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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills. Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
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Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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In This Issue
Research Questions for Meaningful Change
ABC Seeks New Brand of Digital Journalists
Discovery Channel's Success Story
Circumventing Cable Fees Via Internet
Cable Ops Must Share Channels, Appeal Court Says
MSNBC Extends BreakingNews Brand To Facebook
Tweeters Not So Social Afterall
Media Companies Seek New Avenues for Revenue
TV Station for Sale on eBay
Betty White to Host 'SNL'
Barbie Goes 'Mad'
Success of Reality Show The Senate Spurs Futility TV Copycats
Quotes
"Questions focus our thinking. Ask empowering questions like: What's good about this? What's not perfect about it yet? What am I going to do next time? How can I do this and have fund doing it?"
- Charles Connolly
"The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions."
- Anthony Jay
"The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers."
- James Baldwin
Research Questions for Meaningful Change
by Graeme Newell
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http://www.602communications.com
Twitter: gnewell
Facebook: facebook.com/gnewell
You'll probably spend a boatload of money on that next research survey, but are you getting data that will truly motivate change within your organization? Are you getting the standard template questions used by every station in the country, or something customized to your organization? When designing a survey, it is important that you roll up your sleeves, jettison the perennial survey gems, and craft questions your team will actually use. This means working backwards from the frontline solution, not working forward from the questions.
Baseline audience information is important to assess, but far too many surveys provide little else. This is especially prevalent with tracking surveys. We ask the same general questions year after year, in hope of tracking improvement. Sure, this information is nice to know, but does it lead to real change within your organization?
There should be few questions on your survey that do not lead to a corresponding and immediate action by your staff. For example, if I ask my wife "Do you think I am a good husband?" there is little I can do with the information in her answer. I will get a general impression, but I cannot take any action with this information. But if I ask my wife "What specific things could I do around the house that would make you feel better about our relationship?" now I have information I can act upon.
So the question "What shows on our channel are appointment viewing?" is a good one. That's because it would answer the question "Which of our shows should go to the top of our promotion list and have the greatest chance of creating a viewing habit?" It would lead to an immediate restructuring of your on-air scheduling strategy.
Make your research company start the process from scratch - no templates. Begin the questionnaire process with a careful assessment by your managers and frontline supervisors. What answers about the audience will empower them to take a specific and decisive action? Try to reduce questions that provide general audience impressions. Look for information that will empower them to move forward with a resolute step.
Ask the team "What are the most important things you would like to know about our audience?" However, this question must be followed up with "What immediate action would you take if you had an answer to that question?" If they cannot give you an answer to that second part, then it should not be on the survey.
So here is the structure of the staff's answer:
"If I knew this, I would take this immediate action."
Examples;
Graphics: "If I knew the audience's taste for adventure and excitement, I would immediately adjust the speed and clutter factor in our on-air look."
Producers: "If I knew how the audience felt about scenes of violence, I would adjust the amount of graphic violence in my shows."
Editors: "If I knew the audience's level of fascination with big name stars, I would immediately adjust who and what is featured in my in-show teases."
Marketing: "If I knew whether our audience sees itself as more tough or more smart, I would adjust the style of humor used in our image marketing."
So put your own research to the test. Whip out your last questionnaire and give each question the actionable test. Are there a lot of questions that inform, but are not actionable? How many of those questions led to a specific reaction within your organization?
Graeme Newell is a broadcast and new media marketer who specializes in core emotional drivers. He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free. Find out more here.
ABC Seeks New Brand of Digital Journalists
ABC, which two weeks ago announced major staff reductions in a restructuring of its news operation, is already looking to staff up again with its new brand of digital journalists. According to a couple of internal job postings e-mails, ABC has "multiple openings" for digital journalists who will need to be able to shoot their own video, produce, write and deliver stories on-air and online. An ABC source says that while some will be working as one-person operations, the plan is usually to work in teams of two or three. The new digital journalist will also need to be the point person for news in various regions, which include domestic and international locations and will need to have strong booking and tech skills. An ABC spokeswoman confirmed the job postings, but could not say how many slots there were. Some will be replacing old positions while some will be new posts. They will be open to all ABC staffers, though not those who decide to take the buyouts the company has offered. In a job description that suggests the pace of digital journalism, the posting says candidates must be "capable of prioritizing and handling multiple projects simultaneously, under tight time constraints."
Broadcasting & Cable
Discovery Channel's Success Story
Rupert Murdoch’s deputy, Chase Carey, looked out on the cable television landscape last fall and found a rival he wanted to emulate. Discovery Communications, he said, is “a road map of where I’d like to be.” That is a big endorsement of Discovery, especially considering that it is just one-ninth the size of Mr. Murdoch’s company, the News Corporation. It is a testament to the fact that Discovery, the owner of 13 cable channels in the United States, has become a favorite on Wall Street, and its chief executive, David Zaslav, has become the subject of envy in the television industry. These days, every media company seems to wish it were a cable TV company, drawing revenue from subscribers and advertisers. Within cable, analysts say Discovery is particularly well positioned because it owns most of its shows and it can cheaply replay those shows in dozens of countries. (Many others rely more heavily on independent producers, limiting their international potential.) The company’s channels, including the Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet, are not the most watched on TV, although its hits, like “Deadliest Catch” and the defunct “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” regularly draw millions. They succeed because the shows are unscripted and relatively cheap to create. Mr. Zaslav “has woken up a sleeping new giant,” said the media analyst Jessica Reif Cohen of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. “I think that Discovery has the best secular growth prospects in the industry,” she said, comparing it to the Walt Disney Company 25 years ago, when Michael Eisner first took charge there. Mr. Zaslav, whose favorite phrase at meetings is “keep it going,” now faces arguably bigger, more weighty challenges with three new channels, one for children with Hasbro, one in 3-D with Sony and Imax, and one with Oprah Winfrey. At the same time, he is pushing Discovery to further increase market share overseas, where international versions of Discovery and Animal Planet are beamed into 180 countries, it says. “They produce shows with a mind toward how they can use them around the world,” David C. Joyce, an analyst at Miller Tabak, said. Discovery, with its headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., was founded by John S. Hendricks as one channel in 1985. Discovery’s stock price doubled in the last year, outperforming most other cable companies (and reaping a $34 million bonus for Mr. Zaslav). International revenue accounted for about $1.2 billion last year of the company’s $3.5 billion in total revenue. That international slice has quadrupled in the three years that Mr. Zaslav has run the company.
NY Times
Circumventing Cable Fees Via Internet
There are certain timeless truths about people who don’t own a television, chief among them that they love to tell you they don’t own a television. These days, they are still out there, but they have rivals in the realm of zealotry: people who do watch television — sometimes plenty of it — but don’t own a cable box. Those who belong to this crowd are only too happy to remind you that they can watch most of what you watch, but don’t pay $60 a month or more for the privilege. They will explain gleefully how they (legally, for the most part) circumvent the cable companies. And they are becoming more voluble, as cable bills rise and technology improves. “I tell everybody at my workplace about it all the time,” said Sundance McClure, a Web developer from Lakeside, Calif., who canceled his cable service nine months ago when the cost inched toward $100 a month. Whenever colleagues talk about what they watch on TV, he said, “I always tell them, ‘Yeah, well, you know, we don’t have to pay for any of that.’ ” Whether this makes Mr. McClure popular at the office does not seem to be the point. He gains pleasure from watching hours of television a day with the help of PlayOn, a $40 software download that aggregates Internet content and streams it to his Xbox 360, a game console attached to his TV. It’s impossible to quantify how many people have ditched their cable service, and the cable providers are eager to paint them as a minority fringe. But with devices like Xbox and Apple TV and software like Boxee making it easy to stream Internet content to a television, mention the phenomenon in just about any gathering, and someone is likely to pipe up about his or her way of watching cable free. And, yes, by and large they do enjoy making other people jealous. “The two questions I get asked most often are, one, ‘Do you really save that kind of money?’ and two, ‘Can you really see everything that you want?’ ” said Gerald Ortega, who has been proudly documenting his divorce from cable since July 2008 on his blog, Replace Television. “And the answer to both of those is yes.” And no. Though you shouldn’t expect a cable-cord cutter to volunteer this information, a monthly bill is not the only thing you must do without. Because they command hefty advertising rates, few sporting events are streamed live. Premium channels like HBO and Showtime also keep their original programming behind a pay wall, since they rely largely on subscriber revenue. So a rabid football or “True Blood” fan who decides to dump cable had better have some very hospitable neighbors (preferably, ones with a premium package). Cable executives say they are not worried. Setting up a cable-free life is still too daunting for most people, since most of the work-arounds involve a lot more than just grabbing the remote (assuming you can find it under the sofa cushions). “We don’t consider it a threat to our business,” said Maureen Huff, a spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable. “Being able to watch TV on the Internet is not new.” Without question, the cost of watching television is going up: The average household cable bill in the United States hit $64 a month in 2009, up from $47.50 in 2004, according to Leichtman Research Group, which specializes in media research.
NY Times
Cable Ops Must Share Channels, Appeal Court Says
A three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel has upheld the Federal Communications Commission's rule that cable operators must share channels that they own or partially own with competitors, TheWrap reports. The court's decision was 2-1 in upholding the FCC's ruling. Cable operators, such as Cox and Comcast and Cablevision, have argued against the FCC's ruling, saying that the rule violates the First Amendment. They also argue that the rule is out-of-date, as satellite and phone company competitors have eaten into the market share of the cable operators. The FCC first installed the rule around 10 years ago, and renewed it for another five years in 2007. According to the article, written by former TVWeek Washington whiz Ira Teinowitz, "Most of the channels affected are regional sports channels, but some cable systems own several national channels, too. And they could soon own far more if Comcast’s deal for NBC Universal goes through." The judges said while the cable companies have lost market share, they still control a majority of the market. But, the judges did say that if cable continues to lose its grip on the market, the FCC may no longer have the justification to renew the rule in 2012.
TV Week
MSNBC Extends BreakingNews Brand To Facebook
Last November, MSNBC acquired the Twitter account @breakingnews, which was started as a basic newswire by Michael van Poppel and gradually grew to 1.4 million followers (it’s now up to over 1.6 million). A month later, MSNBC announced that it had acquired BreakingNews.com, which has become a web portal for the online newswire. And today, it’s managed to complete the trifecta: MSNBC has just launched a Facebook Page at Facebook.com/BreakingNews. MSNBC spokesperson Gina Stikes says that the new Facebook account will only send updates for the biggest stories to break (you can still use its other feeds if you want to receive every story to come from the service). The page is obviously still quite new (it only has 645 fans right now), but you can expect that the grow quickly. Just how quickly is the big question, though: we’ll have to wait to see if MSNBC will be able to leverage its large community on Twitter to establish its Facebook page. In any case, it’s managed to take ownership of the term “breaking news” across a large swath of the web, which is no small feat.
TechCrunch
Tweeters Not So Social Afterall
Twitter may be a fast-growing social network, but most of its 50 million accounts merely follow other users rather than posting their own messages. In fact, a whopping 73% of Twitter accounts have tweeted fewer than 10 times according to a new report from Barracuda Networks, a Web security company. It seems that Twitter is becoming more of news feed than a social network, said Paul Judge, author of the report and chief research officer at Barracuda. And that raises questions about its growth potential, as well as how the Internet phenomenon will make money. As of December 2009, only 21% of Twitter account holders were what Barracuda defines as "true users," meaning someone who has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people and has tweeted at least 10 times. That indicates that most Twitter users "came online to follow their favorite celebrities, not to interact with their buddies the way they would on Facebook or MySpace," said Judge. The follow-only trend exploded when celebrities helped push the microblogging site into the mainstream during a six-month period that Barracuda calls Twitter's "red carpet era." From November 2008 to April 2009, several celebrities, including Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey and John Mayer, joined Twitter. And the site grew 21.2% in the month of April 2009 alone. "The most famous people have already joined Twitter, so I don't think they'll see another growth spurt like that," Judge said. So the question now, said Judge, is whether Twitter can get more of these followers to start tweeting themselves. "The bottom line is, most of these people are getting online because Ashton asked them to," Judge said. "If those people do nothing after that, [Twitter's] growth can't hope to continue."
CNN Money
Media Companies Seek New Avenues for Revenue
Richard Gringas calls it an "experiment." The Monday after Thanksgiving, Salon.com started selling cube-shaped martini shakers, shower-rings that look like meringues, and coffee mugs designed like paper cups (for that eco-conscious soul with a sense of humor). Though not a "massive success," that experiment made money for the 15-year-old news and feature site, said Gringas, CEO of Salon Media Group Inc. And finding new ways to make money is much on the minds of news media executives as advertising sales plummet. News organizations are turning to wine and travel clubs and hiking subscription rates to make money. Some upstart local news outlets are setting themselves up as nonprofits and turning to foundations and individual donors, rather than advertising, for support. In the long run, though, there may be no escaping advertising's grip on media. "There's a lot of experimentation going on now and shifts in strategy to drive new revenue," said Randy Bennett, senior vice president of business development for the Newspaper Association of America. After debuting what it describes as a successful launch of a wine club in 2008, the Wall Street Journal entered the travel market in January. If you liked that Journal article on Vietnam, perhaps you'll also like the Journal's 12-day culinary tour inspired by the paper's story, said Imtiaz Patel, vice president of group sales and strategy. The trip starts at $4,299. The Journal counts 100,000 members in its wine club, about twice as many as it did a year ago. Members pay about $70 to get 12 wines recommended by the Journal. Shoppers can also buy individual wines. "It's a great revenue stream," Patel said. He declined to say how much revenue wine and travel have generated for the paper. Newspaper executives say they are careful about preventing any conflicts of interests that would blur the line between reporting on wine and selling it. "We're diligent about this," Patel said. "Our reporters will never opine on anything we sell." And for older media sites, there is a limit as to how much you can branch out into ventures like wine and travel without losing your identity as a news site. "You don't want to turn yourself from a content source to a shopping mall," Patel said. "You'll destroy your brand."
Portfolio
TV Station for Sale on eBay
You don’t need pockets as deep as Comcast’s to get into the TV business. Or even be a millionaire, apparently. A UHF station in Western Michigan — WMKG-LP, Channel 38 — that shows a mix of live talk shows and family and outdoor sports programming, is “priced to sell” at $550,000, according to its listing on eBay. And the owner, Bud Kelley, says he will go even lower. Mr. Kelley originally listed the station — including the license and equipment, but not the broadcast tower — on the online auction site for $1 million before he dropped the price. He said last week that he would be happy with a $500,000 cash sale. Most of the people who have inquired so far have been “tire-kickers,” he said, though serious offers have come his way. “It’s a real station, not a toy,” said Mr. Kelley, 67, who has run the 24-hour station since it went on the air in April 1990. “It’s just retirement time for me.” Mr. Kelley said the business, run out of Muskegon, was profitable even though he has not made the switch to a digital signal from analog. A new owner could spend $100,000 or more to add a digital transmitter. The station used to have a half-dozen people to help produce a local news show, but financial pressure in recent years took it out of the news business. Mr. Kelley still carries a camera around, though, because “it’s hard to take the newsroom out of the boy,” he said. Mr. Kelley said he planned to move to Florida with Michelle, his wife of 35 years — “and not much longer if I don’t get rid of this station” — and spend his time on his other passions, including bicycling, fishing and square dancing.
NY Times
Betty White to Host 'SNL'
The Internet has gotten its way: Betty White will host "Saturday Night Live." NBC said Thursday that the 88-year-old actress will host the show May 8. "SNL" executive producer Lorne Michaels says he can't think of a better way to spend Mother's Day weekend than with White. The announcement followed a campaign on Facebook urging the sketch show to make White a host. The group attracted nearly half-a-million supporters. White, whose starring roles include "The Golden Girls," was given a lifetime achievement award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in January.
Yahoo News
Barbie Goes 'Mad'
After three seasons, “Mad Men,” the television series about advertising in the 1960s, has attained a level of popular-culture cachet. There have been magazine cover articles, calendars and an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” all devoted to it, spoofs on “The Simpsons” and “Saturday Night Live,” and even a “Mad Men” category on “Jeopardy.” Soon, the show will enter a realm of the pop-culture pantheon that its creator, Matthew Weiner, says has surprised even him: Mattel plans to bring out versions of Barbie and Ken styled after four “Mad Men” characters. The dolls are part of a premium-price collectors’ series for adults that Mattel calls the Barbie Fashion Model Collection. Although there have been Barbies and Kens based on other TV series, among them “I Love Lucy” and “The X-Files,” the dolls will be the first licensed line for that collection, Mattel says, with a suggested retail price of $74.95 each. The characters to become dolls are Don Draper, the show’s leading man; his wife, Betty; his colleague at the Sterling Cooper agency, Roger Sterling; and Joan Holloway, the agency’s office manager who was Roger’s mistress. That two dolls represent a relationship outside wedlock, and Don Draper’s propensity for adultery, may be firsts for the Barbie world since the brand’s introduction five decades ago. But for the sake of the Barbie image, her immersion in the “Mad Men” era will go only so far: The dolls come with period accessories like hats, overcoats, pearls and padded undergarments, but no cigarettes, ashtrays, martini glasses or cocktail shakers.
NY Times Success of Reality Show The Senate Spurs Futility TV Copycats
The unexpected success of ABC's breakout reality megahit, The Senate, may precipitate a torrent of copycat shows.
In The Senate, 100 aging windbags are divided into two Tribes, placed in a muggy swamp, and challenged to solve problems through cooperation.
ABC was initially disappointed. Instead of cooperative problem solving, the Tribes engaged in juvenile name-calling, sanctimonious posturing, and pompous bloviating. While the Tribes failed to achieve anything, viewers were oddly attracted.
"Like a ten car pile up, you have to look," Virginia Heffernan, The New York Times TV critic explained. "The Senate is even more riveting. It is a ten-car wreck where the uninjured drivers ignore the dying and the damaged. Instead of calling an ambulance, they pontificate, fulminate, and blame the other Tribe for the crash."
The Senate has become the show you love to hate. Each week over 45 million American tune in to see which tribe can be more hypocritical, demagogic, and inane.
Network executives believe that viewers want more "futility TV"--reality shows where nothing happens and everyone acts the fool. "What America wants is Seinfeld with only Kramers," CBS CEO Les Moonves concluded. "They want to watch blathering, incompetent fools accomplishing nothing."
At CBS Moonves has four "futility TV" reality shows under development:
* NASCAR is the ultimate in 'futility TV." Cars, plastered with advertisements and corporate logos, go round and round and round and round and round a racetrack. The ennui is relived only by commercials and occasional crashes.
* The Real Unemployed of Dayton, Ohio follows depressed out-of-work journeymen as they fruitlessly hunt for jobs, suffer surly teenagers, and receive foreclosure notices. "If Americans want futility TV, we will give them futility TV," Moonves promised.
* Wall Street follows the lives of a dozen rapacious bunko artists, a.k.a. Managing Directors, as they compete to enrich themselves by snatching mega bonuses while ruining the economy.
Each week, one contestant is voted "off the street" and receives a lump sum $25 million "golden parachute," an annual $6 million pension, lifetime health and life insurance policies, access to the company-owned luxury apartments, unlimited use of a corporate jet, a grand tier box at the Metropolitan Opera, membership at country clubs, court-side tickets to New York Knicks games, and box seats at Yankee Stadium,
* Court shows beginning with People's Court were the grandfather of reality shows. In CBS's Supreme Court two Tribes--The Tight Ass Catholics and The Diversity Ditherers--decide complex constitutional cases. Since the sphincterly challenged Catholics outvote the Ditherers five to four, the outcome is never in doubt. The drama of Supreme Court lies in Tight Asses betraying their legal principles and employing twisted logic to achieve the result they want.
In the pilot, using legal reasoning that would embarrass a first year law student, the Catholics granted corporations to ability corrupt democratic elections through unlimited campaign spending. Since this absurd result could never happen in real life, one questions if Supreme Court deserves the label "reality show."
Follow Steven Clifford on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stevenclifford
Huffington Post
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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills. Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site. Join us on Facebook and Twitter.
Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.
Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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(919) 217-4438
Web Site
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