), significantly more than either of the two hits by teen idols the Jonas Brothers, Burning up (89 Million), and SOS (88 Million) or the very popular High School Musical 2 (64 Million) or even High School Musical star Vanessa Hudgens (104 Million). You can throw into that Lady Gaga's Born This way (68 Million) and Poker Face (79 Million), and virtually any of the Black Eyed Peas hits. And it should be noted, the video Friday is available on iTunes where it had only 1,200 likes roughly.

Anyway, you get the point. As an additional note, her video continues to rack up views. By the time you read this, I'm sure the views have gone way beyond the 114 Million when I looked. You can do a search for the video on YouTube, but let me warn you. The video has generated so many parodies (many of which are getting Million views and more) that you may have trouble finding it. Look for… seriously… the 'official video.' As a side note, thanks to my students who prompted me to check on Rebecca Black's video after I had read about it elsewhere. And as a further side note thought, an examination of the top 100 videos on YouTube is an interesting sociological study in and of itself – some aspiring PhD candidate's thesis in waiting. A final footnote, and sort of sad commentary, many of the comments you'll find on YouTube are pretty vicious and nasty and she has even received death threats. Did I mention she's 13 years old? And, oh, yes, she now has a publicist and a manager.

LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGAIN. As long as I am on a youth kick, some interesting notes from Nielsen's State of the Media report. Somewhat 'old news' but still worth noting, the average American watches 34 hours and 39 minutes of TV a week, an increase of two minutes year to year. But here's what's interesting. While older Americans (65+) watch the most television (47 hours and 33 minutes per week), teenagers (12 – 17) watch the least amount (23 hours and 41 Minutes a week). Okay, maybe not too surprising, although I wonder if (in the early days of TV), teenagers watched more than other age groups. Another thesis in the making. The heaviest 'timeshifters' were adults 35 – 49 who timeshifted 3 hours and 8 minutes of TV a week. That teenage group (12 – 17) also was the least interested in time shifting (averaging 1 hour and 31 minutes); 18 – 24 year olds were close behind (1 hour and 32 minutes).

Now, according to that same report, the number of mobile phone users (13+) in the U.S. is 228 Million, and nearly a third (31%) of those, use SmartPhones, with 83.2 Million of them mobile phone web users. Nielsen says 24.7 Million mobile subscribers watched video on their phone which is a 41% increase year to year. They watched an average of 4 hours and 20 minutes of mobile video a month. And you want to guess which age group watched the most mobile video… as if you have to guess. Teenagers (12-17) watched an average of 7 hours and 13 minutes of mobile video a month. As a side note, the average number of TV's per household in the U.S. is 2.5, but nearly a third (31%) have four or more TV's.

WOMEN VERSUS MEN IN MEDIA. Based on some of the recent media reports, this could be a weekly feature on the Message. The latest, from Nielsen, shows that women are more 'engaged' online than men, spending more time on fewer sites than men. They visit more social and community sites, and they watch more TV specials and award shows so they can engage in "community viewing" discussions. And I will avoid any Mad Men era stereotype style jokes, but the report also finds that women talk more (28%) than men and text more (14%) than men.

THE ROYAL WEDDING. A couple of quick media notes about the wedding. One, Britain's Royal Family is providing its own coverage of the wedding via YouTube. They will use video from the BBC, but use a spokesperson for Buckingham Palace in place of the BBC commentators. The Royal Family will also provide a live blog and Twitter feeds (#rw2011). Also, the Associated Press is also planning to offer a live feed of the ceremony, using LiveStream.

PLUGGED AND UNPLUGGED. As a sort of follow-up to last week's message on The World Unplugged study about 'addicted' student media users, a survey by Lock Haven University in Pennsylvania found that students spend an average of three hours a day tapping away on their cell phone keyboards. It was a combination of Facebook, emailing and searching, but primarily texting. The study reported by eCampusNews says regardless of the medium, the students "rarely" gave it their undivided attention. As a further follow-up note, one of the professors here at the Grady College asked his class about the report's findings that students define news as personal information and world events. Their reaction? Yep, it's true. And in the interest of setting the record straight, I didn't give credit to the lead researcher on The World Unplugged study. Her name is Susan Moeller with the University of Maryland.

COCKTAIL CHATTER: Actually these aren't cocktail chatter items, so much as one-liners about things I read and wonder about. For example, retail gianticus maximus Wal-Mart is getting into the social media business. It bought social media platform Kosmix.com which searches and analyzes social content data by topic. Hmmmm… wonder what that could mean. Yahoo is getting into the TV Upfront advertising business, with original video output aimed at getting some of those TV add dollars. In a similar vein, online video ad network Digital Broadcast Group which started the Keifer Sutherland Web show The Confession is also offering up web shows similar to TV Upfront ad presentations. Need more proof that online video providers are gunning for traditional TV dollars? Facebook has created a sort of online ad agency called Facebook Studio aimed at helping 'participants' aka ad agencies produce effective Facebook pages for a client. Facebook is also getting into the lobbying business big time, hiring two lobbying groups and adding staff to its Washington office. And I say big time because according to the Wall Street Journal, the company spent a measly $351,000 on lobbying last year. And YouTube has set up a scholarship fund along with grants to find the next great video creators

Message from Michael - World Unplugged - April 18, 2011

2011-04-18T07:45:00.001-04:00

This is a re-send of the weekly Message from Michael. Because of a change-over in email services, some people did not get the message. For those who are getting it a second time, my apologies.

===============================================================================================================

NEWS IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

COMMERCIAL FREE DOESN'T MEAN PROMO FREE

CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL

NEWS IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER. And the beholders in this case are university students from around the world who apparently have a dramatically different definition of what is "news." Yes, note the quotation marks. According to a study led by the University of Maryland's International Center for Media and the Public Agenda, the students believe that the "everyday thoughts" of their friends count as news just as much as worldwide events. Not only that but the nearly 1,000 students surveyed don't "discriminate" between news provided by The New York Times, the BBC, or Al Jazeera and what they find on a friend's Facebook status update. News to them simply means 'something that just happened.' The study is based on an experiment, similar to one done in the U.S. a year ago, in which students go "unplugged" from all media for one whole day. Then they write about their experiences. Just as other studies have found, this one found that the students are virtually addicted to the media. The authors say that while it may not be a clinical diagnosis, the cravings, anxiety and depression "sure seem real" to the students. In fact most of the students in the ten countries failed to go unplugged for a whole day (which may raise questions about the study validity), sometimes because of "moments of weakness," sometimes because of work demands but sometimes just because the media is so pervasive. The study authors, who include researchers from nearly a dozen universities, noted semi-facetiously that if cartoonist Charles Schultz were drawing the character Linus today, he would be clinging to a mobile phone instead of a blanket.

The report notes what many other studies have noted, and that is that the young people are platform agnostic. However, it says that the students have different groups of 'friends' for different types of devices, with their Facebook friends being slightly different from those they text, who are in turn slightly different from those they call and so on. In effect they create different 'brand' identities based on the different communication tools.

For broadcasters, the report is a mixed message. The students say TV is still a favorite way to relax "without thinking too much," but that it is mainly "white noise." Very few of them said anything about TiVo or other DVR systems, and while some of them talked about favorite shows, almost none of them talked in terms of "destination TV." The students see music, regardless of its delivery system, as both critical to how they feel, using it to regulate their moods, but yet completely unnoticed at the same time. It both enhances and shuts out the world they live in and then becomes "background news."

For the news media, the report is an even more mixed message. There is so much news flooding them 24/7 that, the report authors say, "They inhale, almost unconsciously, the news." It's news served up on the sidebar of their email accounts, on their friends' Facebook walls, or through Twitter. They've become mostly headline readers who are happy getting their news in chunks of 140 characters. Unless they are personally engaged, the students don't have the time nor the interest to follow up the news, no matter how momentous that news appears to be. It's gotten to the point, the authors say, that "students no longer search for news (if they ever did), the news finds them." Yet at the same time, the authors say students today have a much broader range of interest, but again because "the flood of information is so continuous, and the bandwidth already is so great that there isn't a hole of curiosity that needs to be filled."

The report is not without hope for the news media. For example, the authors argue that "news" about friends and family can be a "Trojan horse" for media wanting to deliver local, national and world "news." Yes, there are those quotation marks again. They argue that journalists should "stop arguing there is a moral high ground to news" and just figure out how to meet their information needs. And remember how I made the point in a previous Message that you would be hearing a lot about 'news curation.' Well, guess what the report also argues – that there is tremendous need for news curation, "people and tools to make sense of the 24/7 influx of information." Somebody needs to separate the dreck and dross and turn it into something digestible. They argue that media literacy needs to be part of the core curriculum in universities around the world and that news curation, in particular, needs to be taught to journalism students.

COMMERCIAL FREE DOESN'T MEAN PROMOTION FREE. Okay, is it just me, or has anybody else noticed that there has been an enormous increase in the number of self promotional spots (aka branding and image spots) on National Public Radio. Everybody from their top journalists to Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers are extolling the virtues of the service. Do you think it has anything to do with the effort to cut off federal funding? Newsletter RBR/TVBR recently noted a campaign by a group calling itself Americans for Limited Government which is specifically targeting funding for public broadcasting with an online petition drive. They've even asked, somewhat humorously, for equal time on NPR to make their case. On top of that, a service called America's Radio News Network is offering itself as a commercial alternative to NPR. And that may be the real reason for the image spots. ARNN, as the service refers to itself, makes no bones about the fact that NPR's "implosion" is an opportunity for them, because they offer the only long form alternative without what they call NPR's "perceived bias." I don't know what it says about the service, but ARNN's catch phrase or slogan is "making, breaking and driving the news." As a footnote and a reminder from previous Messages on the State of the News Media, NPR averages a weekly audience of more than 27 Million listeners, which is significantly bigger than the combined audiences of either the network news, and dramatically bigger than the combined audiences of cable news. Also from the State of the News Media report, last year there were 3,446 radio stations which identified themselves news/talk/information – up from 2,634 the year before. Yet only 30 are all news. There were 268 NPR "member stations" last year, and 764 stations that carried some NPR programming, many of which (I didn't know) are religious broadcasters.

CONFESSION IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL. I am not a Diane Sawyer fan. Never have been. So, when she took over the anchor chair at ABC News, I was not expecting much. I was wrong. Thanks to former Atlanta ABC Bureau chief and fellow lecturer Steve Smith, I watched. And, folks, there is a dramatic difference in the quality of the programming. I meant to write about this some time ago when I watched their coverage out of China. It managed to achieve the hard to achieve standard of being both interesting and informative. Now, in the interest of equal time and so I can say you heard it here first, look for some significant changes in the CBS Evening News. And I am not just talking about the anchor change. 60 Minutes Correspondent Scott Pelley who is considered the leading contender for the position visited the Grady College of Journalism. According to him, the new chairman of news (isn't that a weird title?), Jeff Fager wants to see the evening newscast reflect the same quality as the critically and ratings acclaimed 60 Minutes. Pelley says they are talking context and perspective, although he prefers the word 'insight.' More importantly, he says, he wants to give the audience a sense of "wow, I didn't know that."

Message from Michael -- Arbitron and Nielsen reports -- April 6, 2011

2011-04-06T07:49:00.001-04:00

Message From Michael

April 6, 2011

A SEXTUPLE INCREASE

LOVING IT

EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF INTERNET USE

TWITTER ME THIS

EQUAL TIME

FACTOID(S) OF THE WEEK – TV VIEWING

WORTH NOTING – PEABODYS AND ADVERTISING

A SEXTUPLE INCREASE. Okay, sure, I could have used ‘six fold increase’ but haven’t we always been told that ‘sex sells’ even if the ‘sex’ in this case refers to six. Anyway, that is the increase in the percentage of Americans using Facebook in just the past three years – from a mere 8% in 2008 to a munificent 51% now, according to The Infinite Dial report by Arbitron and Edison Research. As amazing as that increase is, equally amazing is the increase in the percentage of Americans using SmartPhones. That percentage more than doubled in only one year from one in seven (14%) of those 12 and older having a SmartPhone last year to one in three (31%) this year. At 51%, the percentage of Americans using Facebook constitutes a ‘majority’ for the first time. Even more interesting, the report notes that the greatest growth has been in the 35 to 54 demographic, so that Facebook “is on a trajectory to become a mainstream media platform.” Another majority threshold crossed this year is the percentage of American households (also 51%) having two or more computers at home. Between the computers, radio and television, Americans are spending more time than ever each day with media, with ‘self-reported daily usage’ at 8 hours and 11 minutes. That’s up 20% over the last decade (from 6 hours and 51 minutes in 2001). The point is new media usage doesn’t necessarily have to displace old media usage.

LOVING IT. And we’re not talking about McDonald’s. No, we’re talking iPhones and iPads, satellite radio and Pandora. When it comes to devices, two thirds (66%) of Americans say they “love” their iPhones; more than half (53%) “love” their iPads. The Android SmartPhones weren’t far behind (49%), nor were regular SmartPhones (48%), or DVR’s (also 48%). When it comes to media platforms, more than two thirds (39%) “love” satellite radio and an almost equal amount (32%) “love” the Pandora music service. Not that far behind were Facebook (27%), Television (26%) and YouTube (24%). The analysts then calculated the percentage of people who “love” a device or medium against the percentage of the U.S. population using the device or medium to come up with what they called “passionate users.” Using that method, the hands-down winner was Television with a quarter of the U.S. (26%) being “passionate users” followed by AM/FM radio with a fifth (21%). Further behind were Facebook (14%), YouTube (12%) and, interestingly, (to me at least) Online Video (10%) But here’s the kicker: although the Infinite Dial report makes clear that traditional media still holds a dominant and cherished place in Americans’ lives, when given the choice, six out of ten (58%) “non-iPhone” (an important distinction) SmartPhone users would rather give up their TV than their SmartPhone.

EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF INTERNET USE. The question is – does faster Internet speed mean more time spent online. According to a study of nine countries by Nielsen, the answer is a tentative yes. Those with the slowest speeds tended to spend the least time and those with the fastest speeds spent the most time, but the differences were not that great. For example, in the U.S., those with the fastest speeds (8 Mbps or more) spent 25 hours, 48 minutes and 11 seconds online, while those with the slowest speeds (512 Kbps or less) spent 25 hours, 33 minutes and 4 seconds online. The countries with the greatest differences were Australia, the United Kingdom and Spain. Roughly half (47%) of the Internet connections in the nine countries surveyed are at ‘fast’ speeds (2Mbps to 8Mbps) while a fifth are at the ‘super fast’ rate. A fourth (26%) are at ‘medium’ speeds (512Kb to 2Mb) and less than a tenth (8%) are at slow speeds As a footnote, the Internet World Statistics report shows that there are now more than 2 Billion Internet users worldwide. North America has the highest penetration rate (78.8%), ahead of Europe (58.4%); while Africa has the lowest (11.4%), behind Asia (22.8%)

TWITTER ME THIS. Just because you have a lot of followers on Twitter doesn’t mean you have a lot of influence, according to a study by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. Yes, that is a real honest-to-goodness association. The study says it is true, and obvious, that the most followed users were public figures, celebrities and major news sources. Refer back to my previous Messages – the one about Lady Gaga being the top Twitterer with more than 9 Million followers or the one about Charlie Sheen garnering more than 3 Million followers in a short time. In fact, out of the millions of Twitter users worldwide, the report says there are only 233 of what it called “all time influentials” meaning they have broad impact. The report also identified ‘topical influentials’ individuals who become major influencers when the topic they focus on becomes the topic of strong news coverage. The report makes the point that influencers become influencers through “concerted effort (and) great personal involvement (and by) posting creative and interesting tweets.” As a side note, the Infinite Dial report noted that while 92% of Americans are familiar with Twitter, only eight percent use it. And as a foot note, to give credit where credit is due, this report was first brought to my attention by the Journalist’s Resource of the Joan Shorenstein Center at Harvard.

EQUAL TIME. The FCC doesn’t mandate equal time provisions in my message, but in the interests of balance, and because many analysts believe the future of media is going to be a battle between Google and Facebook, let me make some points about Google. First and foremost, and proof, that the search giant is getting ready to take on Facebook, according to many analysts, is that Google has launched its own version of the Facebook “like” button called “+1” – Plus One. It adds a ‘social layer’ to the search, although the question is what is the social network added, besides the various Google services like Gmail, Talk, Buzz and Reader. Website SEOchat.com says it is still debatable whether Facebook should be worried. Google is also getting into the custom publishing business with the launch of its new online magazine, Think. And although Google still faces an uphill legal battle in its effort to create a worldwide digital library, it has successfully launched its worldwide art project. And it is ‘way cool.’ Go to googleartproject.com to tour some of the greatest museums in the world and see some of the greatest paintings in the world. As I say, ‘way cool.’

BTW X 2: The Google Plus One service is not yet generally available, but if you want to test it out, go here -- http://www.google.com/experimental/index.html. Also, an interesting factoid about Facebook. According to a report by The Daily Telegraph of Australia, quoting Facebook’s chief privacy adviser, the company removes 20,000 users every day who are under the site’s age limit of 13.

FACTOID(S) OF THE WEEK. According to a release by NielsenWire, the average American watches five hours and 11 minutes of Television a day with African Americans watching more (7 hours and 12 minutes) and Asians watching less (3 hours and 14 minutes). Whites watch an average of five hours and two minutes while Hispanics average four hours and 35 minutes. African Americans play video games more (16 minutes a day versus a U.S. average of 13 minutes) and use DVD’s more (18 minutes versus 15 minutes) but Whites make greater user of DVR’s (27 minutes versus an average of 24 minutes).

WORTH NOTING: The announcement of the winners of the Peabody Awards has already been covered extensively, but I would be remiss if I did not send out a congratulatory note to the local television stations that won awards for their news reports. Three of the station winners probably wouldn’t surprise most broadcast journalists – WTHR/ Indianapolis, WFAA/ Dallas, KSTP/ Minneapolis. All are powerhouse stations with a strong commitment to investigative journalism. A special congratulations though should go to the surprise winner -- ‘little’ WILL-TV, the Public Broadcasting Station in Champaign/ Central Indiana for their report – “The Lord is not on trial here”, examining the landmark court case about the separation of church and state. Not anywhere near in the same category, but at least worth noting is the launch of the anchor-less news at KIAH, Houston.

ALSO NOTEWORTHY: Especially since it hasn’t been getting that much coverage, is the ‘new approach to television advertising and buying’ by CBS. In their new model, the standard using demographics of age and sex is thrown out as “essentially invalid,” according to chief CBS Research officer David Poltrack. Instead they segment the consumers according to viewing habits. Poltrack says the data shows there is “no link, none” between advertising campaigns targeting specific age and sex groups, and the actual sales generated by such campaigns. Admittedly, this does not seem like the kind of story normally in the Message, but this is such a radical departure from past practice that it is worth noting. Now the question is – will the network be able to ‘sell’ their new approach in the face of the long-standing, built-in bias toward demographic data.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 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. 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 - Twitter - March 30, 2011

2011-03-31T06:52:00.001-04:00

Message From Michael

March 30, 2011

THE TITAN TODDLER KNOWN AS TWITTER

THE GOOGLE OF INTERNET MOVIES

FACTOID OF THE WEEK – BILLIONS OF VIDEO

COCKTAIL CHATTER – BILLIONS OF STARS

THE TITAN TODDLER KNOWN AS TWITTER. Having just celebrated its fifth birthday, that’s what Twitter would be considered in human terms… a toddler. But this is one ginormous toddler. Hard to believe it’s just five years old, especially when you look at some numbers. For example, after founder/ creator Jack Dorsey sent his first tweet on March 21, 2006, it took three years, two months and a day to reach a Billion tweets, and more than 18 months to reach the half Million mark in subscribers. Now, according to its blog site, there are a Billion tweets posted every week and more than half a Million new accounts added every day. A year ago, the service was averaging 50 Million Tweets a day. Last month it averaged 140 Million Tweets a day. The land speed record in Tweets came the day Michael Jackson died when there were 456 “tweets per second.” The new record was set four seconds after Midnight in Japan on New Year’s Day when there were 6,939 “tweets per second.” More pragmatically, the company has gone from eight employees three years ago to 400 employees now, which is still remarkably low considering the volume of messages.

There are 366 Twitterers with more than a Million followers, according to unofficial but semi-official website, twittercounter.com. Most of those are -- no surprise, no surprise – celebrities; Lady Gaga -- no surprise, no surprise -- tops the list with more than 9.1 Million followers, semi-closely followed by -- no surprise, no surprise -- Justin Bieber with 8.4 Million followers. Britney Spears comes in third (7.3 Million), followed by President Barack Obama (7.2 Million) and Kim Kardashian (7 Million). The first non-human to make the top list is Twitter itself at number 12, with 4.7 Million followers. Interestingly, Twitter en Espanol comes in 14^th with 4.4 Million followers. And, yes, it would be easy to dismiss some of the Twitter hype when you look at the celebrity-dominated top 100 list. But then we’re reminded of the role Twitter played in Iraq and Egypt and Haiti. In fact, the Haiti Earthquake came in number four in the list of top Twitter trends of 2010. The top issue Tweeted was the Gulf Oil Spill. Of course Justin Bieber and Pulpo Paul, the Nostradamus Octopus who predicted the World Soccer Cup winner, also made the list. And then again, you learn about people through Twitter that you might never have heard of – such as Wired Magazine’s recently profiled Rafinha Bastos, Brazil’s answer to Jon Stewart. A comedian and journalist with 1.8 Million followers – a fact even more remarkable when you consider he tweets in Portuguese. Then again, there’s Rebecca Black, a 13-year-old singer from Orange County, California, who has made the Twitter ‘hot’ topic list as well as Facebook where her song has been viewed…. drum roll, please… 46 Million times.

Disclaimer: I am on Twitter (#MessageMichael), but I have not really adopted it, like you would expect some tech savvy, cool, with-it kind of person to do. Proving that I am not as tech savvy, cool or with-it as I probably should be. I keep promising myself to do better. But to show that I am not a complete Luddite, business-focused social networking site LinkedIn recently announced that it has passed the 100 Million user mark. And I, along with thousands of others, received a nice little email, noting the milestone and thanking me for my involvement. No big deal there… but, in the email, it noted that I was member number 168,043. So, see, I am an early adopter… on some things.

THE GOOGLE OF INTERNET MOVIES. A recent report from market research firm NPD Group shows that Netflix has become the Godzilla of paid (a very important word) movie providers online. The report says that Netflix accounts for six out of every (sort of, but not really) ten movies streamed or downloaded. The group has since had to clarify that report to say its measurements do not include free movie services, like Hulu, or movie services that come with your subscription, like HBO on-demand. It does include Electronic Sell Through (a concept I am still trying to understand) along with IVOD (Internet Video on Demand) as well as “transactional” purchases of movies – in other words movies that aren’t part of your package deal. Even with those qualifications, the bottom-line is that Netflix has become ginormous. (Yeah, I had to use that word again.) And here’s a tip for you future movie mogul investors – Aspera. As reported by Beet.TV, the small, and at this point privately-funded, start-up has become the standard bearer for delivering movies for all the big companies in Hollywood and everywhere. The reason is it has developed a protocol for delivering huge files faster than FTP and other TCP-type protocols. The company offers a ‘consumer’ version of its software for smaller publishers and journalists. As a side note, while trying to figure out what EST is, I came across this interesting factoid. The Clint Eastwood movie, Gran Torino, is Warner Brothers Home Entertainment’s most successful VOD movie, garnering $60 Million in sales worldwide, compared to the $148 Million it took in at the Box Office.

FACTOID OF THE WEEK. According to a study by Intel Corporation, by the year 2015, there will be 500 Billion hours of video the Internet. I say this way too often, but I’m going to say it again anyway – Think about that. 500 Billion Hours. That’s more than 70 hours of video for every man, woman and child on Planet Earth. On a very similar note, according to product manager Hunter Walk of YouTube, if the three major U.S. Networks were to have broadcast 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the past 60 years, they still wouldn’t have broadcast as much content as is uploaded to YouTube every 30 days. Now, ain’t that a wowser of a factoid? In an interview with TechCrunch, he says there are 35 hours of video uploaded every minute. That’s up from 24 hours a minute just a few months ago. And YouTube provides Two Billion playbacks every day. And from a previous Message, this factoid reminder – ten years ago it cost $300 to transfer a Gigabyte of video over the Internet; Today it costs about 30 cents. A disclaimer here. The first figure attributed to Intel is cited by Internet backbone provider Cisco in a report on its efforts to keep up with the growing demand. I have not seen the original cite.

COCKTAIL CHATTER. Somewhere about 11 Billion miles from earth, there are two space ships winging their way through outer space carrying two records made of gold-plated copper. The records contain a variety of sounds, ranging from a dog barking to a chimpanzee’s call, along with music ranging from Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto to Chuck Berry belting out Johnny B. Goode; Peruvian wedding music to a Navajo night chant; photographs of everything from a plane taking off to an astronaut walking in space; and diagrams showing the atoms making up DNA and maps of Earth. A recent article in the progressive magazine, Utne Reader, noted that the first craft, Voyager 1 just recently passed a key barrier, the official edge of our solar system, meaning that it has “broken free of their human influence and moved one step closer to unknown worlds.” The record was put aboard the craft at its launch in – get this – 1977. It was part of a project by astrophysicist Carl Sagan. This is the same person who created SETI (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.) Coincidentally I was reading some old columns by newspaper humorist Dave Barry, one of which was about the Celistis Group which created a project in 1984 whereby you could launch your cremated ashes into space. Astronaut Gordon Cooper and Star Trek actor James Doohan (aka “Scotty”) have been launched into space. Much to my surprise, upon investigation, it turns out the project is still going with the next launch scheduled for May of this year. BTW, costs range from $695 to have your ashes just flown around the earth to $9,995 to be ‘buried’ on the moon and $12,500 to be sent into ‘deep outer space.’

MORE COCKTAIL CHATTER. Mama Mia, MTV’s Jersey Shore ‘dropped’ to a season low in the last couple of weeks, but with more than 6.6 Million viewers, it is still one of the most popular series on basic cable. But when MTV introduced the series about young Italian Americans to Italy, the homeland of my father BTW, it caused an outrage, with one columnist saying it perpetuated the worst stereotypes of Italians, “multiplied a thousand times and Americanized.” As I write this, I should note that I am wearing my cornicello (Italian horn of plenty) around my neck to protect me from the evil eye.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 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. 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 - State of the News Media - Part Three

2011-03-21T08:10:00.000-04:00

STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA – PART THREE

KEY QUESTIONS FACING DIGITAL NEWS: That is the headline from the Online News section of the report. Yes, no cute headline this time. Let's face it. The ones from the two previous parts were a bit of a stretch. Anyway, the key questions are a dose of reality for news operations trying to create, if not predict, their future. In brief, the report notes "money will, to a large degree, determine where things are going" AND "advertising alone will never generate the revenue traditional media generated." One word keeps popping up throughout – sustainability. Yes, as reported earlier, total online ad revenues (which includes Web and Digital advertising) jumped ahead of newspaper print advertising (by $2 Billion), but that growth is not necessarily associated with news. On top of which, news is competing for advertising dollars in a world in which there are a lot of competitors… or frenemies (a word the report doesn't use)… or even possible partners. Search still accounts for the lion's share (48%) while banner and display ads normally connected with news are still small. Video ads are the fastest growing area, and have potential, but they still make up an even smaller part of online advertising -- $1.4 Billion; Or put another way, one-tenth of search and only five percent of the online total. The report makes the case for "targeted display" as an option for online news advertising. Targeted display is what I think of as contextual or behavioral advertising – using search habits, demographics, location and past behavior to target ads to a target audience. "In theory" the authors say, online news could make use of such advertising approaches because they already know a lot about their customers and they are trusted.

The battlefield will be in local online ad spending which now accounts for 40% of all online ad spending – up from 34% a year ago. Theoretically, traditional news operations would have an advantage since much of the news traffic online goes to them. But it doesn't quite work that way. Again, there are other competitors for online attention such as portals, search engines and other information providers. And, again, much of the digital agenda is being set by third parties – device makers and software developers. Two prime examples are Apple and Google which control much of the content and advertising, allowing others only limited use, the report says. An interesting side note to this is that the report says Google is much friendlier than Apple. Only further complicating the issue is the fact, noted earlier, that the three major online measurement firms (Nielsen, comScore, HitWise) all use "different methods of counting." On a positive note, a reminder that a third (34%) say they got news 'yesterday' online – up five percentage points from a year ago.

As to mobile and applications… well, another reality check. Apple has more than 350,000 applications. Android has more than 90,000. Of all the mobile and tablet owners, just 13% have used an app for local news and information. That equates to one percent of the American population. And of that, only 10% have actually paid for that app. Reality checks hurt, don't they? That's not to dismiss the possibility. After all 18-29 year olds are making greater use of apps, and, again, nearly half of mobile users (47%) say they got "some kind of news and information' from their mobile device – almost double the year before (26%).

THE WAL-MART OF NEWS: They didn't use that analogy but that seemed to be the implication of the analysis of AOL's move into online news. Right now, the AOL properties 'only' get an average of 3 Million unique visitors a month. By way of comparison, the Web's most trafficked news website, Yahoo News, gets 94 Million unique visitors a month. Website Topix, which relies totally on aggregation, had 7 Million unique visitors. So, it may seem a little premature to use that analogy. The difference though is that AOL is staking a lot on original content creation. Yahoo has started back into original content creation, hiring a dozen journalists, but it has had a mixed history of starting and stopping such efforts. Still, its latest efforts have paid off with a 300% increase in original content. Of course, that means it went from one percent original content the year before to four percent in the last year. The vast majority (96%) is still aggregated content. AOL, on the other hand, increased its original content six times over from seven percent in 2009 to 42% last year.

On top of which, AOL bought, or merged with, depending on your perspective, The Huffington Post. It is a move which (my interpretation) the report seems to question. For example, it notes that The Post had revenues of $31 Million versus AOL's $2.4 Billion. AOL already had many more national journalists than Huffington which had all of four reporters in 2009 and a projected 18 last year out of a total of 70 to 80 mostly "curators and editors." AOL was #3 or #4 in traffic versus The Post's #8. The report says that what Huffington does have is an 'upward growth trajectory' and (somewhat worrisome, to me at least) "an ideological orientation that AOL did not." In any case, the report notes in the Digital section that AOL's Patch has websites in 800 towns and communities, soon to be 1,000. The author of the Community News section says the AOL News Network "casts a long shadow on the local news landscape." By way of perspective, the report does note that a similar venture, BackFence, failed after struggling for three years, in part because of what the report called an "unavoidable reality" – local news is expensive to produce and the audience for any one piece is limited.

As a side note, here's a question for you Message readers – is it just me, or is the report's discussion of Tina Brown's appointment as editor of the combined Newsweek/Daily Beast operation dripping with sarcasm? It notes that Brown, "the creator of the money-losing Daily Beast" brought with her… "a digital brand… a famous magazine resume, major marketing presence… (she is, they note, and in their words) "a media celebrity"… as well as financial backing from Billionaire Barry Diller.

CONVERTING COMMUNITY CONVERSATIONS INTO CASH. If you read only one section of the report, besides the overview, read the Community News section by Michelle McLellan. Maybe it's because I was reading it at 4 a.m. after four cups of coffee, but I just found this part fascinating. It's a combination of reality check and real hope. The reality check – we have been "spoiled into believing" that journalism is such an important public good that people "were bound to open their wallets for it despite evidence to the contrary." The fact is there are too many people focusing on content and dreaming that their next grant is just around the corner. The real hope – discovering and providing what customers value. Here the fact is there are not enough people focusing on digital innovation and trying different business models. The point, she says, is that finding success means experimentation… as in, (though she doesn't use this often-used phrase) – fail fast and move on. News operations need to have multiple revenue streams. I would add (commentary) – one, that just doesn't apply to community news operations, and, two, that all news operations need to be community news operations. She quotes the folks at community website, St. Louis Beacon, who make the point that… they're not an online newspaper but an "engine of engagement"… (which just doesn't) toss information at people but figures out how to serve them… in community conversations.. meeting new people in respectful, intelligent conversations." And before you think I've gone over the deep edge, they say these relationships apply to advertisers and sponsors as well as readers and users.

One other point -- for my journalism education brethren, McLellan says: "if the real job is to help journalism survive, then entrepreneurship, business literacy and community engagement needs to be as much a part of the curriculum as multimedia and digital literacy."

THINGS I MISSED WORTH MENTIONING: First, two firsts I missed. For the first time, more online listeners (55%) report listening to online only audio (like Pandora and Slacker Radio) than to the streams of radio stations. Also, for the first time, the Internet became the #1 platform of choice for news among 18 – 29 year olds in 2010. It was the #2 choice among 30-49 year olds. Okay, now in no particular order, the other things I missed mentioning in the two previous reports:

According to an RTNDA survey, there are 224 stations running news produced by another station, although I have to say I sort of mentioned this in a previous report but without the specifics. Newspaper websites reach a larger audience in 50 of the top markets, with local TV tops in 14 of those markets. In talking about newspapers' declining revenues, the report notes that half of that decline comes from shrinking ad volume and half from declining ad rates. Despite fears, private equity owners of media have not made substantial changes any different from traditional publisher/ owners. And credit to the report authors for honesty, their prediction or 'possibility raising' that local owners would step in to save or salvage city news operations has not happened. In the section about the networks' morning news shows, an important distinction is made between ratings and share. In actual fact, the morning news has grown among people who are actually watching, but there are fewer people watching anything at those times. There were 196 magazines started in 2010, while 176 folded. The year before, a whopping 596 magazines folded. Even after all its cuts, the publishers of Newsweek estimated that it cost them $17 on average to acquire a new subscriber.

And in the area of things I didn't know (and, yes, I could fill a whole Message with that): Retransmission fees make up an average of seven percent of the revenue for local stations. (I should note that the networks want to get a piece of that pie back.) This one was something of a surprise -- According to the report, CBS News only broke even last year. And more of a shock than a surprise, 'little' CNBC generates nearly as much revenue ($722.9 Million) as the entire broadcast division ($850 Million.) BTW, for some reason, I didn't see any exact figures for profitability for ABC News, although there was a lot in the report about its expense cutting efforts.

DISCLAIMER -- AGAIN: A repeat but worth repeating -- the report contains a wealth of information, and my summaries, in all probability, do not do its justice.

Message from Michael - State of the News Media - Part Two - March 18, 2011

2011-03-18T12:27:00.000-04:00

STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA – PART TWO

IF MONTY PYTHON ANALYZED THE NEWS. You can't help thinking about some of the skits from the comedy series as you read the report by the Project for Excellence. Okay, I can't help but think about the skits. You know, the one in which they're collecting bodies during the Plague and one insists he isn't dead, so they give him a conk on the head to make him dead; or the one about the guy who tries to return his dead parrot for a refund, arguing that it isn't dead, just napping; or the one in which the knight guarding a bridge crossing has his legs and arms cut off but insists on continuing to fight because they're only 'flesh wounds.' The difference is that the Python skits are intentionally humorous, while the report is unintentionally darkly humorous.

For example, if you read some of the coverage of the report, it seems like things are a lot better. One article about local TV news was even headlined – finally, some good news. Even the headline on the local TV section itself read – good news after the fall. Well, not really. Yes, the report says, the overall TV audience held steady, and yes, revenues rose sharply. So, like the knight, local TV news operations are still itching for a fight. Except that the newscasts in ALL the key time slots (5a -7a, 5p – 7p and 11p) were down. The so-called prime time newscasts (10pm) lost more audience than news in any other time slot. An example of that dark humor was that the report says a "positive sign" is that the newscasts lost audience at less than half the rate they had been losing audience. Compensating for that loss was the addition of new time periods – 4:30 a.m. and 7:00 p.m. Plus, the number of independents offering news doubled, although most of them were news offerings produced by network-affiliated stations trying to amortize costs and resources. And that revenue improvement? True, 17.5% is better than the 7.5% projected, but when adjusted for inflation, the report authors say the average station revenue has dropped by almost half in just the past nine years.

And, yes, advertising revenues continue to fall for newspapers, and print circulation continues to fall. But despite all the gloom and doom about newspapers, the report authors note that it is still a profitable business. Of course, its profit margin are only about five percent and that is about a quarter of what it once was, and that is about the same profit margin as you see in grocery stores which deal in massive volumes to compensate. But hey, they're not dead. They're just mostly dead. Or, as the newspaper section authors put it, "the clock continues to tick on finding strong supplementary revenue streams as print seems certain to stagnate or decline even further."

If we were to do one of those popular "by the number" summaries of the magazine industry, they would be 1/4, 3X, 22%, 70 and ½. It is the report's comparison of what may be the most unsuccessful news magazines, Newsweek, with what may arguably be the most successful news magazine, The Economist. You already know, of course, that Newsweek was sold for $1 and assumption of debt. Okay, here's how it goes: The Economist with one-fourth the circulation of Newsweek sold 22% more ad pages and generated three times as much circulation revenue per copy sold… by marketing itself as a "higher quality editorial product" even though it had only 70 writers which is half the editorial staff of Newsweek.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT – PERSPECTIVE. The report notes what most of us already know, but which is worth repeating. News programs remain the single most important source of local station revenue, accounting for nearly half (45%). The five hours a day of news, which most stations average, brings in almost as much revenue as the other 19 hours combined. Despite all the seeming emphasis in the media about cable, the report notes that four times as many people watch the three broadcast networks' evening news than the three cable news audiences in prime time even tough prime time audiences are larger. And two times as many people watch the lowest rated broadcast evening program than the highest rated cable news program.

As noted in the Part One Message, the report says the future for many news operations depends on how groups embrace or enlist digital, especially with much of the digital agenda dependent on what are basically third parties – software developers and device makers. But to put that in perspective, digital only accounts for about five percent of the average local television station's revenue. In newspapers, digital accounts for more than twice that, but still relatively small numbers – 11.9%.

And for some further perspective on the digital direction being urged, the report notes the recurring problem that the digital audience is still not measured comparably or as reliably as more traditional media measurement systems. For example, the digital audience in terms of unique visitors per month at newspaper sites is up from 2001, but then again, they changed the measurement system. Even the Audit Bureau of Circulation is changing its way of measuring newspapers reach, basically meaning, the report implies, that any comparison with past metrics will either be invalid or less useful. The report authors note that while newspaper organizations insist they are transforming themselves, "the path is hardly a well-marked four-lane highway, and the effort seems comparable to chopping through the jungle with a machete."

For those who dismiss radio, sometimes called AM/FM, as old and outdated, technology, the report notes that it is still a dominant medium with nine out of ten adults listening. People spend more time listening to news on radio (15 minutes), then newspapers (10 minutes) and even the Internet (13 minutes), but well behind TV (32 minutes.) The problem, say the authors, is that radio is taken for granted. So, for example, when asked which medium has the most impact on their lives, radio comes in last.

FOOLS RUSH IN WHERE WISE MEN FEAR TO TREAD: With that headline as the preface, let me add some perspective to the debate about 'de-funding' (isn't that an interesting word) the Corporation for Public Broadcasting because of its reputed limited and liberal bias. That argument "may" work when the discussion is about PBS's Newshour, which has 1.1 Million viewers – about a sixth of the average commercial news program. And its digital efforts are similarly small. To make matters worse, the report cites a quote that I am sure the PBS people wish hadn't been said, and that is that every source of income -- other than the federal government -- has declined for the program. That argument about limited appeal is debatable at best, a complete non-sequitor at worst, though when it comes to National Public Radio. The report notes that NPR continues to be a growing source of news for many Americans with an increase of 3% in audience to 27.2 Million weekly listeners. Let me remind you, that is as much as the evening newscasts and more than the network morning newscasts. And to put that in further perspective, news/talk/ information radio is the second most popular format (behind country music), but that in reality there are only 30 All News commercial stations, and most of the others are more talk than news.

However, on the flip side of that, it should be noted that eight of the top ten talk show hosts on radio are conservatives, with Rush Limbaugh (15 Million) and Sean Hannity (14 Million) leading the pack. The top liberal talk show hosts average less than a fifth or a quarter of their conservative counterparts, with an average listening audience of 2.75 Million.

GOOD IDEAS GONE BAD: The report notes many examples of what seemed like the newest, latest, hottest trend that… well, just didn't quite work out. For example, partnerships between newspapers and television. The report says those approaches peaked in 2005 and have dropped steadily ever since. The much ballyhooed and still often cited concept of "hyperlocal news" has proven more expensive than expected, less lucrative than anticipated and more problematic. The partnership many newspapers have with Yahoo has been a two-edge sword. HD Radio, which many audiophiles, or at least radio broadcasters, thought would follow in the footsteps of HD TV and become the next big thing. Well, think again. Both listeners and the companies themselves have lost interest. After a surge of conversions in 2009, only 21 stations converted to HD in 2010 so that only one in seven radio stations are now HD. Now, the report says, the next big thing will be Internet radio in the car. The one I personally love is FM being built into cell phones. Apparently ten percent of cell phones already have it, but nobody knows it… including me.

OH, YEAH, BTW, THE JOURNALISM: Yet again, and as noted in previous messages, the prime focus of the report is on the 'business of journalism.' And, yes, that is understandable… to a point. There is at least a nod to the topic of journalism in the section "A Year in the News." It compared the mainstream media's coverage with the public interest, as measured by the blogosphere and social networking sites like Twitter. This section makes several interesting observations, including the fact that the public continued to have interest in many stories long after the news media had reduced coverage, that the public isn't nearly as interested in the "inside the Beltway" stories which receive extensive news media coverage; and even more interestingly, despite all this, the agenda on blogs was remarkably close to that of the mainstream agenda. For example, both maintained a consistently close watch on the economy. On the flip side, both the mainstream media and the public interest on the Afghan war was significantly low even though, the report authors note, 2010 recorded the highest death toll in the war since its beginning. No surprise, but the report notes that even when the agendas match, the blog conversations tended to be ideological debates.

The two news oddities – Twitter and CNN. Both had dramatically different agendas. Twitter's agenda more reflected both its techie audience and its broader world audience. The top topics on Twitter were, in order –Apple, Google, Twitter itself, Facebook, and at number five – the European Economy which scored significantly higher (7%) than the U.S. Economy (1%). CNN was described as the "cable outlier" and "odd man out" for its agenda, which reflected its breaking news focus. For example, most of its BP oil spill coverage (57%) was breaking news with significantly less (35%) focused on the responsibility of the federal government and the company. For both Fox and MSNBC, the numbers were exactly reversed. The report also noted an even 'less balanced' news agenda in general, with only two topics topping the 10% coverage mark in 2010 versus five topics in 2009.

But nowhere… and, yes, this is a criticism… did I see any discussion about the growing issue of so-called content farms or 'content mills' which are generating reams of debatable content, or of the reader responsive form of writing in which so-called news operations base their reporting on what articles get the most hits online. At the same time, to give credit to the report, one of the very, very cool features (and you know it's good when I use 'very' twice) is the News Interactive feature in which you can put in subjects and categories and see how various areas of the media covered them.

NOTE: This message is being sent by GMail, as I review my distribution list and methods.

DISCLAIMER: I have to admit that the Message summary seems significantly more negative than the report itself. My apologies. There is a lot of good to report, but there is a lot of balance that needs to be added as well. My apologies also for getting this second part out so late. There is a lot to digest, and even then, the summary doesn't do the report justice.

Message from Michael -- State of the News Media Report -- Part One

2011-03-16T10:26:00.000-04:00

Message From Michael

March 15, 2011

THE STATE OF THE NEWS MEDIA – PART ONE

A MAN FALLS OUT OF A PLANE. Does anybody else remember this? It is a children's version of the good news/ bad news theme. In semi-brief form, it goes something like this: A man falls out of a plane – oh, no. But, he has a parachute -- yea; But, it won't open – oh, no; but, there's a haystack below – yea; But, it has a pitchfork in it -- oh, no. And so on and so on. The recently released State of the News Media brings back that analogy. The bad news: audiences declined in every news platform except the Web – oh, no; The good news: advertising revenue increased year to year for every sector of the news media except newspaper -- yea. The bad news: traditional news rooms continued to lose jobs, albeit at a slower pace – oh, no; The good news is that those losses in traditional media are being offset by hirings in new media enterprises -- yea. The bad news: "traditional newsrooms… are smaller, their aspirations have narrowed and their journalists are stretched thinner." The good news: "they are more adaptive, younger and more engaged in multimedia presentation, aggregation, blogging and user content." You will notice there is no "oh, no" or "yea" after either one of those. According to the report authors, "in some ways, new media and old, slowly and sometimes grudgingly, are coming to resemble each other."

MY KEY TAKEAWAY: That last statement comes about, in large part because, in my view after reading the document, the authors have adopted a very broad definition of what is 'news.' As you read the report, you walk away asking yourself that question – what is news. For example, the point is made that nearly half of all Americans (47%) now get – their wording – "some form of local news" on a mobile device. What is that 'some form'? Again, quoting them – "news that serves immediate needs." That is defined as "weather, information about restaurants and other local businesses, and traffic." I should also note that the report does point out elsewhere that mobile ad spending still accounts for only 3% of total online ad spending – not all ad spending, just all online ad spending. So, it is small, but it should also be noted that it increased an impressive 79% year to year.

Then there is that word "curation" which we discussed in a previous Message and which comes up in the report several times. Remember that point about new media hires off-setting traditional media lay-offs? And remember how AOL was on a journalistic hiring spree, capped off by the purchase of The Huffington Post? Well, after the purchase (or merger as the report calls it), 200 of those 900 new hires were laid off. Now, aside from the fact that AOL paid $350 Million for an operation that only had revenue of $31 Million, here is the other point I would raise. Of the Huffington Post's estimated editorial staff of 70 to 80, 18 produce content. The others? You guessed it. Aggregate and curate. The missing word or words, take your pick – create, generate, originate.

Let me add another factoid here that it gets to my point about what is news. The number one radio category is news/information/talk. There are more than 1,300 stations following this format, but in actuality there are only 27 truly 'all news' radio stations in the entire country. Secondly, I would note for the umpteenth time that content farms are growing in importance and further confusing the issue.

THEIR KEY TAKEAWAY: We news consultants like to use the phrase "content is king" a lot. Actually, lots of media types say that. Some even believe it. And while that may still be true to a varying degree, the report makes the point that how you connect that content to the customer is becoming even more critical. In the old days, sometimes known as the 20^th Century, the news media not only created the content, they also were the means of getting that content to the consumer. No more. Now, the report notes, there are intermediaries who are taking more than just a bite out of the advertising pie. They are the software makers (like the people who create the Apps or develop the algorithms that gets the media message out), the aggregators (like Google, Yahoo and AOL who bring the audience to the media), and the device makers (like the Apple iPad and Droid developers who have created a new delivery system.) Each one adds another layer, another level of complexity, and each one wants their share of the dollars generated. The net result, argue the authors, is that "in the digital realm the news industry (may) no longer be in control of its own future."

THE FIRSTS: The re-formatted report has an excellent summary of 'key findings' and 'major trends' but as I read through the report, the word that stood out for me was – first, as in first time something happened. For example, here are some points made in the report: For the first time in at least a dozen years, the median audience declined at all three cable news channels. CNN's median prime-time viewership fell 37% to 564,000 viewers, and MSNBC beat it in total viewers during prime time for the first time. For the first time, Fox surpassed CNN in total dollars spent on the news. For the first time, too, more people said they got their news from the web than newspapers. When the final tally is in, online ad revenue in 2010 is projected to surpass print newspaper ad revenue for the first time. Online news consumption surpassed print newspapers in ad revenue and audience for the first time in 2010. Hires (in online-only news operations) come close to matching the jobs in 2010 we estimate were lost in newspapers, the first time we have seen this kind of substitution. Online news hires may have matched newspaper cuts for the first time. A good deal of radio listening occurs in cars, and we are on the brink of Internet radio being widely available there for the first time.. The first issue of the revamped Newsweek Magazine (combined with the Daily Beast) is scheduled for Spring, 2011. Also, even though it doesn't have the word 'first' in it, is a 'first' of a different sort pointed out in the report – Seven of the top 25 newspapers in America are now owned by hedge funds, which had virtually no role a few years ago.

SHOW ME THE MONEY: As part of that hedge fund involvement, the report also notes that media companies are turning to so-called "outsiders" to run their operations, and although the report doesn't say it this bluntly, the implication is that the driving force is making a profit, not making news. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it is getting harder. For example, the report says that charging for online news can work "under certain circumstances" but it is a very cautionary 'maybe.' More likely it is restricted to specialty information like financial information from sources like The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal. What will more likely happen, according to the report, is that the economic model for news will be "made up of many smaller and complex resources." Although the report notes the resurgence of auto advertising as a life saver for the news media during 2010.

NO BRAG, JUST FACT: Two other major trends cited in the report are concerns over online measurement and content farms. And I am proud to say, both of these issues have been raised in previous Messages. When the different rating agencies can't even decide what the definition of 'unique visitors' is, you know you have a problem, the report says. The result, online measurement is confusing and as long as it is confusing, it is hard to sell. The other point about content farms plays off the fact that the report says most traditional American media is local and most ad revenue is local. So, therefore its importance. And that is where so-called content mills are making inroads. But here is where it gets interesting. The report says "no one has yet cracked the code for how to produce local news effectively at a sustainable level… (and that) the push toward so-called 'hyper-localism' has proved ill-conceived, expensive and insufficiently supported by ads." How's that for a condemnation?

SIDE NOTE: You will notice from the heading, that it says "part one." I will have two more summaries of different aspects of the report in the next two days. Instead of trying to create one big overview, I thought it made more sense to provide three shorter summaries.

FOOT NOTE: You are receiving this week's Message through my Gmail account. I am in the process of converting the Message to a contact list serv. Also, my website, mediaconsultant.tv, is down temporarily. I shouldn't admit this, but the honest reason -- I was trying to upgrade the site and convert to a WordPress content management system, and managed to wreck it. Oh, well. It shouldn't, though, affect getting emails addressed to that account.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 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. 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.

Michael Castengera

MediaConsultant.tv

NewsProfs.tv

Message from Michael - Transmedia and Charlie Sheen - March 9, 2011

2011-03-09T09:31:00.000-05:00

Message From Michael

March 9, 2011

THE SWEET TRANSMEDIA FROM TRANSYLVANIA

A BORDER FENCE THAT IS BEING TORN DOWN

APT APPS

I WONDER AND I PONDER

CHARLIE SHEEN

THE SWEET TRANSMEDIA FROM TRANSYLVANIA. In our never-ending quest to keep readers of the Message up to date on media trends, let me introduce you to the term ‘transmedia’, although many of you may already be familiar with it. Its ancestors were Annette Funicello, Boba Fett, Gundam and Pokemon. They gave birth to The Beast, The Matrix, and The Dark Knight, and their grand children are the Old Spice Man, Jay-Z and the re-united Ken and Barbie. All of these are (old terminology) cross-media campaigns. And all of these represent steps in the evolution of ‘transmedia’, according to a report by marketing communications group JWT Intelligence. Heck, the only ones missing are Rocky and Dr. Frankenfurter, and their androgynous appeal may be a more fitting metaphor for transmedia. According to the report, transmedia is an evolution of the integrated marketing model, with “narrative threads tailored for different channels” and in which “borderless story worlds are arcing over various platforms in innovative ways, providing consumers with multiple entry points that encourage deep engagement.” How’s that for some verbiage? Okay, put aside all the Manhattan Avenue speak, and here’s what you get. The transmedia concept simply recognizes the fact that we live in a multi-platform media world that practically requires multi-tasking to cope with the multiple messages. Underlying it all though is the content, but content conveyed through good story telling. The challenge is to make sure that the story is appealing and applicable to newspapers and magazines, offline and online media, mobile and mobile apps, games and gaming, toys and puzzles, gadgets and widgets, social media and social networking, virtual worlds and augmented reality. When you list all the media forms, it becomes almost overwhelming, doesn’t it? All right, maybe not you, but it does to me.

The report says 2011 will be the year of the ‘transmedia toy’ and it cites Moshi Monsters as an example of transmedia marketing and story telling in action. It is built around social online gaming, but adds in TV and Online Video, along with apps, books, magazines, and video games, trading cards and toys. The report says half of all British kids between the ages of 6 and 12 and one in five U.S. kids have adopted a Moshi Monster with one Million virtual items sold daily. Transmedia may be the big buzz word for 2011, but the report makes clear that it is not just a fad, but the new reality. Further proof, the sometimes staid Producers Guild of America has approved ‘transmedia producer’ as one of its credits. It describes a ‘ transmedia producer’ as someone who maintains ‘narrative continuity across multiple platforms… creates new storylines for additional platforms and spearheads interactive elements.’ As always, my one paragraph summary doesn’t do justice to the report. You can find it by searching for TrendMediaRising and JWTIntelligence.

A BORDER FENCE THAT IS BEING TORN DOWN. The border between the ‘online world’ and the ‘physical world’ is getting “fuzzier,” and that represents an opportunity for marketers to increase consumer engagement, say the folks at JWT. In a recently released PowerPoint spelling out a checklist for social media use, the group says there are four things to watch in social media. One is where the online world is driving real life actions. Example: The recent Grammy Awards which used a geolocation-based app called MusicMaker which allowed music fans to attach stories about how a song influenced their lives. Similar but slightly different -- Another thing to watch is “gamification” in which game mechanics are added to social media campaigns. Example: Jack in the Box’s virtual coin jar in which people added a nickel when they ‘liked’ Jack. A randomly selected fan eventually won $11,000. The concept of “hyper-personalization” which acknowledges the fact that people expect their social media to be personalized. Example: The Old Spice Man campaign which culminated in a series of personalized YouTube vignettes. And, lastly, but not lastly, the concept of F-Commerce which is basically the continuing development of selling through Facebook. As long as I am making note of JWT reports, the group also produced a “100 Things to Watch in 2011” report. I touched on it briefly at the end of last year, and I intend to re-visit it, but if you have the time, it’s worth the read. Note to Readers and the Federal Trade Commission – I am not being paid to hype JWT. Promise. They just happen to have produced some very good reports.

APT APPS. How’s that for a simple headline? And it’s very apropos. Sorry, I just had to do that. I love alliterations. Publisher MediaPost has created The Appy Awards which is the first ever ceremony recognizing the growth of social, mobile and web-based applications as the hot thing in new media. The winner of best in show was Flipboard which is self-described, and accurately, as a “personalized social magazine” allowing you to share your friends and your friends’ stuff on Facebook and Twitter. There were multiple winners in a wide variety of categories. For books, the winner was Teddy’s Day which brings your kids an interactive story. In the education category, the winner was Rock Prodigy which teaches you how to play the guitar. In news, the winner was one of my favorites, Newsy which brings you a multiple source, multiple view of the leading news stories. In music, the winner was Mog. Talk show host Oprah won the lifestyle category with the app for her magazine. Healthcare provider Humana won in the medical category. And the travel category winner was Urbanspoon which provides you the restaurant menus of cities you may be visiting. I had never heard of it, and that’s kind of the point of visiting the Appy Awards site. So, go visit.

I WONDER AND I PONDER. And when I do that, I attend (at least, online) the TED conference. The conference which just ended in Southern California brings together an eclectic mix of speakers like Bill Gates and artists like Parisian JR. They deal with topics as diverse as the social revolution in the MidEast to how to break boards with your hands. All reflecting the title theme of Technology, Entertainment and Design. The lead presentation was from Artist JR who talked about how he puts the faces of various people on massive canvasses around the world, in places as diverse as Palestine and the slums of Rio de Janiero. He, along with TED, are launching a global art project to do the same with contributions from people around the world. One of my favorite TED activities was a tribute to Johnny Cash, created through multiple images provided by a variety of people. Anyway, just a heads up for my savvy Message readers who might want to see what the innovators and idea creators of the world are doing.

MORE BATTLE LINES BEING DRAWN. This time between Facebook and YouTube. The two groups threw announcement hand grenades at each other. Facebook will soon begin distributing movies from Warner Brothers Entertainment, starting with The Dark Knight. YouTube has acquired Next New Networks, which used to produce original content but which now primarily builds ads around Web shows produced by its ‘network’ of video-producing affiliates. Interestingly, in the story in AdAge Digital, YouTube stresses that the move does not mean they are becoming a ‘media company’ while the headline on the story about the Facebook move reads “meet your new media company.” In other words, they are becoming media companies.

COCKTAIL CHATTER: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has become the first major media company to become carbon neutral across its global operations. In a memo to his staff, Murdoch said the effort, launched in 2007, will save the company Millions of dollars while also contributing to environmental sustainability.

CHARLIE SHEEN. No, I have absolutely nothing to say about the star of Two and a Half Men. I just didn’t want to be the only media outlet not doing a story about him. Besides, I don’t want to miss out on some of the huge ratings some programs are getting or the massive online views others are getting from his… get this… 2.3 Million Twitter followers.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 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. 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 - Buffett and Broadband - March 1, 2011

2011-03-01T08:19:00.000-05:00

Message From Michael

March 1, 2011

THE WOODSTOCK FOR CAPITALISM

BROADENING THE BROADBAND BOUNDARIES

THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE

THE WOODSTOCK FOR CAPITALISM. It occurs every year in Omaha, Nebraska, and it’s for shareholders who own a certain stock which sells for a whopping $95,453 for a single share. The event is the Berkshire-Hathaway annual stockholders meeting, presided over by the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett. In his just released annual letter to shareholders, Buffett runs his usual gamut of commentary, explaining everything from why University Business School’s use of net income and the Black-Scholes accounting method is wrong, to the fact that the third best investment in his life was the purchase of his home… the two best were the wedding rings he bought for he and his wife… or to his often-used analogy that investing money is more important than having money, just like, “a girl in a convertible is worth five in a phone book.”

Yes, it is time for my annual paean to the good sense encapsulated in Buffett’s annual letter. But how can you not admire some one who tells his managers they can afford to lose money, even a lot of money, “but we can’t afford to lose reputation – even a shred of reputation.” Or that they should act not just on a basis of what is legal, but that they should act on the basis that they would be happy to see what they did, “written about on the front page of a national newspaper in an article written by an unfriendly but intelligent reporter.” Or who runs the Multi-Multi-Billion dollar operation with a staff of 20 people in an office that, rent and equipment combined, costs less than half a Million. Or who not just allows but invites 48 business school students every year to spend a day with him. Or who tells his fellow Billionaires that they could save money, coming to the annual meeting in Omaha, by flying into Kansas City and driving, rather than flying directly into Omaha. All while his company earned a compounded annual gain more than double (20.2%) than of the Standard and Poor’s (9.4%) over the last 50 years. And despite the fact that he and his partner, Charlie Munger, have a combined age of 167 years.

Buffett’s Berkshire-Hathaway group owns everything from Geico insurance where they “enthusiastically” spent $900 Million on advertising last year alone, to the recently acquired Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad where a ton of freight is carried 500 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel, thus reducing greenhouse emissions and the need for imported oil; to electronic components distributor TTI and H.H. Brown Shoes, as well as RV and Boat manufacturers, farm equipment makers, along with lollipop makers, Jet Airplane rentals and everything in between. But the most important part may be (and I say, may, because I don’t know) are the various insurance companies that provided him $66 Billion in “float” – money used to meet insurance claims but which is used to earn money in short term investments. As for us non-Billionaires, Buffett tells the story about a letter his grandfather wrote to his Aunt Alice which included $1,000 in cash because his grandfather thought it important that they have cash to “put your hands on” if needed. He warned them not to invest it, but to have it on hand; and if they used any part, use only a little and replace it quickly. Buffett says he has followed the same advice with his company, except that he has $20 Billion he can put his hands on quickly.

As a footnote, I have been writing about Warren Buffett’s annual shareholder letter for several years. This year, for the first time, I noticed that many more mainstream media operations, including The Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio have had extensive coverage of his letter. Also, as a footnote, we will have our annual review of various media companies’ annual reports in an upcoming Message.

BROADENING THE BROADBAND BOUNDARIES. Here’s a factoid that says volumes about our changing world: In a little more than a decade, starting in August, 2000, Broadband Internet connections has gone from a measly 4.4% of American households to where now more than a third (68.2%) of American homes have a Broadband connection. My math is not as good as it used to be, but I think that’s something close to a 1700% increase, or something like that. The recently released “Digital Nation” report released by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the U.S. Commerce Department contains that factoid, along with many others attesting to the value of Broadband usage. For example, domestic IT jobs increased 26% in the decade 1998-2008 – 4X the national employment growth rate. Global online transactions accounts for $10 Trillion in business. The report says a tiny 2.9% of Americans are still using dial-up for their Internet connection. But here’s the factoid that we techno-geeks sometimes overlook: The report says more than a quarter of Americans (28.3%) do not use the Internet anywhere… no how, no way… home, school, or business. And it’s not because they can’t, although that’s a factor; it’s mainly because they won’t. Most of those folks just say they are not interested or don’t need it. And here’s the factoid from the report that I don’t understand: According to one graph in the report (and, yes, I may be one of the few who actually looks at these) -- While nearly three-quarters (71.1%) of American households have Internet connections (broadband and dial-up combined), less than two-thirds (61.8%) have a computer. To use an old TV line – that don’t compute. Also, just to put the ‘cut the wire’ dispute in perspective, nearly every home in America (96%) has a telephone.

Decidedly less surprising, the report documents a continuing demographic disparity in Broadband adoption, with higher income, higher education, suburban, white and younger households having greater Broadband access. However, on the plus side, the report notes that the gap is narrowing. For example, Broadband adoption in the $15K to $25K income range grew 21% in the past year while adoption in the $100K to $150K income group grew only one percent. Similarly the gap among ethnic groups is shrinking as well, albeit somewhat slowly. Yet another graph shows that Broadband adoption is highest among households with a married couple with children under 18. Here’s the part of the graph I found oddly interesting. Homes with a single male head of household and a child under 18 are more likely (68.3%) than similar female head of households (63.1%) to have a Broadband connection. On the flip side of that equation, men and women are equally likely (62.3% and 62%) to have a Broadband connection.

THE CURE IS WORSE THAN THE DISEASE. You’ve no doubt heard that phrase. Well, in the new media world, there is flip side to that phrase. The curation is better than the algorithm. Whew, I know, I know… that’s a stretch. Here’s the point: For the past decade, the magic word in new media, IT and technology discussions has been ‘algorithm.’ If you want to do an online search, Google had an algorithm with 200-plus parameters that provided you three million more answers than you wanted. Now that you have finally gotten used to the concept of algorithms, there is a new buzz word making the rounds. It’s curation. The traditional definition is the selecting, organizing, caring and presenting of objects in a collection. And that traditional definition still applies, but now it is being applied to content. All kinds of content – video and text, information and news. There have been curation algorithms. But now there is social curation (gathering information from the various social networks), and making an astounding comeback – human curation. What in the old days we called editors. Part of the reason is the recent gaming of Google, and other search engine, algorithms. Part of that is the sheer volume of material out there. A recent Pew Research report found that most people (70%) are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information out there. They need some one to filter the relevant content. And part of the reason is the growing influence of brand marketing and content farms which generate material, but often it is material of questionable value. Anyway, as you graze, surf, or browse the Internet, and visit your social networking sites, watch for the word “curation.” You’re going to see more of it.

SUBSCRIPTIONS: 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. 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 - Mobile and Video - February 23, 2011

2011-02-24T09:44:00.000-05:00

Message From Michael

February 23, 2011

A CASE OF MOBILE CATCH ME IF YOU CAN

FOR ALL YOU HOCKEY PUCKS OUT THERE

GENTLEMEN, START YOUR VIDEOS

A CASE OF MOBILE CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. The U.S. has overtaken Europe in mobile media use, but neither is close to Japan and other Asian countries in terms of usage. That's the headline from comScore's Mobile Year in Review… at least from my perspective. The Europeans used to lead the U.S., in large part because they adopted the technology of text messaging and Smartphone's much earlier. But now, say the report authors, nearly half (47%) of the American mobile media audience use connected media compared to a third (34%) of the European audience. It should be noted here that the comScore report focuses on the five leading European economies (U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy). And the major reason for the American surge? Possibly this factoid: More than one in four (29%) users in America have unlimited data plans compared to less than one in ten (9%) of the European users. The report notes different demographic groups use Mobile at different levels in Europe and the U.S. – a fact that only heightens a key point about Japanese use of Mobile. It is demographically agnostic (my made-up term). Or as the authors put it, Mobile usage in Japan is more "balanced" across all age groups. In large part because Mobile is a "mature" technology in Japan. Three quarters of Mobile users in Japan (75%) use connected media, compared to the half in the U.S. and the third in Europe. Here's the other key factoid, which may presage the future for the U.S. and Europe in terms of Mobile use. In Japan, ten percent of the Mobile subscribers are using their devices like debit or credit cards – so-called "Mobile Wallets", to pay for their purchases. Interestingly, a recent report on The World produced by Public Radio International says aid organizations in Haiti are encouraging people there to use their cell phones in a similar way. In America? Well, Starbucks is experimenting with the idea.

It is not all sunshine and light though in the mythical mobile Garden of Eden. All of you smart Message readers already know about the growing traffic congestion problem on the mobile spectrum highway. In fact, humorously, if you like dark humor, many attendees at the recent Mobile World Congress held in Barcelona, Spain, had problems using their mobile devices because of data overload, according to an article in The New York Times. And it's only going to get worse. Network equipment makers Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent expect Mobile data traffic to increase 30-fold in five years time by 2015. Chinese equipment maker Huawei expects it to increase an astounding 500 times over, in ten years time by 2020. As challenging as that may be, the comScore report also cited another challenge which, frankly, I had not heard of. And that is the greater technology fragmentation in the Mobile world as compared to the PC world. Here is the factoid to back this up – there are more than 60 Mobile browser versions from more than a dozen vendors for the Mobile world.

An underlying them of the report is that, for mobile usage to 'succeed', it has to be advertiser friendly. Being advertiser friendly translates in being measurable – and that, say the authors, has been "extremely challenging" because of Mobile's "complex eco-system." That is why, the authors say that although mobile use will probably result in greater on-line spending, all media planning will have to be cross-platform (Mobile, TV, Internet) to be successful.

FOR ALL YOU HOCKEY PUCKS OUT THERE. A surprise factoid. The Super Bowl is NOT the top sporting event, according to Nielsen's State of the Media: Sports Year in Review. At least it's not in the $100K and over crowd. That honor goes to The Stanley Cup, which over-indexed other sporting events by nearly double (a score of 190) in that income bracket. In simplistic terms, over-indexing translates to out-performing the average. The Super Bowl didn't even come in second. That honor went to the NCAA Basketball Championship (168). The Super Bowl came in seventh (128), behind The Masters (163), The BCS National Championship (153), The World Cup Final (146), and The World Series (136); But ahead of the NBA Finals (126), The Kentucky Derby (124) and the U.S. Open Men's Final (113).

Okay, that's interesting enough, but the sales pitch behind the Nielsen report is that it can tell you who are the 'best' celebrity endorsers, using what it calls its patented 'N-Score" system which evaluates awareness, appeal and "46 specific personal attributes" to find out who is the best fit for your product. In women, it's Venus Williams with an N-Score of 169; In men, it's Shaun White with a rating of 536; And in commentators, Terry Bradshaw with a score of 378. Now, at this point, some of you avid Message readers are saying, "Hey, Michael, what about the study cited in a previous Message that you headlined celebrity-schlebrity article which pooh-poohed celebrity endorsements." Oh, right you are. Point noted. On the flip side, a factoid that may validate, to a limited extent, the N-Score concept is that the study says Tiger Woods' N-Score went from a whopping 815 in 2009 to a measly 93 in 2010 after the scandal about his personal life.

But back to the more interesting factoids: For example, four out of five users have downloaded an iPhone Sports App. Or, how about this. There were 40,500 hours of live sporting events aired on either broadcast or cable operations in 2010. The report examines the various sports and finds little gems in each one of them. For example, viewer engagement levels are 76% higher for MLB sports programming than the average levels during all other sports programming. The 2010 NBA Finals Game 7 broadcast drew 28.2 Million viewers – the highest rated game since 1998 when Michael Jordan played his final game. Most of the fast facts about the NFL you already know from previous Messages – the Super Bowl beating out MASH as the most watched telecast of all time, in large part because of a jump in ethnic viewing. And here's one you'll love -- NASCAR fans spent an average of 30% more for beer than fans of any other sport, but before you go into stereotypes, they also spent 25% more on non-alcoholic beverages as well.

    GENTLEMEN, START YOUR VIDEOS. Because the race is on – between newspapers, broadcasters, and online media as to who will win the NASCAR of online video victory. Depending on which metric you use, either Broadcasters or Newspapers hold the pole position, according to a study released by partners TubeMogul and BrightCove.   Broadcast can claim the top spot, based on total minutes streamed in 2010 (1.7 Billion) and in terms of average minutes spent viewing videos (3:20). That's a minute and a half more than newspapers. Newspaper can make a similar claim, based on total titles uploaded in 2010 (1.4 Million) and on what is called player loads (8 Billion). Newspaper title uploads is nearly three times its nearest competitors, online media and broadcast; and newspaper player loads is nearly four times the rate for broadcasters. A player load, by the way, represents the graphics, data and other components rendered on a web page including in-page and in-player ads. And online media usually represents pure-play Web only properties. It should also be noted here that the report is on global online media use, not just the U.S.

A review of the differences between broadcast and online media online strategies, and the strategy employed by newspapers and magazines, along with the resultant data differences, only further emphasizes the differences in which metric is the best metric. As a general rule though, "engagement" will be defined by time spent with particular media content.   But regardless, two things stand out. Each month last year saw an increase in the amount of time spent viewing videos online. Secondly, for the first time, the Nielsen authors say, more than half the videos in two categories (Online Media and Broadcast) were watched from start to finish. It is what Nielsen calls Completion Rates.

A sub-theme that one could tease out of the report is the relationship between engagement and content. For example, the report notes that "brands" saw a "massive" jump in engagement with the time spent viewing online nearly doubling year to year, from just over a minute in 2009 to over two minutes in 2010. The authors say this may indicate brands are improving the quality of their content. In a similar vein, the report notes that referrals by Yahoo appear to be more effective in terms of 'video engagement' because, the authors speculate, of its syndicated content efforts. As readers will recall, Yahoo owns the Associated Content. No doubt, the smart ones among you see where I am headed with this.   It is the question, yet again, of the role that so-called "content farms" are playing and will play in the future of online information. As a footnote, it should be noted that although the report makes a big issue of the increasing power of Yahoo, Facebook and Twitter as referral sources impacting engagement, Google remains far and away the major referral source, with more than 80% of all search referrals.

Message from Michael -- Internet Future - February 16, 2011

2011-02-16T16:39:00.001-05:00

Message From Michael

February 17, 2011

RETURN TO SENDER. ADDRESS UNKNOWN.

JENNY, I GOT YOUR NUMBER

DIGITAL FOLLOW UP

SUPER BOWL FOLLOW UP

A MOBILE VIEW OF THINGS PAST AND FUTURE

COCKTAIL CHATTER

RETURN TO SENDER. ADDRESS UNKNOWN. Who knew that Elvis Presley would be predicting the digital future from way back in 1962? Okay, so he wasn’t talking about the Internet, but his lyrics are spot on. There is no such number, no such zone in the present system of assigning IP addresses called Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4). On February 3rd, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) handed out the last of the 4.3 Billion IP addresses available using IPv4. Let me repeat that number – 4.3 Billion. That’s the number of IP addresses in the world. Keep in mind that, according to the World Population Clock, there are 6.9 Billion people in the world. Also, keep in mind that IP addresses are not just used for that computer you’re using to read the fantastic, informative and insightful Message on, but also, possibly, that cable or satellite box you use and the DVR you record on, and dozens of other devices you don’t normally associate with Internet Protocol. Actually, the better headline for this section might have been The Marvelettes’s Beechwood 4-5-7-8-9, because IPv4 is like the old phone number system in which a name preceded the number. Do any of my Message readers remember those days? There weren’t so many phones; so you didn’t need so many numbers. Now, of course, we have to enter the area code and the number, even to make local calls, to accommodate the proliferation of phones. In a similar vein, the next generation of Internet addresses, known as IPv6, will multiply the pool of IP addresses a Trillion times over. And that transition is already underway. Okay, I’ve probably geek’d some readers out with this technical mumbo-jump. After all, theoretically, according to various tech experts, you won’t have to worry about the change. Theoretically.

Website TechNewsWorld.com quotes researchers with ICANN as well as the American Registry for Internet Numbers as saying that most users who only use web browsers and email will not even notice anything. But – there’s always a But – people using VPN (Virtual Private Network) software or point-to-point software such as Skype “may experience some glitches.” Oh, yeah, and people who do a lot of video streaming, voice streaming, or online gaming “may run into trouble.” But there is a bright side to the potential problems, according to the article by Erika Murphy. Those advertisers who target you through your IP address will have a hard time tracking individual computers because IP addresses will represent whole neighborhoods instead of individual homes. The whole process of transitioning to the new IP address system could take as long as ten years. And because of that and because of the potential problems, a whole variety of groups you’ve never heard of -- ICANN, ARIN, along with The Number Resource Organization, the Internet Architecture Board, and the Internet Society – are urging device makers, content providers and ISP’s to hurry up and adopt the new system.

JENNY, I GOT YOUR NUMBER. And it’s not just 8-6-7-5-3-0-9 either. It’s a whole mess of numbers, all deciphered by algorithms. The three major Internet browsers are installing variations of an “opt out” feature into their systems. The latest version of Mozilla’s Firefox contains an add-on that allows you to tell websites that you do not want to be tracked. The boss of browsers, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has added a feature in its IE9 version which allows users to block ads from behavioral targeting companies. And giant Google has added an extension to its upstart browser, Chrome, allowing users to block sites. The Google Chrome version is primarily aimed at culling out the questionable material from so-called “content farms,” but the company is expected to create an opt-out feature for ads and tracking cookies as well. The moves are a pre-emptive strike by the companies which are facing regulatory action by the Federal Trade Commission as well as Congressional legislators who are pushing for an opt out feature on-line similar to the opt-out program aimed at telemarketers, allowing you to have your phone put on a “do not call.” It should be noted that all three have blocking mechanisms already available as an option under the tool or settings tab. Internet Explorer and Firefox call it “private browsing” allowing you to visit websites without being tracked or having the site made part of your browsing history. Chrome has the same feature, but they gave it a cooler name – Incognito Browsing. (For those who don’t get the headline. It is an ancient Rock and Roll song by Tommy Tutones.

While all that may seem a blow in defense of privacy, a little reality dose. Two new Apps have come on the market. One is Sneakyshot.com which allows you to take “secret pictures of all the interesting people around you” on your iPhone. The other App can capture the sound from your television, analyze it, and automatically share what you’re watching with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Supposedly this will make television “a more social experience.”

WORTH NOTING: Regardless of your feelings about the often-times controversial Al Jazeera news channel, its coverage of the Egyptian crisis was some of the best in the world and the most viewed in the world. On Friday when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned, its YouTube site had recorded more than 12 Million channel views and more than 218 Million upload views. Of course, it only has 146, 000 subscribers.

DIGITAL FOLLOW UP: According to a senior researcher at comScore, if you examine TV ads using the same metrics as are used with Online ads, there are eight to ten ads online for every one TV episode. It may be a variation of the proverbial Apples and Oranges comparison, but according to Andrew Lipsman, who is Senior Director, Industry Analysis, for comScore, the difference lies in the use of the word “impressions.” Just quickly, you may remember I did a summary of comScore’s Digital Year in Review in which I noted that advertising accounts for a quarter (25%) of all Television programming but ‘only’ a sixth (16.6%) of all Online video ‘programming.’ In actual time spent, the number drops even further with video ads accounting for only 1.6% of the actual online video time. Lipsman says the 1.6% figure is still the more accurate comparison with the 25% figure. He says that’s because “it’s the percentage of time allocated to ads as a percentage of the total. The 16% figure is the number of impressions, but TV isn’t really measured in impressions. In fact you might even say there are 8 to 10 ads for every 1 TV episode, if you’re just looking at it on an impression basis.” Got it? I’m not sure I do either, but I’m getting there. In any case, I have to say that I was impressed that Lipsman actually replied and in detail to the inquiry from a pipsqueak newsletter publisher – aka ME.

And, just for the record, also from the digital year in review study, the battle lines have been drawn between manufacturers and providers of SmartPhones. Leader RIM continues to dominate the market with a third (31.6%) of all smart phones but that’s down ten percent. Google is close behind (28.7%) but more importantly, its numbers increased (23.5%) year to year. Apple is flat at 25%. On the provider side, Verizon continues to hold the lion’s share (31.6%, closely followed by AT&T (26.6%) and with the other two, T-Mobile (12.2%) and Sprint (11.9%) battling it out for third and fourth place.

SUPER BOWL FOLLOW UP: Not only did the overall viewing numbers for the game reach a record high, but the viewing numbers for different ethnic groups also spiked. Figures supplied by Nielsen and reported by Cynopsis show that the number of Hispanic viewers jumped from 8.3 Million last year to 10 Million for this year’s game; from 11.2 Million African American viewers last year to 12.5 Million this year; and from 48.5 Million female viewers last year to 51.2 Million this year. And while many analysts are still talking about the success of Dorito’s chip-chasing, user-generated spot, the real ‘winner’ was the spot for the Chevy Camaro in which two guys describe a woman driving the car. Well, winner in the sense that an analysis of viewing patterns shows that it was the ‘most watched’ Ad in Super Bowl history, with 119.6 Million viewers. That’s even though (candidly) the spot was not that hot. But the spot was in the heavily watched and critical fourth quarter. So, far, on YouTube, the spot has had 1.2 Million views. But here’s the funny thing – to me, at least. You’d think General Motors would be happy with that. Noooooooo, they want more. So what did they do? They bought the search market terms “imported from Detroit” used in the much cooler Chrysler spot with Eminem, as well as “Darth Vader” from the way better and much more popular Volkswagen Ad. Pretty smart, huh? As a side note, the competing “bowl” – the Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl also scored a win, with a 60% increase in viewers over last year – 1.7 Million during its premier time (3pm to 5pm) and 9.2 Million unique viewers over the entire marathon event.

A MOBILE VIEW OF THINGS PAST AND FUTURE: Remember that figure above about the world population? 6.9 Billion. Well, last year, there were 1.6 Billion mobile devices sold. That’s up 31% from the year before. So, think about it. Nearly 3 Billion Mobile devices sold in the past two years. A “mobile device” for nearly one out of every two people on planet Earth. Marketing research firm eMarketer predicts that the percentage of SmartPhones will rise from about a third (31%) of the Mobile population to just under a half (43%) by 2015. That translates into 110 Million Americans toting SmartPhones around. My good friends at comScore just released a Mobile Year in Review which looks at Mobile Device use in the U.S., the five prime European countries and Japan. More on that in the next issue of the Message.

COCKTAIL CHATTER: Traditional bookstores, including the chains and independent stores, accounted for less than half of the book market last year, according to an article in USA Today, with retailers like Amazon, Price Clubs, supermarkets and convenience stores making up the majority of sales. Fordham University marketing professor Albert Greco, told the newspaper that by his estimations Amazon accounted for nearly a quarter of all sales (22.6%), ahead of Barnes & Noble (17.3%), Borders (8.1%), Books-A-Million (3%), and finally Independents (6%).

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