The Marketing Ideanet Newsletters

Graeme Newell's Marketing Ideanet 9/29/2008

The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. 602 Communications is a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and promotion skills. We teach workshops on teasing, marketing, reporting, producing, lighting, editing, internet and graphics. Get more information on all our workshops.

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Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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In This Issue
Getting your Station Ready for Social Media Marketing
Preliminary Debate Ratings Results
Bush Bailout Speech Garners 52.7M Viewers
CBS Miffed Over Jacked McCain/Couric Feed
NBC: Broadcast Ailing, Cable Strong
The Relevance of Emotional Attachment for TV Shows
Top 20 Emotional Attachment Shows
Monkey See, Monkey Do It
Facebook Profiles Reveal Narcissists, Study Finds
Top Global Brands
China Fakes Space Report
10 Most Terrible Office Behaviors

Quotes

"The comic spirit is given to us in order that we may analyze, weigh, and clarify things in us which nettle us, or which we are outgrowing, or trying to reshape."
- Thornton Wilder

"The perception of the comic is a tie of sympathy with other men, a pledge of sanity, and a protection from those perverse tendencies and gloomy insanities in which fine intellects sometimes lose themselves. A rogue alive to the ludicrous is still convertible. If that sense is lost, his fellow men can do little for him."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Comedy is an escape, not from truth but from despair; a narrow escape into faith."
- Christopher Fry

Getting your Station Ready for Social Media Marketing
by Graeme Newell
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http://www.602communications.com

In the viral frontier of social media marketing, it is important to understand that you no longer own your station brand. For generations, TV stations have carefully crafted their advertising and PR to convey a regimented and disciplined marketing message. Because we had the raw power of a sign-on-to-sign-off broadcast signal in our back pocket, we got to control the message. Sure, the local newspaper columnist might have a wee bit of sway with our audience, but there was just no way an occasional rant could compete with the raw GRP power of our own prodigious on-air marketing. In order to be heard, you needed to own a media company, and that meant the average person never got a platform to voice their feelings about us. TV advertising was about carefully concealing your warts while repetitively flaunting your virtues.

For the better part of 20 years Tom Cruise's publicist successfully managed to build his sexy and mysterious brand. Most importantly, she managed to hide the fact that Tom is one weird guy. For whatever reason, Tom fired her and hired his sister to handle his publicity. Suddenly she had him jumping on couches, making intolerant remarks, and freaking everyone out with his Scientology dogma. Her job was to hide that runaway ego because Tom really is a freak. But word finally got out. Tom Cruise is just one individual person and he wasn't able to hide. Imagine how impossible it will be for an entire company with scores of employees, vendors, customers and observers. Thanks to the blogosphere, all of them have a voice now.

In the world of social media marketing, getting your own house in order is one of the most important things to do. It will not be enough to simply lock the gates and hope the hordes don't comment. They have a voice now. You can choose to manage it, or let them dictate your brand image without your input. They are firmly in control. You are just one of the many voices in a battle for the mindshare of your own company’s image.

One of the organizations that has done an outstanding job with social media marketing is Sun Microsystems. Sun's goal was to start an honest and constructive conversation amongst its customers, employees and vendors. They achieved this by turning all these people into blogging machines. It made it a prerogative that all employees would participate in company marketing through blogs. This includes all the top managers at Sun who write and answer questions. Sun has more than 2700 bloggers who have created the definitive discussion site for all things Sun.

These blogs tap into the community of developers who work with Sun products every single day. They know the product best and by enrolling them in the Sun developer blogs, they have become evangelists for the company. What makes them so loyal is that Sun does an amazingly good job of listening. They want to hear about all the problems. Then, the whole community works together to solve them.

Boeing is another great example of incredible social marketing. Randy Baseler, a marketing officer for Boeing, publishes Randy's Journal, an authentic and passionate blog where he celebrates all things fascinating in the airline business. Last year, Airbus put out marketing claiming more head and seat room on their big planes. On his blog, Randy offered schematics and definitively showed Boeing had more room. Randy had been on both planes. He had first-hand knowledge about the planes’ comfort.

Customer did not just blow off Randy as another company shill. For years, he had been providing honest feedback about his own products and products from competitors. Despite his marketing title, Randy's blog had proven his integrity and demonstrated his genuine love for the industry. Had Randy put this message into a print ad, no one would have believed it. All of us look at advertising with our guard up. Randy's blog allowed him to make the case honestly and straightforwardly without the spin. Boeing scored a huge marketing win without spending a dime in advertising.

So how do you get safely started in the two-way conversation of social media marketing? Unfortunately, most stations aren't ready to open the flood gates of viewer commenting on their sites. Sure, we have a few very well controlled and managed commenting areas, but most TV web sites are pretty much a one-way communication systems. We aren’t ready to hear all the feedback we get from our customers.

If commenting on your own site is not encouraged, then try your first run at social marketing on someone else's site. Start small. Participate in other local blogs. Launch a station YouTube, Facebook or MySpace page. The goal here is not to set the marketing world on fire. The first goal is to learn. You must crawl before you walk.

In the TV world where traditional one-way advertising is the rule, changing your marketing paradigm to the two-way conversation model is going to take some practice. Remember that social media results happen at a slower pace and in ways that most managers don't expect. By definition, it is viral marketing. That means the marketing message will go places you could never anticipate. Controlling the message is a top priority in traditional advertising. We buy ads in specific publications. We place media on specific channels. With social media your message will travel places you never dreamed it would go. This can be both exhilarating and incredibly frightening.

It is dangerous for marketing organizations to hide a company's personality from the public. The marketplace defines you now. The only question is whether you will try to mold and shape that vision before the marketplace does it for you. That means getting your values, your passions, and your foibles out to the community. This is the only way you can hope to shape the conversation. So get in there, roll up your sleeves and give social media marketing a try. Once you've figured out how the public really feels about your station, you'll be able to create and manage the conversation more effectively.

Graeme Newell is a broadcast and web marketing specialist. His teasing seminars immediately increase audience retention. He guarantees you will get an immediate ratings increase or his workshop is free. Find out more here.

Preliminary Debate Ratings Results
Friday night's preliminary ratings for the first presidential debate are in for the broadcast networks. According to ZAP2It ABC was the big winner. In the 9pm hour ABC had 6.4 rating/10 share of the audience. NBC had a 4.9/8, and CBS had a 4.8/8. FOX's debate coverage drew a 2.4/4. At 10pm, ABC kept the lead with a 5.6/9; NBC had a 4.5/8; CBS had a 4.3/7. Again, these are preliminary. Final numbers will be released tomorrow. Friday's cable ratings will also come out tomorrow around 4pmET. By another measure, Fox News Channel had nearly 300,000 unique votes during their text message voting window. (A unique vote is one vote per mobile phone). It was by far the most text messages Fox News has had for an event. The network did something similar during the GOP primary debates. FNC viewers crowned McCain the winner of Friday's debate. And in yet another measure, TVNewser asked you which network you watched for coverage of the debate. With more than 2,900 votes, it's very close. As of this writing only four votes separate first place MSNBC (553 votes) and second place FNC (549) and CNN is very close behind with 539 votes. FOX broadcast and NBC are fourth and fifth, respectively, in this very informal, unscientific, one vote per computer election.
MediaBistro TV Newser

Bush Bailout Speech Garners 52.7M Viewers
President George W. Bush’s address Wednesday on his administration’s economic rescue plan drew 52.7 million viewers, Nielsen said Friday. The speech was carried live from 9 p.m. to 9:15 p.m. on CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, CNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Telemundo and Univision. The multi-network combined audience for the speech was 52,653,000 viewers, or 38 million households.
MultiChannel

CBS Miffed Over Jacked McCain/Couric Feed
CBS News executives were red- faced trying to explain how David Letterman used unaired news footage of Sen. John McCain with Katie Couric to embarrass the Republican presidential candidate. McCain canceled his appearance on Letterman's show late Wednesday, several hours before he was due to appear - claiming he had to return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis. But when Letterman discovered the Senator sitting down with Couric at the same time he was supposed to be taping "Late Night," he unloaded on McCain. "I'm more than a little disappointed by this behavior," Letterman told viewers. "This doesn't smell right." "This is not the way a tested hero behaves. Somebody's putting something in his Metamucil," he said. Later in the show, Letterman showed an internal, live video of McCain being tended to by a make-up artist before the Couric interview. Both Couric and Letterman are on CBS. Asked if CBS officials had a problem with Letterman using the internal news feed, a spokeswoman for "The Evening News" refused to address the issue. But several CBS News executives - who asked not to be identified - said that the stunt did not go down well within the news division. "If we had done something like that to him, someone around here would end up getting fired," one said. News officials found out Letterman was using the internal feed shortly after it showed up on an internal CBS feed carrying the "Late Show" taping. "They were pretty aggravated," a CBS News source told The Post. "But they were not about to start a fight with Letterman," the source said. "We're in the middle of a heavy, heavy news cycle and Letterman is Letterman. "He does whatever he wants and always has."
NYPost

NBC: Broadcast Ailing, Cable Strong
General Electric said Thursday that national advertising is suffering at NBC Universal, an apparent first acknowledgment since the economic crisis began. Local station groups have said their business is ailing, but companies such as News Corp., which runs Fox, and CBS have indicated their broadcast networks are not experiencing any softness. Nonetheless, GE said its cable operations are "extremely strong," and indicated that it does not expect NBCU's total results to be lower than forecast for the July-September period. CEO Jeff Immelt said NBCU may weather the current and intensifying storm. He said NBCU is "highly diversified, more globalized, content-based and I think again very well-positioned in the cycle, with some real excellent execution and leadership." "The bottom line is, we will make a profit," NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker told CNBC in August.
MediaPost

The Relevance of Emotional Attachment for TV Shows
CBS’s “Survivor” kicks off its 17th season with its highest-rated years well behind it. Yet when it comes to emotional attachment to a program, there’s no show that rates higher. “Survivor” took the top spot in a new study from Marketing Evaluations, The Q Scores Company, which measures viewers’ emotional ties to broadcast TV shows. It found that they are most emotionally attached to “Survivor,” with an EA index of 177. That was well ahead of the No. 2 show, NBC’s “Heroes,” at 153, which was just ahead of Fox’s “House.” A number of top shows among adults 18-49 also made the list, including CBS’s “CSI” and ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy,” both of which also premiere tonight. But there were also a few surprises, like the CW’s low-rated “Supernatural” and NBC’s “Life,” which barely secured a second season, making the top 20. CBS notched five of the top 10 shows overall. Henry Schafer, executive vice president of Marketing Evaluations, talks to Media Life about how emotional attachment is measured, why comedies index relatively low, and why these rankings are relevant to media buyers. Interview here: MediaLife Magazine

Top 20 Emotional Attachment Shows

Rank:     Show:                         Network:      Emotional Attachment:
1.        Survivor: Micronesia......CBS.............177
2.        Heroes........................... NBC.............153
3.        House.............................Fox...............149
4.        CSI.................................CBS .............147
5.        Survivor: China..............CBS..............145
6.        Grey's Anatomy.............ABC..............142
7.        Criminal Minds..............CBS..............138
8.        Supernatural...................CW................135
9.        NCIS..............................CBS..............132
10.       NBC Sun Nt Football....NBC.............132
11.       Desperate Housewives..ABC.............130
12.       The Unit........................CBS..............128
13.       Ghost Whisperer...........CBS..............127
14.       Without A Trace...........CBS..............125
15.       Law & Order: SVU......NBC.............124
16.       Brothers & Sisters........ABC.............124
17.       The Office....................NBC.............123
18.       Prison Break.................Fox...............122
19.       Life...............................NBC.............122
20.       ER................................NBC.............120

MediaLife Magazine

Monkey See, Monkey Do It
Any TV watcher can tell you that there are plenty of one-night stands and other types of risky sexual behavior shown on the box, and apparently some people are watching and imitating. People who haven’t participated in unsafe sexual behavior in the past are more likely to do so after watching shows that contain these story lines. That’s true even if the characters in the show are embroiled in nasty consequences as a result of their actions. Or so say Robin L. Nabi and Shannon Clark of the University of California in a paper recently published in the Journal of Communication. The researchers also found that such story lines had no impact on those who had already engaged in such activities.
MediaLife Magazine

Facebook Profiles Reveal Narcissists, Study Finds
Facebook profiles can tell you more than just peoples' birthdays and what movies they like — they can reveal the self-adoring, a new study suggests.   Researchers at the University of Georgia gave personality questionnaires to nearly 130 Facebook users and analyzed the content of their online profiles. They also had untrained observers look at the profiles and rate how narcissistic, or excessively egotistical, the owners of the profiles were. The researchers found that the number of friends and wall posts (messages left by the owner of the profile or friends) that a person had on their profile correlated with how narcissistic they were. Study leader Laura Buffardi, a Ph.D. student in psychology, said this is similar to how narcissists behave in the real world, forming numerous but shallow relationships with others. Narcissistic Facebook users were also more likely to have glamorous, self-promoting pictures for their main profile photo, while others tended to use snapshots, the study found. The untrained observers also noted the differences in photos and amount of social interaction. "We found that people who are narcissistic use Facebook in a self-promoting way that can be identified by others," Buffardi said. Narcissism hampers a person's ability to form healthy, long-term relationships, said study co-author W. Keith Campbell. "Narcissists might initially be seen as charming, but they end up using people for their own advantage," Campbell said. "They hurt the people around them and they hurt themselves in the long run." In the past, research has found that personal Web pages are more popular among narcissists, but this doesn't mean that all Facebook users are narcissists. "Nearly all of our students use Facebook, and it seems to be a normal part of people's social interactions," Campbell said. "It just turns out that narcissists are using Facebook the same way they use their other relationships — for self-promotion with an emphasis on quantity over quality." The results of the study are detailed in the October issue of the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
LiveScience

Top Global Brands
In at least one respect, Interbrand's 2008 Best Global Brands Report, released today, is dated. Among the companies that Interbrand lists as being in trouble are: Morgan Stanley, Gap, and Merrill Lynch. Lehman Brothers isn't on that list, so things can't be all that bad for the company--which filed for Chapter 11 protection last week. Interbrand's report lists the 100 most valuable global brands, with Coca-Cola taking the No. 1 spot. Coke gets the nod because--as the firm says--"current trends toward healthier diets have seen Coke shift focus to better-for-you drinks in the last year, with the launch of products like vitamin- and mineral-enriched Diet Coke Plus and Coke Zero." The firm's picks for the Top 10 global brands after Coca-Cola are IBM, Microsoft, GE, Nokia, Toyota, Intel, McDonald's, Disney and Google. Interbrand's criteria for inclusion require the brand to have at least one-third of its revenues outside its country of origin, and to be a "market-facing" brand and not purely B-to-B. The company's ranking is based on financial analyses--forecasting current and future revenue via branded products from analysts' reports and public data; Interbrand's own brand strength analysis; and brand earnings, a measure of how brand influences customer demand. Jez Frampton, global chief executive of Interbrand, says that four of the five companies that Interbrand spotlighted for big shifts upward in the rankings this year versus last are tech companies: Google (from 20 in 2007 No. 10 this year), Apple (from 33 to 24), Nintendo (from 44 to 40), and Amazon.com (62 to 58). Other companies with rankings that have decreased are not terribly surprising, given their recent struggles: Ford, Citi, and Gap. Citi's ranking has dropped from 11 to 19 this year as it deals with the burdens of losses and job cuts. "In terms of trends, fallers are financial services brands, and automakers like Ford," says Frampton. "The Gap is a perennial underperformer [in the study]," he says. He says not all automakers are getting a brand drubbing from the economy and gasoline prices. "Though manufacturers are facing tough times, Toyota, BMW (No. 13) and Mercedes (11) continue to perform well," he says. Meanwhile, he says the Top 10 brands have stayed consistently in the top 10, partly because consistency is a hallmark of strong global brands--although there has been a musical-chairs position change at the top. "Coca-Cola has been sitting at the top of the list since we have been conducting the study," Frampton says, but Samsung has taken over Sony.
MediaPost

China Fakes Space Report
China's state news agency published a despatch from the country's three latest astronauts describing their first night in space before they had even left Earth. The Xinhua agency, which has sometimes been accused of carrying state propaganda, took down the story and blamed it on a "technical error". The article described the Shenzhou VII space craft orbiting the Earth and outlined a conversation between the astronauts. "First-level measurement arrangement," said one taikonaut - the Chinese word for astronaut. The article later described the reaction to a successful outcome of the mission. "Ten minutes later, the ship disappears below the horizon. Warm clapping and excited cheering breaks the night sky, echoing across the silent Pacific Ocean." China's most ambitious manned space mission blasted off intent on providing the country's first ever spacewalk. The latest test of Project 921, as its race into space is known, is the climax of China's defining year as an emerging superpower, coming on top of its hosting of the Olympic Games.
The Telegraph

10 Most Terrible Office Behaviors
A coworker who takes credit for someone else's work or rattles off obnoxious jokes is engaging in one of the top 10 most offensive workplace no-no's, according to survey results released this week.

These and other workplace misdeeds earned spots on a "Terrible Ten" list of rude working-world behaviors. While discrimination topped the list as most offensive, other highly ranked job-related transgressions occur beyond the office entrance, such as crazy driving.

"The research suggests that people are bothered more by the transgressions of coworkers and strangers than by those of family and friends," said study team member P.M. Forni, director of the Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, which began in 1997 to evaluate the significance of manners and civility in contemporary society.

Out of 30 examples of rude behavior, survey respondents most often indicated the following 10 as most offensive in this order:

1. Discrimination in an employment situation

2. For commuters, erratic/aggressive driving that endangers others

3. Taking credit for someone else’s work

4. Treating service providers as inferiors

5. Jokes or remarks that mock another, including remarks about race, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation and religion

6. Children who behave aggressively or who bully others

7. Littering or spitting

8. Misuse of handicapped privileges

9. Smoking in non-smoking places or smoking in front of non-smokers without asking

10. Using cell phones or text messaging in mid-conversation or during an appointment or meeting

For this survey, Forni and his colleagues polled 615 employees of two Baltimore-based companies, along with employees and students at the University of Baltimore, in May 2007. The participants rated 30 examples of rude behavior from 1 (not offensive) to 5 (most offensive).
LiveScience

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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. 602 Communications is a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and promotion skills. We teach workshops on teasing, marketing, reporting, producing, lighting, editing, internet and graphics. Get more information on all our workshops.

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Graeme Newell's Marketing Ideanet 9/25/2008

Emmy Ratings Headed for All-Time Low
Critics dissed ABC’s Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony last night, and so apparently did viewers. The awards show could be headed for an all-time worst if early numbers don’t improve. The Emmys averaged 12.2 million total viewers from 8 to 11 p.m., according to Nielsen overnights, about 700,000 fewer than tuned in to last year’s near record-low ceremony on Fox. The record low came in 1990, when the ceremony drew 12.1 million on Fox. Fast nationals measure timeslot data and not actual program data, so numbers may adjust when final ratings are released tomorrow. But this year’s ceremony actually wrapped up by 11 p.m., so it’s unlikely numbers will move up or down all that much. The ceremony may have been hurt by the lack of hype, after a year in which scripted television was hampered by the writers’ strike. Poor marks for the show’s presentation probably didn’t help keep viewers tuned in, with critics trashing the five-host format. The show lost audience during every half hour from 8:30 p.m. on, and its three-hour 3.8 rating in adults 18-49 was off 12 percent from last year’s record-low 4.3. But the biggest factor was likely the tough primetime competition from NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” which featured the fan favorite Dallas Cowboys against the Green Bay Packers. The game averaged a 7.8 preliminary 18-49 rating, way up from a 5.5 the same night last year. There may have also been some strong numbers for ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” which broadcast the New York Yankees’ last-ever game at Yankee Stadium.

NBC was first for the night among 18-49s with a 6.7 average overnight rating and a 17 share. ABC was second at 3.2/8, CBS third at 2.8/7, Fox fourth at 2.2/6, Univision fifth at 1.0/3 and CW sixth at 0.6/2. CBS started the night in the lead with a 4.8 at 7 p.m. for football overrun and “60 Minutes,” followed by NBC with a 3.5 for “Football Night in America.” Fox was third with a 2.0 for repeats of “American Dad” and “The Simpsons,” ABC fourth with a 1.2 for “Jimmy Kimmel’s Big Night of Stars,” and Univision and CW tied for fifth at 0.6, Univision for the first hour of “Show de los Sueños: Sangre de mi Sangre” and CW for a repeat of “One Tree Hill.” Among households, NBC led the night with a 10.0 average overnight rating and a 16 share. ABC and CBS tied for second at 6.9/11, with Fox fourth at 3.0/5, Univision fifth at 1.4/2 and CW sixth at 1.0/2
MediaLife Magazine

Study Examines Effectiveness of TV Spots to Promo Radio
A new study released by Arbitron and Edison Media Research raised questions about whether TV spots for radio are effective at increasing radio station listening. The study, the first of its kind in the radio industry, examined the impact of TV campaigns for two Philadelphia radio stations using Arbitron's portable people meter, which encoded the station TV commercials in order to track the radio behavior of those who were exposed to them. In both cases, the TV campaigns failed to produce significant listening increases. Results of the study were presented at the National Association of Broadcasters Radio Show, being held here in conjunction with the Radio and Records Convention. Conducted in the first quarter, the first case study encoded a 30-second TV spot for Adult Contemporary powerhouse WBEB (B101)/Philadelphia. It then "tagged" B101 listeners in the Philly PPM panel and "followed" them through the 12-week campaign. The spots ran after the station's highly successful all-Christmas music programming had ended, when B101 was focused on bringing back core listeners that drift away due to the all-holiday music format. The PPM recorded 8,634 spot detections over the 12-week campaign -- almost three detections per panelist. The study showed that 62 percent of all panelists -- and roughly the same percentage of women 25-54, B101's primary target demo -- saw the spot during the campaign. "People who saw the spot spent a little more time with B101," Edison founder Larry Rosin said. B101 registered a 12+ AQH share of 5.0 among panelists who didn't see the spot and a 6.2 among those who saw it five or more times. Digging deeper, Edison and Arbitron separated B101 listeners into light, medium and heavy users of the station. While the PPM showed the three groups were equally exposed to the TV campaign, how they reacted was different. Increases among heavy and light listeners were negligible. But listening among moderate listeners rose from 4.1 in the first week of the campaign to 7.3 in the 11th week. "For people who are more on the fence, it moved them up," Rosin concluded. B101 is one of the nation's most aggressively marketed radio stations and routinely pre-tests its TV commercials before they air. WBEB owner Jerry Lee said he cut back on his lavish TV budget two years ago, after using PPM data to study the impact of TV marketing on radio listening. "With the diary, TV was dynamite," Lee said. "Half of the diarykeepers didn't fill out their diary until the end of the week, and when you're top of mind, you're the one they remember. With PPM, you can't fake it."
MediaWeek

'Super Moms' Cram 27 Hours into Every Day, Study Finds
They may no longer see themselves as super moms, that outdated ‘80s term, but today’s mothers are using modern media, including mobile phones and the internet, to manufacture time. The result is that they are able to pack 27 hours worth of activity into just 16 waking hours. That’s according to a new study of 7,000 online women done by AOL’s Platform-A and media agency OMD. By multi-tasking, these mothers can complete 27 hours’ worth of activity, including those relating to work, family, surfing the internet, chores, eating and shopping, into a single day. Included in that is eight hours spent with media: 2.6 hours on the internet, 2.1 hours watching TV, 1.2 hours listening to the radio and half an hour reading newspapers, magazines and playing games. Using the internet for parenting – either for advice or as a resource for their children’s learning -- is the No. 1 use cited by moms, coming in ahead of search, email and news. The study also found that 86 percent of online moms say they are the primary household decision maker. Despite all this, only 38 percent of moms describe themselves as being a “super mom.”
MediaLife Magazine

Message From Michael
WHILING AWAY THE HOURS. When they do, Americans spend more than half of their total leisure time each day (5.1 hours) watching television (2.6 hours). Conversely they spend 19 minutes on an average day playing games on computers – the same amount of time they spend “relaxing and thinking.” That’s according to the annual ‘time use survey’ produced by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. The second biggest leisure time activity is ‘socializing and communicating’ which takes up 46 minutes of time each day for the average person over the age of 15. Somewhat surprisingly, people in this study spent more time reading (22 minutes) than participating in sports, exercise and recreation (17 minutes) on an average day. Just for a little perspective, “employed persons” worked an average of 7.6 hours a day. As a side note, and as a factoid that says a lot, the report says one in five Americans (21%) did some or all of their work at home.

THOSE STEREOTYPES ARE TRUE: Married moms working full time outside the home still spend more time doing housework and child care than married dads working full time. Yep. Married dads spend more time at the office than married moms employed full-time. Yep. The “yeps” all come from the same report. Nearly three quarters (71%) of employed married moms spend time helping the kids compared to just over half (54%) of those dads; moms also spent more time (1.2 hours) with the kids than the dads (49 minutes) each day. Married working dads spend about an hour more per day (6.1 hours) at work than the married working moms (5.1 hours), in part because more women work part time and because of child demands. Just under half (43%) of married moms were employed full time compared to nearly nine out of ten (88%) married dads.

The stereotype you probably didn’t need the federal government to tell you – yes, that teenager sleeps longer. Boys 15 to 19 sleep an average of 9.7 hours, slightly more than girls in the same age group (9.3 hours). Despite the reports about sleep deprivation, the report says on average, Americans aged 15 and over sleep 8.6 hours a day. If you want to do some more digging into the data, the website is http://www.bls.gov/tus.

THE BIGGEST AND THE BEST: Are television websites when it comes to growth and newspaper websites when it comes to worth. Normally I don’t cite reports in MfM that have been widely circulated, but this one which appeared in Broadcasting and Cable is too interesting not to note. According to a joint report by BIA Financial Network and Borrell Associates, TV websites tapping into the fast-growing video and search advertising have seen their Web advertising grow at a compounded annual growth rate of 67.2%, compared to newspapers’ 33.5%. But, because newspaper websites have been around longer, they’re valued more – anywhere from $500,000 to $30 Million compared to television’s $500,000 to $9 Million. TV and radio websites only generate about 3% of the station’s gross revenues compared to just 6.5% for newspaper websites, but both are expected to grow – television to 5% or 6% by 2011 and newspapers to 10%.

THE TECHIE SIDE OF TECHCRUNCH50: There were so many interesting, entrepreneurial websites from the Techcrunch50 show that I had to re-visit it. For example, Tingz produces widgets that operate across all platforms from iPhones and Blackberrys to Macs and Windows. Not only that but the widgets interact with each other so that your recipe widget will connect to your shopping widget to make sure you get the ingredients. Website Imindi.com has set a goal of augmenting human intelligence via computer science using neuroscience and cognitive psychology through a search engine mechanism that introduces people to new ideas and thoughts instead of just new information. In place of Descartes Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I am), Imindi says Cogitamus ergo erimus – We think therefore we shall be. A little more mundane but no less interesting is icharts.net which acts as a portal for people to develop interactive charts on various subjects that they can share. Japanese corporation Tonchidot has developed “Sekai camera” which translates to “world camera” and is “a real-world interface for the iPhone that connects real and virtual worlds, allowing anybody to create, experience and participate in both.” Website videosurf.com promises to help you find exactly what you want in the growing online video world by teaching computers to “see inside” video (whatever that means) so that you can use visual content instead of text to search online. Finally, my favorite, birdpost.com, which says it is leading the burgeoning field of “citizen science” (I didn’t even know it was a burgeoning field) by helping birdwatchers find new bird species using satellite mapping technology.

ANOTHER FACTOID: From a study by the Pew Research group noted in a previous MfM, the percentage of Americans with cell phones has risen from half (53%) in the year 2000, to about three quarters (74%) two years ago to now when four out of five (83%) Americans have one. Relatively few people get their news on these phones, according to the survey, but more than a third (37%) of those using iPhones and Blackberrys use them to get news.

THE TECHIE SIDE OF SARA PALIN’S E-MAIL. In the category of you heard it here first, (okay, that may not be true for all of you) regular readers of MfM will recall a discussion about website 4chan.org. It is a cutting edge site of weird and wonderful and not-so-wonderful memes that often end up presaging happenings on the Internet. Well, it turns out that the hacker who broke into Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s e-mail was a member of “anonymous” -- a group of ‘online troublemakers” who hang out on sites such as 4chan.org. Warning/ Disclaimer: If you visit the site, tread carefully.

SIDENOTE: Website Silicon Alley Insider, using data from online video measuring service TubeMogul, reports that videos of Sara Palin are being viewed more (38 Million) than her running mate, Sen. John McCain (25 Million), or Sen. Barack Obama (29 Million). No mention, oddly of Sen. Joe Biden. As you may have heard, ABC anchor Charlie Gibson’s interview with Palin on 20/20 drew 7.9 Million viewers – the highest number for the show in six months. And despite complaints to the contrary, an analysis of campaign coverage by LexisNexis found that coverage of Palin has been quite balanced with more than a quarter (26%) of the 6,000 stories analyzed being deemed ‘positive’, less than a quarter (22%) being deemed ‘negative’ and more than half (52%) being deemed ‘neutral.’ The analysis also notes that Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Joe Biden was, as the analysts put it, “tossed into the discount bin” receiving only 683 stories to Palin’s 6,027.

POLITICAL PALAVER IS POPULAR: If any of you have any doubt about the unusual interest in politics this year, Nielsen Media reports that two thirds (64.5%) of all U.S. households tuned in to one or the other of the two political conventions. A third (33.9%) reported watching both conventions. An estimated 15% tuned in just to the RNC and another 15.7% tuned in just to the DNC. The 18-24 demographic had the lowest percentage of viewing – less than a quarter (24%) watched either convention. Plus the report notes that the cume percentages for the two conventions were similar across all adult age breaks even though the Republican convention was shortened a day by Hurricane Gustav.

COCKTAIL CHATTER: As long as I’m talking politics and just to prove that there is nothing too mundane for researchers to study, research firm BigResearch reports that McCain voters are more likely (68%) to drive domestic brand cars than Obama voters (54%) and that Obama voters are more likely (36.6%) to drive a Japanese brand car than McCain voters (26.7%) and nearly twice as likely to drive a European brand (9.4%) than McCain voters (5.3%). McCain voters are also more likely to drive SUV’s (19.1% vs. 14.9%) and trucks (14.2% vs. 8.3%) One in five hiring managers (22%) say they use social networking sites to research job candidates – double the figure just two years ago (of 11%). The hiring managers told Careerbuilder.com that many of the candidates talked about drinking and using drugs on their site or posted ‘provocative or inappropriate’ photographs or information, although, on the good side, nearly half of the hiring managers (48%) say the social networking background check showed the candidate was qualified for the job. Beer maker Anheuser Busch has won its first ever Emmy for a commercial that has never aired on television. The spot, titled Swear Jar, is, as its name implies, about a company that keeps a swear jar for its employees who have to put in money every time they swear. The money is used to buy a case of Bud Light. The spot has become a hot viral video online with more than 12 Million views and the award, according to AdGabber.com. I should warn anybody wanting to watch it that the language is very profane.

Michael Castengera is an instructor at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia AND President of Media Strategies and Tactics Inc., a consulting firm that works with all media but primarily broadcasting. You can visit his website at MediaConsultant.tv.

No Pun Intended

1. Two antennas met on a roof, fell in love and got married. The ceremony wasn't much, but the reception was excellent.

2. A jumper cable walks into a bar. The bartender says, 'I'll serve you, but don't start anything.

3. Two peanuts walk into a bar, and one was a salted.

4. A dyslexic man walks into a bra...

5. A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm, and says: “A beer please, and one for the road.”

6. Two cows are standing next to each other in a field. Daisy says to Dolly, 'I was artificially inseminated this morning.' 'I don't believe you,' says Dolly. 'It's true; no bull!' exclaims Daisy.

7. An invisible man marries an invisible woman. The kids were nothing to look at either.

8. Deja Moo: The feeling that you've heard this bull before.

9. I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day, but I couldn't find any.

10. A man woke up in a hospital after a serious accident. He shouted, 'Doctor, doctor, I can't feel my legs!' The doctor replied, 'I know you can't - I've cut off your arms!

11. I went to a seafood disco last week...and pulled a mussel.

12. What do you call a fish with no eyes? A fsh.

13. Two fish swim into a concrete wall. The one turns to the other and says, 'Dam!'

14. Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly, so they lit a fire in the craft. Unsurprisingly, it sank, proving once again that you can't have your kayak and heat it too.

14. A group of chess enthusiasts checked into a hotel, and were standing in the lobby discussing their recent tournament victories. After about an hour, the manager came out of the office and asked them to disperse. "But why?" they asked, as they moved off. "Because," he said, "I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer."

15. A woman has twins and gives them up for adoption. One of them goes to a family in Egypt and is named "Ahmal." The other goes to a family in Spain and is named "Juan." Years later, Juan sends a picture of himself to his birth mother. Upon receiving the picture, she tells her husband that she wishes she also had a picture of Ahmal. Her husband responds, "They're twins! If you've seen Juan you've seen Ahmal."

16. Mahatma Gandhi, as you know, walked barefoot most of the time, which produced an impressive set of calluses on his feet. He also ate very little, which made him rather frail and, with his odd diet, he suffered from bad breath. This made him a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

17. And finally, there was the person who sent many different puns to his friends, with the hope that at least 10 of the puns would make them laugh. No pun in 10 did (say the last five words aloud, fast)!

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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. 602 Communications is a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and promotion skills. We teach workshops on teasing, marketing, reporting, producing, lighting, editing, internet and graphics. Get more information on all our workshops.

TVSpy.com is home to ShopTalk, the FREE daily newsletter for the TV news industry, read by more than 25,000 subscribers. For more than 20 years, ShopTalk has given TV news professionals the daily inside scoop on the industry. Read today's ShopTalk and subscribe for FREE.Graeme Newell's Marketing Ideanet 9/25/2008

Graeme Newell's Marketing Ideanet 9/22/2008

Wired

Financial Lows Bring Record High Ratings to CNBC
Monday's record lows on Wall Street saw record viewership on CNBC. On Tuesday, CNBC had even a higher Total Viewer average during Business Day (5:00amET-7pmET), with 523,000. It was the highest again since September 17, 2001. Squawk Box (6-9amET), Closing Bell (3pmET) and Kudlow & Company (7pmET) had their highest total viewer average of all time. Yesterday was more of the same (although it was the lowest of the three days in Total Viewers average). Mad Money had its most total viewers, and Fast Money saw its best telecast in the A25-54 demo and Total Viewers ever. The numbers were stronger than usual this week — but not by nearly as much in the demo. Although yesterday was CNBC's best demo take since February 28, 2007, out of 495,000 Total Viewers yesterday, just 156,000 were in the demo. And the Wall Street Journal reports Bloomberg had one of its highest-rated days ever on Monday, when the network aired an interview with Sen. Barack Obama.
MediaBistro

CNN Ad Omits Fine Print in Claim
CNN took out a full-page ad in several newspapers today, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, touting some #1's related to Convention coverage. But unlike the last ad that got hung up in the fine print, this one is missing some key words. The ad correctly states CNN was the top cable network in the three demos during both Conventions, but when it says it was the most watched at 10pm across both Conventions, there is no note about it being only in the demo. And just like the first victory, CNN won in the demos and FNC won in Total Viewers (5.4 for FNC vs. 5.2 million for CNN in combined viewership). Nielsen did approve the print ad, but a CNN spokesperson says, "There will be a correction in future versions of the ad." Meanwhile Greta Van Susteren, who enjoys taking an occasional shot at her ex-employer, has her own problems with the ad: CNN boasts about being #1 at 10pm during the political conventions. I suppose if I only won once or twice or a couple more times — even if not against my regular competition — I would want to take a bow — but spend all that shareholder money? now? and not against the regular team? What do they get? A CNN spokesperson added: "All claims in the ad are accurate. Although Nielsen had approved the ad, apparently there was one source line missing from the fine print
MediaBistro

Fox News Demands McCain Ad Remove Anchor Voice
Politico's Michael Calderone reports Fox News has sent a cease and desist letter to the Sen. John McCain campaign, demanding they remove the voice of anchor Major Garrett. The audio clip used is from a report by Garrett, the correspondent covering the Sen. Barack Obama campaign, on Wednesday. Part of the letter reads: "As Mr. Garrett is a non-partisan news correspondent covering the Obama campaign for Fox News, it is highly inappropriate, among other things, of your campaign to use him in your ad." Just last week CBS demanded a clip of Katie Couric be removed from a McCain ad.
MediaBistro

BBC To Air Prez, VP Debates
For the first time ever, BBC America will air all four U.S. presidential and vice presidential debates this fall, network officials said Friday. On the evenings of the debates, the network will broadcast a special two-hour edition of its BBC World News America program that will include each debate in its entirety as well as comprehensive analysis of each candidates’ performance on the issues. The newscasts will air live from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. ET on BBC America and BBC World News. On Friday, Sept. 26, Washington correspondent Katty Kay will anchor the show live from Oxford, Miss., the site of the first debate between presidential nominees Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama. Matt Frei will anchor the vice presidential debate on Thursday, Oct. 2 as well as the following two presidential debates on Tuesday, Oct. 7 and Wednesday, Oct. 15. “BBC World News America will take viewers out of the spin room and into the real world,” executive producer Rome Hartman said in a statement. “While our competitors spend time listening to campaign surrogates spouting pre-cooked claims of 'victory' for their candidate, we'll travel around the world to get real reaction from real people who've just watched the debate and made judgments for themselves.”
MultiChannel

Palin Emails Hacked, Exposed Online
Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's private email account has gone public on Gawker.com, where you can read private messages and find never-before-seen photos of her children. Apparently a hacker breached her account, obtaining a new Yahoo password by knowing her date of birth, home zip code and where she met her husband. The FBI and Secret Service are investigating the break-in to Palin’s account, which is significant because she has been known to use non-government email to conduct state business. Yahoo is keeping mum due to the investigation. In an account circulated online, the person claiming responsibility for the hacking writes: "i am the lurker who did it, and i would like to tell the story." The hacker adds that what began as a prank was aborted due to the possibility of FBI involvement. The operator of the internet anonymity service used by the hacker is cooperating with the FBI’s investigation.
MediaLife Magazine

O'Reilly Hacked for Comments about Palin Hack
A hacker claims to have cracked the web site of Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly and purloined a list of subscribers to the site, which includes their names, e-mail addresses, city and state, and the password they use for their registration to the site. The attack was retaliation for comments that O'Reilly made on the air this week about web sites that published e-mails obtained from the Yahoo account of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, according to a press release distributed by WikiLeaks late Friday. The hacker sent WikiLeaks a screenshot of O'Reilly's subscriber list as proof of the deed, which WikiLeaks has posted online. This week on his Fox show, O'Reilly slammed web sites, such as WikiLeaks and Gawker, for posting screenshots of e-mails, family photos and a list of contacts taken from Palin's private e-mail account. "They're trafficking in stolen merchandise," O'Reilly said during one of his shows, calling for their prosecution. He also referred to a site that published the screenshots as "despicable, slimy, scummy." O'Reilly spoke with Amanda Carpenter, a reporter for Townhall.com who agreed with him and said that a web site that published such information was "complicit" in the hack of Palin's e-mail account. "They think it's newsworthy, even though the information was absolutely, illegally obtained," she said. Neither O'Reilly nor Carpenter mentioned the First Amendment protection that media organizations, such as Fox News and Townhall.com, are generally afforded for publishing newsworthy information. That segment was followed the next day by a segment with Fox News anchor, Megyn Kelly, a lawyer, who explained why the First Amendment would protect the sites. O'Reilly, disagreed with her, however. "If your grandma sends you 50 bucks for your birthday and somebody steals the letter and gives it to somebody else and they take the 50 bucks, they're going to get charged as well as this person who stole the letter," he said. Kelly explained that taking stolen money and publishing news were not the same. "That's crazy," he said. "No it's not crazy," Kelly replied. "Because . . . what if somebody obtained a document illegally that proved some massive conspiracy among the presidential candidates and they leaked it to Fox News and we knew it was stolen. You don't think we'd put it on the air? You're darn right we would. And it's not illegal."
Wired

Iraq Ayatollah’s Website Hacked
Can you say “fatwa?” The Grand Ayatollah of Iraqi Shiites, Sayyid Ali Husaini al-Sistani, has had his website hacked by system crackers identifying themselves as “Group XP” and replaced by a video clip of US comedian Bill Maher making fun of said website. Rock Richard of “Rock The Boat” and VetVoice brought this one to my attention, and writes: It will be interesting to see the reaction to this in the Muslim world. Sistani is the most powerful Shia Cleric in Iraq, which pretty much means he is the most powerful, influential and respected person in that country. Once this story unravels and we see who is responsible (Western hackers? a rival Islamic group?) I would expect to see anything between strong rhetoric (best case scenario) and violent retaliation (worst case scenario). The existence of email addresses ending with yahoo.com suggest Western hackers, though - and over at the Colorado Independent, Wendy Norris suggests it may be a badly thought out PR stunt. The defaced site could well be a guerrilla marketing stunt to promote Maher’s new mockumentary “Religulous,” a scathing dissertation on faith that opens in theaters Oct. 3. My guess is that “Group XP” might find themselves with more than just the FBI to be concerned with. Sistani is crucial to keeping the lid on in Iraq and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the new commander there, General Odierno, wasn’t on the phone to the Pentagon shaking some of their own anti-hacker resources loose to help track the pranksters down. Crooks & Liars

Here’s the clip that replaced Sistani’s website

OK to Kill Owners of Immoral TV, Saudi Official Decries
Saudi Arabia's top judiciary official has issued a religious decree saying it is permissible to kill the owners of satellite TV networks that broadcast immoral content. The 79-year-old Sheik Saleh al-Lihedan said Thursday that satellite channels cause the "deviance of thousands of people." Many of the most popular Arab satellite networks — which include channels showing music videos often denounced as obscene by Muslim conservatives — are owned by Saudi princes and well-connected Saudi businessmen. Al-Lihedan is chief of the kingdom's highest tribunal, the Supreme Judiciary Council. Saudi Arabia's judiciary is made up of Islamic clerics whose decrees, or fatwas, on everyday issues are widely respected. Their fatwas do not have the weight of law. In the courts, cleric-judges rule according to Islamic law, but interpretations can vary. Al-Lihedan sparked controversy in the past by issuing a decree that Saudis can join jihadists to fight U.S. troops in Iraq.
MSNBC

Financial Services Ad Spending Down
Homeowners and stockholders aren’t the only ones being hurt by the current credit and housing crisis. Nielsen Online reports that image-based online ad spending by financial services saw a 27 percent decline during the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2007. Nielsen Online reports that it found a 6 percent year-over-year decrease in overall image-based online advertising in the first half of 2008. The number of image-based impressions decreased by 9 percent during the same period. The financial services industry, which is typically among the top online advertising segments, showed estimated spending of $1.1 billion during the first two quarters compared to $1.5 billion during the same period in 2007. The public services industry also saw a 38 percent decline, but on a brighter note, a number of industries saw strong growth. Entertainment saw a year-over-year increase of 47 percent in spending, automotive saw 45 percent growth, and consumer goods were up 32 percent.
MediaLife Magazine

Microsoft Drops Bill & Jerry Ads
Many in the advertising community won't be disappointed to hear that Microsoft’s much-criticized ads featuring chairman Bill Gates’ “robot” moves and comedian Jerry Seinfeld’s banter are history, as of yesterday. The two-week campaign showed Gates and Seinfeld bumping into each other at a mall shoe store and rather inexplicably living with a suburban family “Simple Life”-style. Microsoft’s marketing executives say that the three spots starring Gates and Seinfeld were always meant to be short-lived despite reports circulating online to the contrary. Bloggers claim the ads have been pulled because they were so poorly received. The ads were the lead-in to Microsoft’s new campaign “Life Without Walls,” which makes a direct response to Apple’s popular “I’m a Mac” ad campaign.
MediaLife Magazine

Comedy Central Relaunches ColbertNation
Fans of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Nation” don’t have to stay up late to get their Stephen Colbert fix. The newly relaunched ColbertNation.com is offering video clips from every episode since 2005, when the Peabody Award-winning and Emmy-nominated “The Colbert Report” debuted. In addition to video archives, the new web site gives fans the opportunity to find information about upcoming guests, special events and on-air stunts, including the “Green Screen Challenges.” The new ColbertNation.com also provides links to every Colbert-related gossip online. “I’m thrilled with our new web site,” Colbert said in a release. “I only wish John McCain knew how to get there.”
MediaLife Magazine

Survey Kills Gamer Stereotype
If it seems like just about every American teenager is playing a video game these days, it's because they are. A new survey, the most comprehensive of its kind, shows that 97 percent of all teenagers 12 to 17 play video games of some sort, whether it's on a console like Nintendo's Wii, a computer or a cell phone or other handheld device. The survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project also debunks the stereotype of a gamer as an anti-social teenage boy addicted to bloody shoot-'em-up or street-fighting games. About 76 percent of teen gamers said they played games with others at least some of the time. About 65 percent said they sometimes play games with others in the same room, as opposed to over the Internet. And while first-person shooter games are certainly popular, the most played games involve less violent themes like NASCAR racing, puzzles like Tetris or Bejeweled, or sports like football, soccer and skateboarding, according to the study. "This report does a lot of myth-busting," said Amanda Lenhart, the Pew senior researcher who wrote the study. "It's not just about 14-year-old boys sitting alone in the basement blowing things up." The most surprising finding of the study was how all-encompassing video games are today, Lenhart said. "We don't see economic inequalities, we don't see racial differences," she said. "We see are some slight variations by gender and by age, but that's about it." According to the Entertainment Software Association, 85 percent of all games sold last year were rated "E" for everyone. The average gamer is 35 years old, and 40 percent are women, according to the group. Part of the reason video games have become ubiquitous is because technological advances have made consoles, computers and Internet gaming cheaper and easier to use. The growth of handheld devices, such as cell phones or music and video players like iPods, has created another new platform for games.
Detroit News

You Might be a Conservative if...
People who startle easily in response to threatening images or loud sounds seem to have a biological predisposition to adopt conservative political positions on many hot-button issues, according to unusual new research published yesterday.

The finding suggests that people who are particularly sensitive to signals of visual or auditory threats also tend to adopt a more defensive stance on political issues, such as immigration, gun control, defense spending and patriotism. People who are less sensitive to potential threats, by contrast, seem predisposed to hold more liberal positions on those issues.

The study takes the research a step beyond psychology by suggesting that innate physiological differences among people may help shape their startle responses and their political inclinations.

The study is part of a growing research effort to uncover the often hidden factors in people's political makeup. In recent years, a variety of studies have shown, for example, that voters are subtly biased in favor of attractive political candidates. Other research has probed how subconscious attitudes among undecided voters can predict whom they will eventually support, and how the speed with which voters answer poll questions can predict the depth of their commitment to one candidate or another.

"I was quite struck watching the conventions by the different tones," said co-author John Hibbing, a political scientist at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, about the recent Republican and Democratic conventions. "The Republicans are waving placards saying, 'country first.' Democrats are not saying, 'country last,' but there is a concern that is visceral in one group but not another."

Hibbing and the other researchers stressed that physiology is only one factor in how people form their political views -- and far from the most important factor. Startle responses, moreover, cannot be used to predict the political views of any one individual -- there are many liberals who startle easily and many conservatives who do not. What the study did find is that, across groups of people, there seems to be an association between sensitivity to physical threats and sensitivity to threats affecting social groups and social order.

"We are not saying if you sneak up on someone and say 'Boo!' and see how hard they blink, that tells you what their political beliefs are," Hibbing said.

Nor is there the slightest implication that either liberals or conservatives are somehow abnormal for being more or less sensitive to threats: "We could spin a story saying it is bad to be so jumpy, but you can also spin a story saying it is bad to be naive about threats," he said. "From an evolutionary point of view, an organism needs to respond to a threat or it won't be around for very long. We are not saying one response is more normal than another."

Indeed, Hibbing and other researchers hope their study might help lower the volume of partisan invective in the presidential campaign: The research suggests that people who adopt political views you disagree with are not be stupid or irrational. Rather, they may arrive at their positions in part because they are predisposed to be more or less worried about risk.

The study, published in the journal Science, recruited 46 white partisan Republicans and Democrats in Nebraska. The volunteers were quizzed on their views on a variety of topics -- including the war in Iraq, same-sex marriage, pacifism and the importance of school prayer. All the questions were designed to test how strongly people needed to guard against various internal and external threats. None focused on economic issues.

Two months later, the researchers brought the volunteers into a laboratory and hooked them up to devices that measure a physiological factor that has long been known to be linked to threat response: moisture on the skin. When a person feels a threat, the skin releases more moisture -- and this can be picked up by sensors that measure skin conductance. The release of moisture does not involve conscious thought. It is an automatic response of the sympathetic nervous system, which controls many of the body's "fight or flight" reactions.

The researchers then showed the volunteers a number of images. Among them were images of a very large spider on the face of a terrified person, a person whose face had been bloodied, and an open wound filled with maggots. Compared with when they saw three placid images -- a happy child, a bowl of fruit and a bunny -- people who held more conservative political attitudes had a stronger startle response.

In a second experiment, the researchers startled the volunteers by playing a loud noise through headphones. This time, they measured how hard people blinked -- blinking is an automatic reflex to startling sounds. Again, people who startled more strongly tended to be those who held more conservative positions on political issues.

"There is some sort of broad left-right orientation that pervades not only our politics, but politics across the world and across time," said John R. Alford, another co-author of the study who is a political scientist at Rice University. "This variation could have biological underpinnings."
Washington Post

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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. 602 Communications is a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and promotion skills. We teach workshops on teasing, marketing, reporting, producing, lighting, editing, internet and graphics. Get more information on all our workshops.

TVSpy.com is home to ShopTalk, the FREE daily newsletter for the TV news industry, read by more than 25,000 subscribers. For more than 20 years, ShopTalk has given TV news professionals the daily inside scoop on the industry. Read today's ShopTalk and subscribe for FREE.

Graeme Newell's Marketing Ideanet 9/17/2008

Over the past several months, WBZ has been coming out with a new style of advertising. Their ads are understated, something which seems to be out of the ordinary in this market which tends to like fast passed, hard hitting spots.

See the spots here

“Declare your Curiosity” has been one new campaign which has been heavily promoted. Viewers are encouraged to tell the station what is on their mind. Those topics are then discussed on their website and on-air.
Boston TV News 'The Scoop'

Another new ad promotes the morning show. The slogan on that ad is “Let’s talk about it“.

Have a video clip to share? Email it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Flash (.flv) or QuickTime (.mov) files, size 320 x 240, are preferred, but WindowsMedia (.wmv) files will also be accepted. Large files may be sent via http://www.yousendit.com. You can also mail your clip on VHS or DVD to Graeme Newell at 1011 Lyndhurst Falls Lane, Knightdale, NC 27545.

TV Meanness Trickles to Viewer, Study Suggests
Researchers have long known that watching violence on TV or in movies ratchets up aggression, but what about watching people being mean to one another? Could watching Mean Girls make you as aggressive as watching Kill Bill?

A new study suggests the answer is yes.

Brigham Young University professor Sarah Coyne and colleagues asked 53 British college-aged women to watch one of three video clips, featuring either physical aggression (a knife fight from Kill Bill), relational aggression (a montage from Mean Girls) or no aggression (a séance scene from the horror movie What Lies Beneath). They then filled out a brief questionnaire and were allowed to leave the room. Right outside was another researcher who asked if they would like to participate in a study involving reaction times.

Once the women agreed to take part, the researcher behaved rudely, telling them to hurry. When they showed uneasiness, she said, "Great! This is really going to screw things up!"

The researcher left the room, and the subjects took two tests that are commonly used to test aggression.

Subjects who viewed the Kill Bill and the Mean Girls clips reacted in similarly aggressive ways. Prompted to subject the rude researcher to a sharp noise by pushing a button, they turned up the noise louder than a control group. They also gave lower scores than the control group on an evaluation form that supposedly was going to be used to decide whether the researcher should be hired.

Coyne says the findings suggest parents should pay more attention to relational aggression and perhaps even push to make it part of movie and TV ratings. "Everyone's concerned about violence in the media, as they should be, but we're missing out on lots of violence out there," she says. "We need to look at these other types of aggression out there because we know that they're having an effect on aggression."

Coyne, who is now studying reality TV shows, says they are loaded with instances of relational aggression. She doesn't recommend eliminating conflict from drama shows, but she worries young children in particular are viewing a lot of relational aggression. It's "almost always portrayed as justified, almost always portrayed as rewarded," she says.

The study is in November's Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
USA Today

Promos Spared from Fast-Forwarding, TiVo Shows
Television network promotional spots don’t get fast-forwarded as frequently as other commercials, according to recently released data from TiVo’s Stop Watch service. TiVo figures it’s because promos often are at the beginning or end of a commercial pod and frequently are shorter than commercials. Also, some viewers perceive them as more like program content than paid ads. The amount of fast-forwarding varied by network, as the chart below illustrates.

Percentage of Fast-Forwarding by Time-Shifting Viewers

Broadcast
Rank......Network..........Viewers
1............NBC..................44%
2............The CW.............45%
3............CBS...................47%
4............ABC..................54%

5............Fox....................63%

Cable
Rank.....Network............Viewers
1...........ESPN ..................22%
2...........CNN....................25%
3...........Comedy Central...27%
4...........Nickelodeon.........28%
5...........Toon Disney.........28%

Source: June 2008 Power Watch Ratings Service Highlights
TV Week

TelevisionWithoutPity.com Announces Tubey Winners
TelevisionWithoutPity.com has announced the winners of its Tubey Awards, which celebrate the 2007-08 TV season. Winners were named in 60 categories, including worst new show, guiltiest pleasure, best sidekick and most underrated show. “Pushing Daisies” won the new show award, while “Lost” took the trophy for returning show. “Battlestar Galactica” and “30 Rock” won the drama and comedy categories, respectively. In the actor races, the winners were “30 Rock’s” Tina Fey and “How I Met Your Mother’s” Neil Patrick Harris. TelevisionWithoutPity.com is owned by Bravo, part of NBC Universal Cable Entertainment. A full list of winners can be found at www.televisionwithoutpity.com.
TV Week

Current to Twitter Debate
Current, the edgy news and culture channel co-founded by former Vice President Al Gore, has come up with a new way to broadcast the presidential debates: show Twitter commentary on what people are saying. Through an official partnership with the microblogging service, Current will broadcast "Hack the Debate," which will live-stream on Current.com as well as air on the network. Twitter updates, or "tweets," will be shown in real time for all four debates (three with the presidential candidates and one with the vice presidential candidates), which begin on September 26. It makes a whole lot of sense, given Current's slant toward young and tech-savvy news hounds (i.e., the people who use Twitter) and heavy focus on user-submitted content. Current has not said how the tweets will be selected for on-air display, but it's likely that they will be hand-picked to provide a range of perspectives and serious commentary. So expect more about the candidates' differing views on the economy...and less about vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's hair.
CNet

PTC Blasts NBC for 'Pattern of Profanity'
The Parents Television Council has opened fire on a new target: NBC. The watchdog group is blasting the network for letting an unbleeped s-word make it on the air on the Eastern time zone telecasts of Thursday’s “Today.” The word was uttered by Hans Lange, a Norwegian base jumper. That follows the expletive let fly by Diane Keaton on rival ABC morning news show “Good Morning America” earlier this year. The PTC accused NBC of a pattern of profanity, because the network also aired Jane Fonda’s unbleeped four-letter-word referring to female genitalia a few months back. Said PTC president Tim Winter in a statement, “We condemn NBC for its arrogance in choosing not to bleep this profanity, and for its arrogance in choosing not to apologize to its viewers, many of whom included children.”
MediaLife Magazine

Nielsen Records Drop in Product Placement
Product placements during primetime fell 15 percent in the first half of 2008, but that doesn’t mean the medium is falling out of favor. The fall seems to be due to line up changes. A Nielsen study released yesterday found a total of 204,919 placements in the first half of 2008. Across the measured networks on broadcast (ABC, CBS, CW, Fox, MyNetworkTV and NBC), primetime placements grew by almost 12 percent. However, placements on the measured cable channels (A&E, Bravo, HGTV, MTV and TLC) slumped by 20 percent. The main reason for the increase on broadcast was a schedule shuffle, which saw product placement heavy weight “Biggest Loser” shift air in January after just airing in the fall the previous year. Plus, “Hell’s Kitchen” aired more episodes in the first half of 2008 than it had the year earlier. As for cable, the top 10 programs featuring placements had 85,480 occurrences in the first half of this year, down 8 percent from the year before. Again, the reason is largely to do with lineup changes – several of the shows that are big in product placements aired fewer times during the period than they had the year before.
MediaLife Magazine

Top 30 News Sites for August
Clearly benefiting from the Olympics and the political conventions, MSNBC.com pulled way ahead of the competition -- that would be Yahoo News -- by roughly 12 million unique users in August. According to the latest data from Nielsen Online, MSNBC rose 77% to 52 million uniques in August compared to the same period a year ago. In July MSNBC had 37.5 million uniques. Also benefiting no doubt from the presidential election: The Huffington Post. Unique audience there went up a staggering 291% to 5.1 million and it now ranks 28th overall of all news sites. The NYTimes.com, which is the fifth most visited online current events news destination, advanced 52% in August to 19.8 million. Fox News Digital Network is up 64% to 13.9 million uniques in August. The Daily News Online grew its unique audience in August 103% to 4.5 million. The Telegraph was up 96% to 4.5 million as well. The vast majority of sites showed gains. Below is a list of the top 30 Online Current Events & Global News Destinations for August 2008 provided by Nielsen (owned by E&P's parent company). Please note that traffic can vary month to month based on several factors, including news events. The list is based on a U.S. home and work panel.

Brand -- Aug. '08 Unique Audience - Aug. '07 Unique Audience

MSNBC Digital Network -- 52,212 -- 29,564
Yahoo! News -- 40,787 -- 34,277
CNN Digital Network -- 38,821 -- 31,733
AOL News -- 23,114 -- 21,209
NYTimes.com -- 19,862 -- 13,078

Tribune Newspapers -- 17,652 -- 12,550
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division -- 14,454 -- 13,720
Fox News Digital Network -- 13,902 -- 8,465
ABCNEWS Digital Network -- 13,377 -- 10,706
Google News -- 12,137 -- 10,235

washingtonpost.com -- 11,249 -- 8,995
McClatchy Newspaper Network -- 10,603 -- 9,071
USATODAY.com -- 10,403 -- 9,582
CBS News Digital Network -- 9,461 -- 9,783
Hearst Newspapers Digital -- 8,428 -- 7,195

WorldNow -- 8,030 -- 7,094
Advance Internet -- 7,929 -- 6,081
MediaNews Group Newspapers -- 7,485 -- 7,556
Topix -- 7,142 -- 6,153
IB Websites -- 5,753 -- 6,926

BBC News -- 5,278 -- 5,343
Gannett Broadcasting -- 5,172 -- 4,540
TheHuffingtonPost.com -- 5,126 -- 1,312
Slate -- 4,976 -- 5,803
Fox Television Stations -- 4,941 -- 4,490

Cox Newspapers -- 4,935 -- 5,020
MailOnline -- 4,832 -- 3,434
Associated Press -- 4,769 -- 5,201
Telegraph -- 4,587 -- 2,338
Daily News Online Edition -- 4,507 -- 2,216

Editor & Publisher

Atlantic Apologizes to McCain for Photog's Actions
The editor of a top US current affairs magazine has vowed to send an apology letter to John McCain after a photographer he hired to carry out a photo shoot with the Republican presidential candidate doctored images to portray him as bloodthirsty — literally. Atlantic Monthly editor James Bennet says Jill Greenberg "behaved improperly" and will not be paid for the session, but has come under fire for hiring the well-known critic of President George W Bush to carry out the shoot. Greenberg took several moody back-lit pictures of McCain that she later superimposed with a shark's mouth dripping blood. She captioned one "I am a bloodthirsty warmongerer" and another "I will have my girl kill Roe v Wade", reference to running mate Sarah Palin's anti-abortion stance, and posted them on her website. "She has violated the terms of our agreement with her, of our contract with her so we're taking steps," he told Fox News. "I mean, this photographer went in there under our auspices to take a cover shot for us … but while she was there she behaved in an incredibly underhanded and unprofessional way." But Bennet has come under fire for not checking the photographer's credentials. Greenberg came to prominence in 2004 for her photographic exhibition "Four More Years", where she displayed toddlers apparently crying at the prospect of a second Bush presidential term. She later admitted making the toddlers cry to get the visual effect. Greenberg also claimed she doctored the image used by the magazine on its cover to make McCain's skin and eyes look bad, but Bennet stands by the image choice.
Nine MSN

Women Gamers Growing, Study Finds
There are a growing number of online gamers and they may not be who you think. It’s not just for boys anymore, according to a new study by online measurer comScore. The online gaming category has seen significant user growth among teenage girls ages 12-17 and women 55-64. The number of women gaming online compared to last year jumped 27 percent to nearly 43 million. ComScore attributes the growth to an increase in web sites catering to women and girls. Sites such as Stardoll.com and I-Dressup.com are attracting younger girls, while older women are involved in casual game sites such as iVillage.com’s Pogo.com games.
MediaLife Magazine

Message From Michael
HOW TO DISAMBIGUATE TECHNOLOGY: I think I just heard a massive “huh?” from all those wondering, like I did, what disambiguate means. According to an on-line dictionary, it means to ‘state unambiguously or remove ambiguities from.’ And that is what upstart company Angstro purports to do in culling contacts from all your social networking sites to produce an improved alternative to the Google alert system. It produces what Beet.tv called a “personalized newspaper” telling you what all your friends, associates and contacts across all your social networking sites are doing. The company is one of 52 companies that disambiguates (as well as maybe adds ambiguity) to the Internet, and which are highlighted in the TechCrunch50 conference held in San Francisco recently. (Yes, I know, 52 and 50 doesn’t add up. Apparently they’re great at technology but lousy at basic math.) A virtual walk through the TechCrunch50 list of presenting companies is a run through the efforts to monetize, incentivize and crystallize the online future.

Probably the majority of applications seem to be aimed at video gaming, but many of the efforts are targeted to the younger demographics. For example, actor Ashton Kutcher and producer Jason Goldberg are behind a company that produces blahgirls.com, “an animated clique of teenagers who enjoy providing their commentary on the latest entertainment themed news and happenings.” Then there’s Hangout.net which “turns MySpace into MyPlace, with a personalized 3D virtual room -- sort of like the bedrooms of its target audience of 16 to 24 year olds. Website Shryk.com aims at developing an online banking system (no kidding) for kids, in demographics 5 to 11, and 11 to 17 and 18 to 24. Tel-Aviv-based website Tweegee.com promises to integrate social networking, digital content and interactive tools to develop an online platform for tweens that has ‘technologically advanced safeguards.’

THE FUTURE CRUNCH IN NEWS: Just to give you some idea of what that future looks like, especially for those of you in the news business, here is a sampling of some of the start-ups on stage at the TechCrunch50 conference. Website Alfabetic provides an automated translation service in a turnkey operation that not only translates but also localizes and distributes content so that an online content provider can tap into “the multi-billion dollar opportunity of the international audience.” Website Causecast connects nonprofits, civic leaders, celebrities and brands together with media, social networking and philanthropic organizations in an “unexpected and unparalleled” convergence that will have “a positive impact on the world.” Company Quant the News has developed a website stockmood.com which tracks news stories and assesses the ‘mood’ of a stock and how its price responds to news stories. Website GoodGuide.com promises to be the world’s largest and most reliable source of information on the health, environmental and social impacts of products and companies. A variation of that is website Goodrec.com which provides a simplistic ‘thumbs up/ thumbs down’ recommendation system for friends and trusted sources to give, what it under-statedly calls ‘brief, to-the-point’ recommendations on products and services any time and anywhere on any platform.

Two of the more interesting websites (usual disclaimer – to me at least) offer an interesting twist on an old concept and a completely unexpected new twist. Website iamnews.com, which describes itself as a ‘global, open newsroom… for reporters, photographers, media moguls… anyone… is a crowd sourced newsroom with ambitions to one day take on A.P. and Reuters.” Founder Nir Ofir who also founded Blogtv.com says the process will ‘blur the line between the media provider and the media consumer.’ Website dotspots.com says it wants to improve online news by identifying semantically similar content across millions of news sites and blogs with the goal of improving online news for mainstream media and ‘citizen journalists’ as well. What is especially intriguing is the idea of integrating memes into mainstream media. (You may remember from previous MfM’s that a meme is a concept co-opted by the Internet world to mean any idea, thought or cultural change spread through a viral underground.) My interpretation but it’s a sort of cross pollination of ideas and information.

NEWS CONSUMPTION FACTOIDS THAT SAY SOMETHING: But exactly what I’m not sure. For example, a survey by the Pew group found that the CBS News audience has the lowest percentage by far of college graduates (15%) of any network news, whether NBC (33%), ABC (26%) or Fox (25%). Breaking preconceptions maybe, even The O’Reilly Factor (with 38%) and Rush Limbaugh (33%) have more college grads listening. As noted in last week’s MfM about the survey by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press, only 18% of those surveyed could answer three questions about news and politics correctly. As an addendum to that, the report notes that regular viewers of The Colbert Report nearly double that number (34%) and viewers of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart have a similarly high percentage of news savvy viewers (30%) even though their viewers skew younger with roughly three-quarters of them under the age of 50. But then again, listeners to Hannity and Colmes scored even higher (42%) while Limbaugh listeners (at 36%) were more than equal to Stewart and Colbert although O’Reilly’s audience was slightly lower (28%). That’s still better than Larry King Live (19% of which could answer all three questions correctly) or ABC, CNN and Fox (all 19%). The NBC news audience was only slightly better (21%) but the CBS news audience was dramatically worse (10%).

Not surprisingly the study shows nearly half (48%) of Americans follow weather news “very closely.” The closest other area of interest was crime with a quarter (28%) of those surveyed saying they following crime news very closely. The report says half of Blacks followed crime very closely compared to a quarter of Whites. Only 7% of those surveyed admit to following celebrity news closely. What was surprising (at least to me) was the low percentage of people who say they followed community news very closely (22%). In fact it was so surprising that I checked the question. In actual fact there were two – I follow ‘local community news’ very closely and I follow ‘local news’ very closely. I don’t know how the survey differentiates those two. Although the survey authors don’t say anything about it, if you look at the charts provided, there appears to be a general decline in interest across all categories since the survey was first done in 2002. For example, community news is down from 31% in 2002. Health news is down (26% to 20%); sports (25% to 20%); International affairs (21% to 16%); science and technology (17% to 13%); entertainment (14% to 10%) and religion slightly (19% to 17%). Consumer news (13%) and business news (16%) are both flat. Politics and Washington News is flat (at 21%) over the six year period but actually up from the survey two years ago (17%).

THE ALTERED NEWS MEDIA ENVIRONMENT. Buried in a New York Times article profiling Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain’s senior political advisor is a commentary of sorts on the news media. In it, Steve Schmidt reportedly tells friends that the new media environment, including political websites and blogs, is “easily manipulated because of round-the-clock thirst for news, increased competition, lowered standards created by the proliferation of outlets and hunger for the outrageous.”

INTERNET BYPASSING THE U.S. A professor at the University of Minnesota who tracks the global Internet says ten years ago 70% of the world’s Internet traffic came through the United States. That has now dropped to 25%. Part of the reason for that shift of traffic, especially Canadian and European traffic, is because of the passage of the Patriot Act which allowed for the interception of foreign Internet communication, says the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. Part of that is because other countries, most notably Japan which is working to connect China and India, are investing more in the infrastructure of the Internet, say research scientists at the Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis. The article which cites these stats in The New York Times also cites a ranking analysis by a firm called Renesys which shows that the big winners in the last three years have been Italian Internet provider Tiscali, China Telecom, and Japanese telecommunications operator KDDI. The firm, Renesys, which tracks Internet connections between providers, says all of the companies that have slipped in the rankings are American. Times reporter John Markoff quotes the Minnesota professor, Andrew M. Odlyzko, as saying, “we discovered the Internet but we couldn’t keep it a secret.”

Michael Castengera is an instructor at the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia AND President of Media Strategies and Tactics Inc., a consulting firm that works with all media but primarily broadcasting. You can visit his website at MediaConsultant.tv.

Quiz: America in 1915

1. The Model T was born in 1908. By 1915, the number of cars on U.S. roads was:
- About 50,000
- 2.5 million
- 10 million

2. Gas now costs an arm and a leg. In today's dollars, a gallon cost 1915 drivers about:
- 50 cents
- $2.00
- $5.00

3. Is driving today a dangerous endeavor? Comparatively, 1915 drivers caused:
- Half as many traffic deaths per miles traveled
- 5 times as many traffic deaths per miles traveled
- 23 times as many traffic deaths per miles traveled

4. 1915 suburbanites who didnet own cars usually got to their city jobs by:
- Electric trolley
- Horse and buggy
- Railroad

5. Immigrants to the U.S. now come by air from all over. In 1915, they were largely:
- Canadians arriving by rail
- Italians arriving by boat
- Mexicans arriving by foot

6. Now one of the U.S. ten biggest cities, in 1915 just over 11,000 people had migrated to:
- Los Angeles, California
- Las Vegas, Nevada
- Phoenix, Arizona

7. In 1915, getting around town by taxi cab was:
- Available in some cities, but unaffordable for most
- Widely available and affordable for most classes Non-existent
- Taxi cabs weren't in the picture yet

8. During WWI, 90% of American travelers crisscrossed the country by:
- Automobile
- Railroad
- Air

9. By 1915, an elevated railway had created a bustling, condensed downtown area in:
- New York City
- Washington, D.C.
- Chicago

10. Today we can fly to every corner of the world. 1915 vacationers paid about $60 for:
- A cross-Atlantic trip aboard a zeppelin
- A 12-day cruise aboard a steamship
- Two tickets on the Orient Express

Answers:
1. 2.5 million
2. $5.00
3. 23 times as many traffic deaths per miles traveled
4. Electric trolley
5. Italians arriving by boat
6. Phoenix, Arizona
7. Available in some cities, but unaffordable for most
8. Railroad
9. Chicago
10. A 12-day cruise aboard a steamship

LiveScience

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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. 602 Communications is a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and promotion skills. We teach workshops on teasing, marketing, reporting, producing, lighting, editing, internet and graphics. Get more information on all our workshops.

TVSpy.com is home to ShopTalk, the FREE daily newsletter for the TV news industry, read by more than 25,000 subscribers. For more than 20 years, ShopTalk has given TV news professionals the daily inside scoop on the industry. Read today's ShopTalk and subscribe for FREE.

Graeme Newell's Marketing Ideanet 9/15/2008

The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. 602 Communications is a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and promotion skills. We teach workshops on teasing, marketing, reporting, producing, lighting, editing, internet and graphics. Get more information on all our workshops.

The Marketing Ideanet is sent via TVSpy's e-mail servers. Visit TVSpy's Marketing Matters online community.

Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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In This Issue
How to Tease a Kicker Story
Marketing Movers
GOP Strategy: Play the Press
Study Finds No Media Bias Against Palin, GOP
Palin Interview Gives ABC a Win
GOP Women Call for Oprah Boycott Over Palin Flap
McCain’s ‘View’ Statements Draw Obama Rebuttal
McCain Ads Go Too Far, Rove Says
Convention Coverage Gives 'Daily Show' a 37% Bump
'SNL' has Best Premiere Since '01
Obama Cancels SNL Appearance
YouTube Bans Violence-Inciting Videos
Twitties Contest

Quotes

“The basic tool for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.”
- Philip K. Dick

"The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practice politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind."
- John Jay Chapman

“A population weakened and exhausted by battling against so many obstacles -- whose needs are never satisfied and desires never fulfilled -- is vulnerable to manipulation and regimentation. The struggle for survival is, above all, an exercise that is hugely time-consuming, absorbing and debilitating. If you create these ''anti-conditions,'' your rule is guaranteed for a hundred years.”
- Ryszard Kapuscinski

How to Tease a Kicker Story
by Graeme Newell
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
http://www.602communications.com

When promoting kickers don't promise the obvious. The most common mistake is promising the pictures, then showing the exact same pictures in the tease. The viewer feels as though she has gotten the entire story. There is no reason to return. If you have great pictures, don't give everything away. As much as possible, try to use the great pictures in the tease, but make sure there is always more coverage promised.

Follow these guidelines:
1) You've got more than one great picture to show.
Show some pictures, but hold back and promise more of those pictures. "Here's the water skiing squirrel! When we come back, we'll show you his snowboarding routine!"

2) Few pictures, but interesting facts about those pictures.
Show the pictures, then promise the interesting facts. "Here's the water skiing squirrel! Coming up, the squirrel's training schedule and how much money he earned this year on the big skiing tour."

3) One lone picture, and no interesting facts about that picture.
Don't show the picture. Instead, give the audience your most exciting description of that picture, while showing your anchor on camera. If you show the picture, you're asking viewers to come back for the very video they just saw. You're giving away the only reason to return.

There is one exception to this rule - when the video is truly astounding. In cases like this, you can show the video, then promise to show it AGAIN when you come back from the break. Remember that in this scenario, the video must be truly amazing and leave everyone begging for another look.

Always make sure the viewer has a solid reason to return.

Graeme Newell is a broadcast and web marketing specialist. His teasing seminars immediately raise news ratings, and he guarantees you will get results or his workshop is free.

Marketing Movers
Nothing like late summer and fall in New England. Enjoying the upcoming seasonal celebration is on the “to do” list for the new Creative Services Director at Meredith’s WFSB in Hartford, GREG THOMAS. Well, being in Connecticut and all, perhaps we should call him Gregory? Nah, Greg is good. The father of two, a soon to begin first grade daughter and a 3 year old son, is awaiting the family move from the Ft. Smith, Arkansas area, where he headed up Local TV’s CBS affil for the area, WFSM. A Pittsburger by birth, Greg has also spent time at WKBN in Youngstown, Oh. 7 years to be precise. Did you know that it takes the body 7 years to replace every cell, so in essence, Greg is a new man. Enjoy the leaves when they turn golden, Greg. Well Dunne!

Even with the price of gas being what it is, NASCAR and auto racing just keep growing in popularity. One of my good friends is a cardiologist, and when he sees car racing on TV, he can’t turn away! Well, The Speed Channel is all about racing, and they have a new Vice President of Creative Services. Heading to Charlotte to take that slot is RICK SNYDER. He’ll be leaving the Florida palm trees and his current position as VP Creative at FOX’s WOFL and all the ancillary stations involved. He’ll be closer to family in BankTown USA (one of Charlotte’s nicknames since both Bank of America and Wachovia are headquartered there) and it’s a step up to a network position. He’s also worked in Birmingham, so it’s clear he’s going to be rather surprised at the January snow that Charlotte usually delivers. Great to hear, Rick. Well Dunne!

The TV promo world is losing another gem. Turning off the TV set to take the job of Director of Marketing for the Vancouver, Washington Symphony Orchestra is RICH BRASE, former PROMAX Chairman who has been at Fisher’s KBCI in Boise for the last two years. A veteran of Belo’s Portland operation, KGW as well as Chicago’s WMAQ and KSDK in St. Louis, Rich has more honors than you can list in a blog. He’s returned to Portland, where he calls home with his wife and teenage daughter. The biz is a little less vibrant without Rich’s enthusiasm and talents. But it’s great to hear about his new exciting career path! Well Dunne!

Shame on JONATHAN KILLIAN for fibbing to me about his slot at CNN International. He actually got hold of me to say he was NOT there and I took it off the postings. But he IS there. Congrats!

From my world, Well Dunne! PR has signed their first feature film client! It’s a first venture into the world of motion pictures, and it’s very exciting. It should start lensing within the next 6 weeks and more info will be forthcoming. Of COURSE you will want to buy a ticket and watch when it comes out, right? Thank you!

Think About This: “What does it take for your soul to dance with God? An eager spirit, a flexible heart and a willingness to let God take the lead in the dance!” ~ Greg Barrette

GOP Strategy: Play the Press
The Republican National Convention heaped scorn not just on Barack Obama but also on his running mate, who apparently goes by the name Themedia Elite. And no wonder, because this Themedia Elite guy sounds like a tool. Incredibly sexist. Incorrigibly liberal. Laughs at regular folks. Windsurfs on a board made of arugula.

Well, John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, made it clear that she was not running to seek Themedia Elite's approval. Palin, who majored in journalism but has since seen the error of her ways, not only out-celebritied Obama but also showed him how real celebrities handle the press.

Real celebrities don't make themselves available to every Tom, Dick and Katie. They play hard to get. And they have hard-nosed handlers, like McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, who vowed that Palin would not do interviews until the media "treat her with some level of respect and deference."

Soon after, Palin agreed to her first (and so far only) postnomination TV interview, with ABC's Charles Gibson, who had just blogged that controversies like Palin's husband's membership in a secessionist party and her daughter's pregnancy "are issues of family and should remain so." Deference accomplished!

Since McCain-Palin declared war on the media, some pundits have said running against the press is a loser's strategy. In fact, it would be malpractice not to. Even leaving aside the success of Nixon-Agnew vs. the "nattering nabobs of negativism" and of Bush-Cheney vs. Dan Rather, the most important audience for media-bashing is not voters but the media themselves.

Journalists may not like to admit it, but cowing the media work. Not always, not with everyone, but--with a polarized audience, commercial pressures and constant self-doubt about fairness--it can succeed. It was after Hillary Clinton and SNL accused the media of coddling Obama that coverage of him turned sharp. If you want to amplify your message, make it about the media because the press finds itself the most fascinating subject of all.

Take the manufactured Oprah-Palin controversy. Oprah Winfrey endorsed Obama in 2007 and said she would not have him or any other candidates on her show again until after the election. The Drudge Report ran a story that Oprah had "banned" Palin, although 1) Oprah had also de facto "banned" McCain, Joe Biden and Obama, and 2) it's uncertain that Palin even wanted to be interviewed by Obama's most famous backer. Nonetheless, it became a big story. Tom Brokaw asked whether Oprah's decision was "élitist," probably the first and last time the term will ever be applied to her show.

At MSNBC, meanwhile, bias charges were the tipping point in a major shake-up. Taking a page from Fox News, the cable network has cultivated opinionated, left-of-center hosts like Rachel Maddow, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann. This juiced MSNBC's ratings, but it threatened the perceived neutrality of Brian Williams et al. and thus the larger NBC News sister brand. When delegates chanted "NBC! NBC!" during the media-bashing at the RNC--and not in the good "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!" way--it amounted to a massive negative ad on six networks. The following Monday, NBC announced that Matthews and Olbermann would no longer anchor election-night coverage.

Will critics of bias be satisfied? No. There's too much incentive to move the goalposts. Thus McCain surrogates took one case of gender bias--Palin's being asked if she could be both a VP and a mom--and extrapolated from it that questioning her experience must also be sexist. And they also blamed the media for a feeding frenzy over Bristol Palin's pregnancy, when in fact the story had emerged much like John Edwards' affair: mainstream media aired it after the principals volunteered it, pushed by rumors on blogs. It's easy to run against the media in the Internet age, when the media are everything from the Washington Post to the Daily Kos comments section. If you can roll them together and pressure some outlets to "balance" an offense they never committed, that's priceless.

To be fair, it's not only Republicans who run against the media. In the primary, Obama and his rivals all but boycotted Fox News, a blatant pander to members of their party's base who don't like Fox's conservative hosts. And Obama's partisans cried bias over an ABC debate during the primaries that focused heavily on Jeremiah Wright and was moderated by ... Gibson, who just got the nod from Palin.

Obama will have a hard time complaining about that now, though, having been established in the narrative as the media's darling, even as the press fixates on the new, fascinating celeb who keeps it at arm's length--waiting, wanting and wondering.

See, that's the other thing about this Themedia Elite. He's one fickle bastard.
Time

Study Finds No Media Bias Against Palin, GOP
For the past two months, the database LexisNexis people have been analyzing the massive number of articles it handles for election campaign coverage. It turns out that media coverage of GOP vice-presidential Sarah Palin has actually been quite balanced, with 26% of some 6,000 articles and TV/radio reports last week deemed positive, 22% negative and 52% "neutral." Not to mention the McCain ticket getting 60% more coverage than the Obama team last week. Rex Huppke, writing in the Chicago Tribune today, adds, "Since the media tracking began, the tone of coverage has been almost identical for each top-of-the-ticket candidate, LexisNexis has found, again flying in the face of widespread claims that the media favor Obama over McCain." And: "While Palin and McCain spent last week atop the media charts, Obama running mate Sen. Joe Biden was tossed in the discount bin, receiving only 683 stories to Palin's 6,027."
Editor & Publisher

Palin Interview Gives ABC a Win
Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin’s visit to “World News Tonight” drew 9.7 million viewers, lifting ABC to the top in the nightly news race Thursday. Part one of Gov. Palin’s interview with Charles Gibson overtook second-place “NBC Nightly News” by 29% in terms of viewers, according to preliminary data from Nielsen Media Research. It’s a viewership high for ABC since Feb. 12. Yesterday’s telecast also brought in a 2.5 rating/10 share in adults 25 to 54 years old. Week-to-week, the interview gave “World News Tonight” a 36% increase in that target demographic. This isn’t the first time an appearance by Gov. Palin has spiked ratings. Her speech at the Republican National Convention brought in droves of viewers curious about the Republicans’ surprise pick for their vice presidential nominee.
TV Week

GOP Women Call for Oprah Boycott Over Palin Flap
The one thing everyone says about Oprah Winfrey is how much American women identify with her and her values, or so it was before this presidential race heated up. Now one camp is turning away from the daytime talk show host, and in a big way: the Florida Federation of Republican Women. The group is calling on the women of America, really everyone, to boycott the show because Winfrey has refused to have as her guest vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Winfrey is saying she's willing to have Palin on but not before the election, saying she doesn't want her show to become a platform for the candidates. And that certainly seems like a fair position. What mucks it up some is that Winfrey has come out in support of Barack Obama and has had the candidate on her show, though before he formally announced his bid for the White House. The Republican women are particularly incensed because they see Palin as a major force for women's rights, never mind that she's the first women to run for the vice presidency on the Republican ticket. Winfrey had earlier irked a number of Democratic women by choosing to back Obama rather than Hillary Clinton in her presidential bid.
MediaLife Magazine

McCain’s ‘View’ Statements Draw Obama Rebuttal
The Obama campaign is seizing on Sen. John McCain’s statements today on ABC’s “The View,” especially comments and questions of Joy Behar and Barbara Walters. Ms. Behar questioned the veracity of the GOP presidential candidate’s advertising attacks this week on Democrat Barack Obama. Ms. Behar asked Sen. McCain: “There are ads running from your campaign, one of them is saying that Obama, when he said you can put lipstick on a pig but it’s still a pig, was talking about Sarah [Palin]. There’s another ad that says that Obama was interested in teaching sex education to kindergartners. Now, we know that those two ads are untrue, they’re lies. And yet you, at the end of it, say, ‘I approve these messages.’ Do you really approve them?” Sen. McCain answered, “Actually, they are not lies.” Ms. Walters and Ms. Behar also asked about the campaign’s contention that Gov. Palin would stop earmarks, suggesting she had accepted earmarks for Alaska. Today after the show aired, the Obama campaign issued several press releases on the interview. One of them stated: “Today on ‘The View,’ John McCain defended his campaign’s latest ad campaign, which has been debunked repeatedly as both false and sleazy. In running the sleaziest campaign since South Carolina in 2000 and standing by completely debunked lies on national television, it’s clear that John McCain would rather lose his integrity than lose an election.”
TV Week

McCain Go Too Far, Rove Says
Karl Rove said this morning that John McCain's attacks against Barack Obama have stretched the truth. Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," Rove said McCain had "gone one step too far, and sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know, beyond the 100 percent truth test.” McCain has come in for scathing criticism from many in the media and independent fact-check organizations for his recent hard-edged campaign tactics. But few Republicans, and none as prominent as Rove, have criticized McCain. The former political adviser to President Bush didn't confine his critique to McCain, though. "Both campaigns are making a mistake, and that is they are taking whatever their attacks are and going one step too far," he said. "They don't need to attack each other in this way." On a new Obama ad released late last week, Rove said it was a fair point to call McCain "a longtime Washington insider.” “But they then say he doesn't … send e-mail. Well, this is because his war injuries keep him from being able to use a keyboard. He can't type. You know, it's like saying he can't do jumping jacks."
Politico

Convention Coverage Gives 'Daily Show' a 37% Bump
With the presidential campaigns dominating the headlines, more people seem to be interested in this year’s race than 2004, and Comedy Central is the latest network to benefit. During two weeks of shooting “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” on location in Denver and St. Paul during the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, the series averaged 1.7 million viewers, up 37 percent from the show’s 2004 convention coverage. The two-week coverage also averaged 1.1 million viewers 18-49, up 42 percent from 2004, and coverage of the RNC showed larger gains. “Daily Show” was up 23 percent versus 2004 among 18-49s for its DNC coverage but up 37 percent for its coverage of the RNC. That success has also carried over online. During the week of the RNC, TheDailyShow.com had its highest traffic week ever, and the video “Sarah Palin Gender Card” has received more than 3 million views, the most ever for a video on the web site.
MediaLife Magazine

'SNL' has Best Premiere Since '01
With the surprise appearance of Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin in the opening and gold medalist Michael Phelps as guest host, "Saturday Night Live" logged its best premiere since September 2001. It was also the most-watched "SNL" for any date since Dec. 17, 2002, when former vice president Al Gore was the guest host. "SNL" averaged a 7.4 household rating/18 share in the 55 metered markets, Nielsen Media Research said Sunday afternoon. The ratings don't include New Orleans or, this weekend, Houston following damage from Hurricane Ike. Saturday's program was up 64% compared to last year's season premiere on Sept. 29. Already there was a lot of attention to the show thanks to the guest hosting of Phelps, who last month broke Mark Spitz's single-Olympic gold medal record. But the buzz ramped up even further on the weekend when it was rumored that Fey would be putting in an appearance as Palin, whose sudden emergence seemed likely to be strong fodder for the newly reinvigorated "SNL." There was also a cameo by "Star Trek" and "The Practice" star William Shatner, who had his own well-remembered "SNL" appearance in 1986. This weekend's "SNL" was the best ratings for any of the shows since Dec. 17, 2002, with Gore and musical guest Phish. The top market was Baltimore, which averaged a 14.7/29, with New York averaging an 8.3/20.
Hollywood Reporter

Obama Cancels SNL Appearance
Barack Obama has postponed his appearance on "Saturday Night Live" because of Hurricane Ike, which made landfall in Texas early Saturday morning. The Democratic presidential candidate had been booked for the NBC show's season premiere on Saturday. His appearance will be rescheduled for a more appropriate time, his campaign said. "In light of the unfolding crisis in Texas, Sen. Obama has decided it is no longer appropriate to appear on 'Saturday Night Live' tomorrow evening," an Obama spokeswoman said.
Hollywood Reporter

YouTube Bans Violence-Inciting Videos
The video-sharing service YouTube is banning submissions that involve "inciting others to violence," following criticism from Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman that the site was too open to terrorist groups disseminating militant propaganda. The company earlier this year removed some of the videos that Lieberman targeted, many of which were marked with the logos of al-Qaeda and affiliated groups. But the company refused to take down most of the videos on the senator's list, saying they did not violate the Web site's guidelines against graphic violence or hate speech. Now that videos inciting others to violence are banned, more videos by the terrorist groups in question may be removed. "YouTube reviews its content guidelines a few times a year, and we take the community's input seriously," YouTube spokesman Ricardo Reyes said. "The senator made some good points." "YouTube was being used by Islamist terrorist organizations to recruit and train followers via the Internet and to incite terrorist attacks around the world, including right here in the United States," Lieberman said in a statement. "I expect these stronger community guidelines to decrease the number of videos on YouTube produced by al-Qaeda and affiliated Islamist terrorist organizations." The standoff between the senator and the nation's largest video-sharing site aroused arguments that have become commonplace since Sept. 11, 2001: It pitted civil rights -- in this case, free speech -- against demands to crack down on terrorism.
Washington Post

Twitties Contest
Can brilliance be achieved in 140 characters or less? Behold the Twitties, an inaugural award honoring the best one-liners from Twitter.com, a Web site where "Twitterers" text or blog the minutiae of their daily lives in super-short "Tweets." Winners of the contest, sponsored by Philadelphia consulting firm iFractal, will get nothin' but bragging rights. Still, Twitties judges received more than 1,200 nominations, which they pared down to 60 finalists -- five in 12 categories. Twitter might have first appealed to the "Gossip Girl" demographic ("i'm in chem lab now. lol."), but the two-year-old site now draws a diverse group of subscribers from NASA officials to minor cult celebs. Voting for the Twitties is open until today at Twitties.com. Here's a look at three of the front-runners -- based on 1,500 votes so far -- and what inspired their Tweets:

Category: Best Breaking News/Journalism/Media Tweet

The Nominated Tweet: "Are you ready to celebrate? Well, get ready: We have ICE!!!!! Yes, ICE, WATER ICE on Mars! w00t!!! Best day ever!!"

The Twitterer: MarsPhoenix, known in real life as Veronica McGregor, the manager of news services for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif.

Tweet Origin: McGregor, a mom of two teenagers, has been Twittering the activities of the Phoenix Mars Lander (from the anthropomorphic perspective of the spacecraft) since it landed in May. MarsPhoenix acquired so many followers that McGregor has also begun Twittering as Mars rovers and a Saturn mission. Deliciously dorky.

Her Chances: Nice use of "w00t," but CNN's entry in this category is brilliant in brevity: "Space station's lone toilet is broken."

Category: Best Tweet (the marquee contest)

The Tweet: "I am totally serious. My Ob/Gyn was IN my vagina, and an earthquake started rattling the room!"

The Twitterer: MissRFTC, known in real life as Verdell Wilson, a communications officer for Warner Bros.

Tweet Origin: Self-explanatory. Routine checkup + mild natural disaster = extremely awkward situation.

After the quakes subsided, Wilson's doc finished the exam, then left so Wilson could get dressed. "That's when I pulled out my cellphone," Wilson says.

That, people, is dedicated Twittering.

Her Chances: Wilson is currently neck and neck with Twitterer Lonelysandwich for best tweet. But Lonely's entry is self-referential pithiness ("Whenever people find out I use something called Twitter, I wish it was called something different, like Ultimate Badass Report"), while Wilson's manages to tell an entire, shocking story.

Bonus points to Wilson for continuing to provide real-time updates. Shortly after the initial Tweet, Wilson posted: "My Ob/Gyn said it was OK if I didn't want to evacuate to the parking lot in my paper gown. I was more concerned about the speculum." Followed by: "Good news, vagina is healthy, albeit shaken up."

Category: Funniest Tweet

The Tweet: "When I was a kid, our footie pajamas weren't flame retardant. DAMN, we were hardcore."

The Twitterer: WilW, known in real life as the actor-turned-author Wil Wheaton. Many of you may recognize him best from his role as Wesley Crusher on "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

Tweet Origin: "The cover of my newest book has a picture of me wearing footie pajamas," he says (crafty plug there, Wil). "And I was looking at the cover of the book," when he wrote the Tweet.

FYI, Wheaton is the father of two children, both of whom wear flame-retardant PJs, which makes him especially qualified to comment on the hard-coreness of today's youth.

His Chances: Stellar. True, the "Funniest Tweets" category actually contains some much better entries ("Bozo the Clown has died. Or, for those of us who fear clowns, Bozo the ghost is born"). But Wheaton brings star power to the contest. Read: 16,778 fans who follow his Twitter feed in the hopes of some steamy updates about Trek hottie Deanna Troi.

Washington Post

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