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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.
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
Marketers Using Bloggers to Boost Branding Efforts
Eyes on NBC for 2010
Outlook Rosy for Cable in 2010
ESPN, USA Split Ratings Crown
PBS Signs On for Weekly Nielsen Ratings
Nets Find Comfortable Ratings in Food Shows
Lawmakers Ask MTV to Cancel 'Shore'
Dell Pulls Ads from 'Jersey Shore
Religious Broadcasters Fear Spectrum Reclamation
News Corp. Plans 'Broadcast + Broadband' Strategy
HuffPo Shines Under ComScore Direct Light
9 Things We Learned About Us in 2009
Quotes
"The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul."
- G. K. Chesterton
"All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning."
- Albert Camus
"There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning."
- Louis L'Amour
Marketers Using Bloggers to Boost Branding Efforts
When Kodak wanted to increase participation in its "Time to Smile" branding effort, which launched this past summer, the marketer recently looked to influential bloggers, Twitterers and Facebookaholics to move the needle for its push. But with so many voices buzzing on the web these days, how can a marketer be sure it has found the right group of "influencers" to help it get the word out?
Tapping the power of an influential consumer has long been a practice of marketers. Once, that simply meant looking for the coolest kid on the playground or in the mall or in the club that everyone else was trying to emulate. But with the explosion of the blogosphere, it's no longer just the cool kids that are tagged as influencers; everyone and their mother -- mommy bloggers are now some of the biggest influencers in the consumer space -- can be needle movers.
The upside of that for marketers is a bigger pool to choose from, but the downside is identifying the right one. Cue the agencies and their social-media platforms, which they claim can identify the perfect blogger or Twitterer for any campaign.
Kodak, with the help of one of its PR shops, WPP's Ogilvy Public Relations, which recently launched its influencer relationship management platform called Insider Circle, identified 10 bloggers they deemed influential within the markets they were looking to target. John Bell, managing director 360 Digital Influence at Ogilvy PR, said the influencers range from parent bloggers to photography enthusiasts. Mr. Bell said using bloggers helps stimulate authentic word of mouth that's relevant to the consumer and brand, and builds long-term relationships with these influencers
"We call it social influencer relationship management," he said. "We provide them with new content and values they can pass along to their readers to get them involved in the program."
Some of the bloggers are soliciting their readers to participate in a contest asking readers to post photos with a story explaining why they are smiling. The blogger decides which story is best and will give a new Kodak HD camera to the winner. "We're giving some bloggers access to people at Kodak for stories they'll post on their blogs," Mr. Bell said. The bloggers disclose their relationship with Kodak to their readers.
Just about every agency has a similar platform that uses varying metrics to determine whether a blogger or someone's Twitter feed is right for a marketer. In this case, Kodak and Ogilvy were looking for blogs that had topical relevance, significant reach, a high number of links pointing to their posts and high levels of back-and-forth conversations within their platforms. Depending on what the marketer is looking to accomplish, marketer and agency may also look to see if the bloggers are conversation starters, how trusted and engaged they are, how often their posts get mentioned by others and if they're authoritative.
Chris Perry, exec VP digital strategy and operations at Interpublic Group of Cos.' Weber Shandwick, said choosing a blogger is more art than science. "We don't create a threshold saying you need 5,000 followers on Twitter, but given that it's digital you do get a better read on how you measure influence," he said. "But it could be someone who is just so vocal on a particular subject or category that they are being referenced by other bloggers and media. They may not have a lot of followers but they have a certain point of view that's being noticed, picked up and heard."
Underwriters Laboratories reached out to mommy bloggers to help push its 'UL Keeping the Holiday Safe and Bright' campaign. Sara Greenstein, CMO of Underwriters Laboratories, said the 150-year-old independent product-safety company reached out to mommy bloggers to help push its "UL Keeping the Holiday Safe and Bright" campaign. The effort isn't pushing any specific UL products but is looking to educate consumers on who the company is and create a community of influencers and consumers that share stories on "how they make their holidays safe and bright," Ms. Greenstein.
With the aid of Publicis Groupe's MS&L Worldwide, UL has identified five "relevant" mommy bloggers it is providing a constant feed to of new safety tips they can share with their networks. These five bloggers have generated about 25 blog posts regarding the campaign.
"They are providing us reach," Ms. Greenstein said. "This segment interacts a lot and they trust each other. These bloggers are opening the door for us to enter into that dialogue, discussion and engagement and giving us a certain level of credibility."
Weber Shandwick's Mr. Perry said the marketer that uses this type of influencer program as a one-off is foolish and missing the long-term benefits. Engaging influencers on a sustained basis by bringing them into the franchise, exposing them to executives and giving them sneak peeks at products can make them lifelong advocates for the brand, he said.
"If you're a brand marketer looking at this as a creative way of just getting that one-time transaction done," he said, "you're not recognizing the power of social media and how consumers are playing in the marketing space."
AdAge
Eyes on NBC for 2010
Fox, ABC and CBS all had something to celebrate in 2009. Fox won its fifth straight season among adults 18-49, CBS was the only network to see year-to-year gains, and ABC finally added a few buzzy new shows to its lineup. As for NBC, well, it had a hugely successful Super Bowl and not much else. But in 2010, the story will be NBC, more specifically whether the network that dominated the late 1990s and early 2000s can climb back into contention under new owner Comcast and whether the Jay Leno experiment will be declared a success or failure, based on a full year of results. All the other issues facing broadcast -- continued viewer erosion due to time-shifting and cable gains, the struggles of the CW, and the series finale of ABC staple "Lost" -- will be secondary to what happens to NBC. "There is not likely to be much impact on NBC during the short term from the Comcast acquisition," notes former Magna researcher Steve Sternberg, a veteran television analyst. "Viewers care little about corporate ownership. What matters is what's put on the small screen. NBC has had problems developing successful scripted programming for years." Those years included cutting costs and managing for the bottom line under General Electric. In recent years NBC has heavied up on cheap unscripted programming and even briefly eliminated the pilot process in an effort to save money. Notably, all of its fall series were canceled that year. If Comcast wants NBC to prosper in a way that it has not in recent years, the cable company will need to pour money into program development and decide whether its goal is to rebuild to challenge for first among 18-49s or rebrand as more of a niche network. Whatever path Comcast pursues will determine whether "The Jay Leno Show" remains at 10 p.m. The network gave the comedian a nightly primetime talk show to save millions of dollars per year on scripted programming. The show thus far has met the very modest profitability goal of averaging a 1.5 adults 18-49 rating or above, but media people remain skeptical that its ratings will increase opposite ABC and CBS repeats and in the summer. If Comcast does decide to rebuild, Leno could be one of the first casualties. "If cost containment is Comcast's major goal, Leno should remain at 10 p.m. If they want to re-establish NBC as a premier broadcast network, it may not last beyond next season," Sternberg predicts. "Of course, it would be difficult to re-populate the 10 p.m. hour all at once in the fall."
MediaLife Magazine
Outlook Rosy for Cable in 2010
Only a handful of media have held up well during this recession, and cable television is certainly one of them. Third-quarter numbers suggest that the recovery so many other media are hoping for has already begun for cable. Next year should bring even better advertising numbers, as well as a continuing rise in viewership, buzz and awards for both basic and premium cable networks. Year to date, cable advertising is either up or down only slightly, depending on which numbers you rely on. By comparison, television as a whole is down some 12 percent, while categories such as local newspapers, radio and magazines have fallen by more than 20 percent. And 2010 looks to be an even stronger year for the medium. Magna's chief forecaster, Brian Wieser, sees cable growing between 4 and 6 percent next year, after a dip of nearly 4 percent this year. Other ad trackers say this year's cable advertising numbers were even better. Year to date, Nielsen says cable spending is up 9 percent, with Spanish-language cable up even more, 36.7 percent. The reason is pretty simple. At a time when expensive entertainment, such as ball games and Broadway, are losing audience, cable continues to gain viewers as a relatively cheap alternative. More viewers translate to more ad dollars. "Cable provides people with thousands of hours of content and entertainment programming to engage in, and people want to be entertained," says Cross MediaWorks CEO Marc Krigsman. "Wallets are tight right now, so I think you are going to continue to see that growth. Beyond being economical, the most powerful platform we have is still the television. You sit back and it delivers entertainment to you." Cable gained in viewers, prestige and buzz this year, continuing the growth that began earlier this decade, when cable's share of viewership surpassed broadcast for the first time. It has yet to relinquish that lead. Year to date through early December, cable's household share had nudged up 2 percent compared to last year, to 60.6 percent, at least its 10th consecutive year of growth, according to Turner Networks analysis of Nielsen data. The four major broadcast networks' share dipped 2 percent, their third straight year of decline, to 32.1. Cable also went over a 50 share among adults 18-49 for the first time, hitting 50.7, though as broadcasters continue to point out, they have the top shows overall on television while cable delivers mostly niche hits. Still, the audience for those niche hits is increasing. Earlier this month, USA's "Monk" drew more than 9 million total viewers for its final episode, setting a cable record for a scripted series. Two months earlier, ESPN's "Monday Night Football" broke its own record, averaging more than 21 million viewers to become the most-watched program in cable history.
MediaLife Magazine
ESPN, USA Split Ratings Crown
USA Network last week notched a late-December victory, knocking ESPN off its perch atop the cable ratings heap with an average prime-time delivery of 2.97 million viewers. The NBC Universal network won the week ended Dec. 20, per Nielsen live-plus-same-day ratings data, although ESPN was able to hold onto two of the core TV demos. In the penultimate week of the Nielsen calendar, ESPN maintained its stronghold on adults 25-54 (1.42 million) and viewers 18-49 (1.39 million), although USA made the latter race interesting, averaging 1.38 million members of the demo. USA also eked out a win among viewers 18-34, drawing 674,000 to ESPN’s 646,000. Despite an unpromising NFC West matchup between the 6-6 San Francisco 49ers and the 8-4 Arizona Cardinals, ESPN’s Monday Night Football won its 14th consecutive week, drawing 13.1 million viewers on Dec. 14. Through its first 15 MNF contests, ESPN is averaging 14.4 million viewers, up 20 percent from this time a year ago. The 49ers-Cards scuffle also won the three major demos, drawing 6.74 million viewers 18-49, 6.97 million adults 25-54 and 3.18 million viewers 18-34. USA got a lift from a special three-hour WWE Raw, averaging 4.92 million viewers Monday night between 8 p.m. and 11:10 p.m. A repeat of NCIS also drew a crowd, as the Dec. 16 installment of the procedural averaged 4.8 million viewers at 8 p.m. All told, USA took second place among the 25-54 set, averaging 1.34 million on the week. Rocketing into third place on the week was NFL Network, which smashed its own ratings record Saturday night, as its coverage of the Saints-Cowboys battle drew 10.5 million total viewers. One week after getting bumped out of the top five for the first time since the year began, Fox News Channel stormed back to a fourth-place finish, serving up 2.13 million total viewers. In the core news demo, FNC finished 15th among ad-supported cable nets, with an average nightly draw of 527,000 adults 25-54. ABC Family fell two spots to number five, drawing 2.06 million viewers, of which nearly half (928,000) were viewers 18-49. Last week’s top 10 ad-supported cable nets among the core TV demo were: ESPN, averaging 1.39 million viewers 18-49; USA (1.38 million); NFL Net (1.18 million); TBS (1.03 million); ABC Family (928,000); A&E (862,000); FX (787,000); TNT (746,000); Discovery Channel (666,000) and History (589,000).
MediaWeek
PBS Signs On for Weekly Nielsen Ratings
For the first time in nearly 40 years of broadcasting, PBS has signed on as a weekly Nielsen subscriber, a move that will allow the public television service to provide clients with a more accurate look into its audience deliveries. PBS is not ponying up for overnight ratings, but the weekly Nielsen NPower data will offer sponsors a more timely read on programming performance. While PBS does not run traditional call-to-action advertising, it does solicit marketers to underwrite its programming expenses through sponsorships. Rather than a 30-second spot shilling a product or service, PBS sponsors are identified by short creative that runs immediately before and after the supported program. In the past, sponsors backed PBS programs for a 52-week run. This spring, the broadcaster began accepting shorter commitments, some as brief as a single week. The decision to loosen the old sponsorship guidelines reflects clients’ increasing desire for greater flexibility––a phenomenon that also has informed the broadcast and cable scatter market in the last several quarters. Content restrictions remain in place, in accordance with the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. PBS said it began kicking the tires on the new service this fall, with the premiere of the Ken Burns documentary series The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. Each episode of the six-part series averaged 5.5 million average viewers, per Nielsen data. Among the prime-time PBS programs that will be measured by Nielsen are: Antiques Roadshow, Masterpiece Theater, PBS NewsHour and Nova. Kids-targeted series that will get the Nielsen demo treatment include Sesame Street and Curious George. “PBS is meeting the evolving needs of our program supporters, who are essential partners in making our content available to the public,” said Andrew Russell, senior vp, PBS Ventures. “The new Nielsen ratings service will provide current and potential sponsors with a detailed picture of the diverse audiences our programs serve.”
MediaWeek
Nets Find Comfortable Ratings in Food Shows
Holiday revelers might overindulge this weekend, but viewers are gorging on food television shows. Fox has made a cottage industry out of curmudgeonly Gordon Ramsay (Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmaresand next year's Master Chef). Networks not known as foodie havens have found solid ratings: Bravo's Top Chef and TLC's Cake Boss are their networks' top series, while others ranging from IFC to Planet Green are opening their cupboards to new food shows. And Scripps Networks, which saw prime-time ratings for its Food Network spike 29% this year to a new record, is turning its underachieving Fine Living Network into a 24-hour Cooking Channel next May. Scripps chief John Lansing says the sprouting of more food shows on other channels simply "broadened interest in the category," and much of the growth is coming from younger viewers. It's a long way from Julia Child— portrayed by Meryl Streep in summer's Julie & Julia — and her TV successors, Martha Stewart and Rachael Ray. Programmers say a recessionary trend toward home entertaining has driven the genre. "Culturally right now, food is a comfort device," says TLC chief Eileen O'Neill, who's peppered her network's schedule with shows about barbecue pitmasters, dwarf chocolatiers and that New Jersey cake guy, tapping more male viewers. The audience for Bravo's Top Chef, among the top-rated food shows, is the new norm. "It tends to be people who enjoy eating and are interested in food (more than) people who want to do it themselves," says programming chief Frances Berwick, who's prepping a spinoff built around desserts. Like other reality series, food shows spawn stars of their own. Next Food Network Star's first-season winner Guy Fieri, who hosts the channel's top regular series, Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, was tapped last week to host new NBC game show Perfect 10.
USA Today
Lawmakers Ask MTV to Cancel 'Shore'
MTV is getting more pressure to cancel its "Jersey Shore" reality show. The latest criticism comes from the New Jersey Italian American Legislative Caucus, which says the show promotes derogatory ethnic stereotypes and is "wildly offensive." In a letter sent Tuesday to the president of Viacom, MTV's parent company, caucus chairman Joseph Vitale asks that the show be immediately taken off the air. The state lawmakers also have asked advertisers to boycott the show, which focuses on eight tanned 20-somethings and their escapades in Seaside Heights, a popular New Jersey beach town. On Wednesday, a Viacom spokesman referred a request for comment to an MTV spokesperson, who did not immediately respond. MTV has said its intention is not to stereotype or offend.
Variety
Dell Pulls Ads from 'Jersey Shore
Dell became the third advertiser to pull adds off the MTV reality show about self-described "guidos" and "guidettes," TMZ.com reports. The computer company told TMZ they'll "block" their commercials from running in future episodes of the show, saying they don't "condone or support ethnic bashing in any form." Two weeks ago, American Family Insurance saw their ads running during the show's premiere and instructed MTV not to use them for any future episodes. Pizza chain Dominos was the first to make the move away from the controversial reality show. The advertisers began pulling out after the Italian American group, UNICO National, said they were outraged by "Jersey Shore" and would put pressure on sponsors to cut ads until MTV takes the show off the air.
NY Daily News
Religious Broadcasters Fear Spectrum Reclamation
Religious broadcasters have asked the Federal Communications Commission not to reallocate any broadcast spectrum for wireless, saying it will disproportionately impact Christian TV broadcasters. Responding to an FCC request for input on how the public's welfare would be impacted were the commission to "diminish" over-the-air TV coverage in order to recover spectrum, the National Religious Broadcasters told the agency Monday that it thinks that spectrum reassignment might be illegal. "NRB presumes that the term 'public welfare,' includes such things as compliance by the FCC with existing legal and constitutional standards," said the group in its filing, "and believes that violation of those standards would be contrary to 'public welfare.'" Pointing to the writings of FCC Distinguished Scholar in Residence Stuart Benjamin that spectrum could be reallocated from "lower value" uses like broadcasting to "higher value" uses, NRB says it is afraid it could be relegated to the lower of that low due to its noncommercial model. [O]ur Christian television broadcasters rely on current 'must carry' regulations to gain optimal coverage, and do not, as a general rule, enter into retransmission agreements," NRB pointed out. "As a result, there is no standard market index for the economic "value" of Christian television programming from a macro-broadcasting viewpoint. Does that mean, therefore, that Christian stations would be more susceptible to being viewed as being of lower 'value,' and therefore more likely to lose spectrum?" NRB argued the fact that a station can support itself through public donations should, in fact, argue for its value to the public, but it points to a lack of clarity in the FCC's notice regarding terms like "value" and "benefit." NRB also maintained that if spectrum reclamation were to significantly impact religious broadcasters, it could well violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which applies a compelling interest/least restrictive means test for any government action regarding exercise of religious expression. The FCC has not yet proposed any spectrum reclamation, but the broadband advisor has been talking with broadcasters and others about possible scenarios that would preserve broadcasting in some form, while freeing up spectrum for wireless broadband.
MultiChannel
News Corp. Plans 'Broadcast + Broadband' Strategy
News Corp. outlined its plans to use a portion of its broadcast spectrum to deliver TV, newspapers and other content to mobile devices in a filing Tuesday with the Federal Communications Commission. Promising to "reinvent and recreate the content experience from the ground up," News Corp. described a mobile media platform built around providing local news and information but also spanning everything from prime-time TV shows and movies to celebrity interviews to books, newspapers and magazines. In addition to on-demand offerings, the mobile system would also provide live coverage of sporting events and breaking news as well as the ability to access the Web, check My Space or Facebook pages or go to Hulu free of technical glitches or slowdowns. "Consumers would have access to the best content, delivered in ways that are personally tailored to consumers on the go, all through the touch of an icon on a screen, with short-cuts to favorite shows, alerts when new episodes are available, and recommendations to try something new from favored genres, actors, producers or writers," stated the filing in response to an FCC notice of inquiry issued Dec. 2 seeking comment on whether parts of the broadcast spectrum should be reallocated for wireless broadband. Broadcasters have strongly opposed the FCC possibly taking back some of the national airwaves from TV stations to help meet growing demand for wireless broadband services. The idea is under consideration as part of the agency's wider efforts to develop a national broadband plan. TV executives say they want to use their broadcast spectrum to offer more digital channels as well as programming for mobile devices. To that end, News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch earlier this month told the Federal Trade Commission at its meeting on the future of the news media that the company has been working for two years on the project to deliver mobile TV over its airwaves. In its FCC filing Tuesday, News Corp. reiterated that it plans to use its remaining broadcast spectrum to roll out an ambitious mobile content platform over the next two years. The media conglomerate argued that its "broadcast + broadband" strategy would provide the most efficient means of delivering programming to mobile devices.
MediaPost
HuffPo Shines Under ComScore Direct Light
The Huffington Post has plenty to celebrate and the end of 2009. The news and blogging hub recently received its first batch of data from ComScore's new measurement service, ComScore Direct, which employs "beaconing" -- which records every time there's a server call on a given Web page as opposed to the standard ComScore audience measurement service, which is panel-based, relying on a relatively small group of volunteers willing to have their Internet usage recorded. (ComScore Direct says this method is believed to provide a more accurate view of Internet usage that takes place while people are at work, since big companies are reluctant to have their employees serve on panels.) The result? ComScore Direct pegged the site's unique audience at 17.7 million, versus 7.9 million for the panel-only method. "My belief is the reason the Huffington Post numbers grew so dramatically is because it has very high at-work usage," Michele Madansky, a media consultant who works with HuffPo, tells Daily Finance.
MediaPost
9 Things We Learned About Us in 2009
For a species that has been studying itself for thousands of years, you might think humans would have learned everything there is to know about, well, us. But science never ceases to reveal more about the complex human body, mind and culture. Here are 9 of the most fascinating things we learned about ourselves in 2009:
- Adults have baby fat. Scientists had long believed the brown fat that babies are born with disappears once they grow up. But a study published this year in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that some adults do indeed retain deposits of this baby fat. And this is the so-called good fat since it burns calories. In fact, the researchers also found that thinner people are more likely to have brown fat, suggesting that it may play a role in regulating body weight. Boosting growth of this fat could potentially become a new way to treat obesity, the researchers said.
- Your skin is loaded with bacteria. Scientists are learning more and more about the many bacteria that reside in and on our bodies through the Human Microbiome Project. New results this year showed that different populations of bacteria inhabit different sites on our skin, with some sites more diverse than others. The forearm was the winner in terms of diversity, with scientists finding 44 different bacterial species there.
- Late-sleepers are more alert than early-risers. "Morning people" may get out the door earlier, but at a price: They may not stay focused as long as those who stay up late and stay snuggled beneath the covers during the a.m. hours, according to a study that examined the attention spans of both early birds and night owls. The study measured the alertness of both groups at 1.5 hours and 10.5 hours after waking. Results showed that while both groups had about the same attention level at 1.5 hours, the late-sleepers were more focused than the early-risers after 10.5 hours. So if you find yourself naturally rising at dawn, you may want to think twice before scheduling an important afternoon meeting.
- Could you speak into my right ear please? If you want someone to do you a favor, you may be better off speaking into their right ear than their left, a study this year suggests. The results showed that people would rather be addressed in their right ear, and they are also more likely to grant favors if the appeal is made to the right ear. This preference may be due to the fact that speech coming into the right ear is mostly processed by the left side of your brain, the hemisphere that is thought to process verbal information.
- Multitasking slows you down. If you do a lot of multitasking, you should be good at it, right? Not so, according to research out this year that found those who multitask more frequently are actually worse at it than those who conquer chores individually. In the study, multitaskers took longer to complete tasks, and when they had to switch tasks, they were slower at it. The findings add more evidence to the argument that certain multitasking situations, such as texting while driving, may not be wise, and even can be dangerous.
- Infants cry in their native tongue. Even when babies are only a few days old, their cries resemble their native language, researchers in Germany found this year. For instance, the cries of French infants have a rising melody pattern from start to finish — a characteristic of the French language. On the other hand, German infants have cries with falling melodies — a pattern found in German speech.
- Most children lack vitamin D. A national survey of U.S. children showed that about 70 percent do not have sufficient levels of vitamin D, a result the researchers deemed "shocking." They pinned the blame for the low vitamin levels on poor diet and too little sunshine. Vitamin D deficiency can put people at risk for bone disorders, such as rickets, as well as heart disease. So, perhaps, a New Year's resolution to get the kids outdoors may be in order.
- Cohabiting before marriage may lead to divorce. Moving in with your significant other before marriage may not be the best idea, say researchers at the University of Denver. Their survey found that people who cohabited before wedding were more likely to report a lower quality of marriage, and these couples were more likely to split than those who held out on living together until after they tied the knot.
- Why you aren't born walking. Scientists think they know why some animals, such as horses and giraffes, can get up and walk only hours after being born, while humans take about a year before they can move upright on two legs. Although mammals seem to start ambling at different points in their childhood, they actually begin to walk at the same point in their brain development, according to a study released this month.
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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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
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(919) 217-4438
http://www.602communications.com
In This Issue
Promo of the Day
Fox Going Yellow for 'Simpsons' Anniversary
Sawyer's Debut Gives 'World News' Slight Bump
ESPN Show Hooks Brokaw
November's Top 30 Global News Sites
Twitter Not A Top Mobile Brand
Marketers Embracing 'Random Acts"
LinkedIn Now Offering 'Freemium" Services
Message From Michael
Top Ten Christmas Carols
Quotes
"Responsibility does not only lie with the leaders of our countries or with those who have been appointed or elected to do a particular job. It lies with each of us individually. Peace, for example, starts within each one of us. When we have inner peace, we can be at peace with those around us."
- the Dalai Lama
"Where did we ever get the crazy idea that in order to make children do better, first we have to make them feel worse? Think of the last time you felt humiliated or treated unfairly. Did you feel like cooperating or doing better?"
- Jane Nelson
"Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom."
- Theodore I. Rubin
Promo of the Day
As KIVI Operations Manager Dan McColly says "Okay so ... maybe not your typical "holly & ivy" promos."... but we get a fun spin around the station and given quick insight into their team, infused with the spirit of giving.
602communications.com/VideoExamples
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Fox Going Yellow for 'Simpsons' Anniversary
Fox is going yellow for the home stretch of its "Simpsons" 20th anniversary celebration. For the week beginning Jan. 3, graphical elements across Fox properties will turn yellow in honor of Matt Groening's iconic characters. That means on-air graphics, Fox's Web sites, social network pages and special on-air promos -- all in yellow, along with a range of other stunts (such as local Fox news anchors wearing yellow ties). The move is part of the final push of what's been an extensive "Simpsons" marketing push to honor the series, which concludes with a Jan. 10 one-hour documentary special on the show directed by Morgan Spurlock. Right before the doc, "Simpsons" will air its 450th episode. "We always knew at the end of the campaign we'd go yellow," said Fox executive vp marketing Joe Earley, who has led the year-and-half campaign. The effort has included on-air scavenger hunts, contests for viewers to create their own posters and "couch gag," and even the "Simpsons" receiving their own postage stamps. It's rare for a network to put such an extensive marketing effort behind a veteran series. It's not as if "Simpsons" is even Fox's highest-rated program on Sundays (that honor goes to "Family Guy). Earley points out that any uniqueness in the campaign is matched by the show's accomplishments. "'The Simpsons' is not only a Fox icon, it's a cultural icon worldwide," Earley said. "For a show to hit its 20th anniversary in today's universe is such a feat, and it still has such a resonance in the zeitgeist. The show has viewers who have viewed it for three generations. Besides, it's such a creative property that it's fun to come up with ideas for it."
Hollywood Reporter
Sawyer's Debut Gives 'World News' Slight Bump
Diane Sawyer's debut as World News anchor registered a slight viewer uptick for the Dec. 21 broadcast, according to preliminary data from Nielsen. World News averaged 8.9 million viewers Dec. 21. NBC's Nightly News prevailed with 9.3 million and the CBS Evening News was watched by 5.9 million viewers, according to fast affiliate data. (Fast affiliate data reflects viewing on ABC stations from 6:30-7 p.m. where World News airs in most but not all markets.) For the season, World News is averaging 8 million viewers. The show's average for Monday broadcasts is 8.4 million.
Broadcasting & Cable
ESPN Show Hooks Brokaw
ESPN confirmed that Tom Brokaw would be hosting a series where he goes on a weeklong fishing expedition. The show's trailer has received some traction on YouTube with 14,000-plus views. Sponsored by Ace hardware, "Pirates of the Flats" debuts Dec. 27 on ESPN2's outdoors block. Brokaw, formerly of NBC News, will be joined by actor Michael Keaton and others in their bone-fishing adventure off the coast of the Bahamas. One message of the show: Fishermen need to be environmentally conscious, with the program produced in partnership with the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust. At one point in the trailer, Brokaw says the color of the water is "psychedelic," and he was "transfixed" by it. The series includes six episodes and runs through Jan. 30. Garden & Gun magazine touted the series as "about the coolest fishing show to come around since, well, ever."
MediaPost
November's Top 30 Global News Sites
Like newspapers, at least half of the top 30 current events/global news sites had a difficult time clearing tough comparables in November, marking one year after a closely watched presidential election. Of the top five sites, only AOL News increased its traffic in November year-over-year after a push to generate original content. AOL's monthly uniques grew 9% to 23 million. Growth at Yahoo News, the No. 1 site on the list, was flat at 38.7 million uniques. The Huffington Post managed to increase its traffic in November 2009, up 27% to 8.9 million year-over-year. CNN Digital Network had the highest average of sessions per person at 7.3 in November. Below is the list of top 30 online current events and global news destinations for November ranked by uniques with the average number of sessions per user and year-over-year comparisons. Additionally, The Wall Street Journal is included on another Nielsen list, which tracks business and financial sites.
Yahoo! News -- 38,716,000 -- 5.71 -- 0%
CNN Digital Network -- 36,605,000 -- 7.33 -- (-12%)
MSNBC Digital Network -- 35,068,000 -- 5.38 -- (-16%)
AOL News -- 23,006,000 -- 6.22 -- 9%
NYTimes.com -- 16,635,000 -- 4.00 -- (-20%)
Tribune Newspapers -- 16,551,000 -- 3.46 -- (-14%)
Google News -- 15,895,000 -- 4.12 -- 10%
Fox News Digital Network -- 15,811,000 -- 5.97 -- (-14%)
ABCNEWS Digital Network -- 12,922,000 -- 3.06 -- (-3%)
Gannett Newspapers and Newspaper Division -- 11,946,000 -- 5.29 -- (-15%)
Washingtonpost.com -- 11,321,000 -- 2.98 -- 2%
CBS News Digital Network -- 10,581,000 -- 2.60 -- (-17%)
McClatchy Newspaper Network -- 10,091,000 -- 3.86 -- (-19%)
Advance Internet -- 9,457,000 -- 4.13 -- 0%
TheHuffingtonPost.com -- 8,986,000 -- 3.44 -- 27%
USATODAY.com -- 8,309,000 -- 3.84 -- (-20%)
MediaNews Group Newspapers -- 8,081,000 -- 3.71 -- (-1%)
Hearst Newspapers Digital -- 7,722,000 -- 3.44 -- (-7%)
BBC -- 7,465,000 -- 3.15 -- (-23%)
Daily News (NY) Online Edition -- 7,109,000 -- 2.19 -- 21%
NBC Local Media -- 6,943,000 -- 1.92 -- 148%
WorldNow -- 6,811,000 -- 3.52 -- (-16%)
Examiner.com -- 6,225,000 -- 1.88 -- 228%
Guardian.co.uk -- 5,486,000 -- 1.71 -- 33%
Cox Newspapers -- 5,369,000 -- 4.59 -- 16%
NPR -- 5,012,000 -- 2.15 -- 6%
New York Post Holdings -- 4,934,000 -- 2.92 -- 10%
MailOnline -- 4,374,000 -- 2.14 -- (-7%)
Telegraph -- 4,363,000 -- 2.72 -- 7%
Topix -- 4,356,000 -- 2.47 -- (-37%)
Editor & Publisher
Twitter Not A Top Mobile Brand
A recent study by Strategy Analytics found Google and Facebook to be the most desired brands to have on a mobile phone. Not a big surprise, given the companies' respective dominance in search and social networking on the desktop Web, which is quickly extending to mobile. More unexpected is that Twitter would ran 16th out of 24 brands in the U.S. despite its mobile-centric format and the reams of publicity the microblogging service has generated. Ahead of it were more established brands including Yahoo, Weather.com, iTunes and MySpace, according to the research firm's survey of 439 mobile users in the U.S. and the UK. The latest data from comScore also shows Twitter's audience growth continued its holding pattern of recent months, adding only 100,000 new U.S. unique visitors for a total of 19.4 million in November. Twitter's international growth has also flattened, at 58.3 million visitors as of October. TechCrunch, pointed out, however, that popular Twitter applications like Seesmic and Tweetdeck are still enjoying strong growth as more people to turn to these and similar programs to manage their Twitter accounts. The comScore figures also don't reflect mobile usage. Even so, Twitter doesn't appear to be a threat to Facebook becoming as powerful a social networking force on mobile as on the PC. Morgan Stanley's recently released Mobile Internet Report cited Facebook and Apple as leading innovation in mobile communications and commerce. But it views mobile social networking as a rising tide lifting all boats rather than a zero sum game between Facebook and Twitter. "Like Twitter, Facebook is evolving to provide complete communication to its users, from emails and posts to online chats, voice and video," states the report. So while Twitter may not live up to the hype that's surrounded the service since early on, it doesn't mean it will swept away by Facebook's mobile expansion either.
MediaPost
Marketers Embracing 'Random Acts"
Looks like Yahoo is the latest marketer to jump on the resurging "Random acts of kindness" bandwagon, announcing a year-end giving campaign called "You in?" This month, both Clinique and Macy's asked people to commit these random acts on behalf of their brands. And in recent months, Cosmopolitan partnered with Estee Lauder for its Cosmo Karma project, and Servus Credit Union, a Canadian bank, handed out $200,000 in $10 increments to finance small good deeds. Experts expect to see more marketers work the "Random Acts" thinking, a phrase that last soared in popularity in the mid-'90s, into their cause-related efforts. "It's a natural extension of the trend we've seen among companies to offer consumers choice through their cause programs," says Sarah Kerkian, senior insights associate at Cone Inc., a Boston-based cause-marketing agency. "Consumers get to select the issue or organization the company will donate to, and in some cases, even nominate organizations close to their hearts. It helps shift the consumer cause relationship from passive to active." For Yahoo, the randomness isn't new: The "You in?" campaign -- which encourages users to post their kindnesses on social media pages to inspire friends and families to do the same -- is an extension of its year-round Purple Acts of Kindness campaign, which has been in place for several years. And the World Kindness Movement, along with its American arm, the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation, surged in popularity about the same time as did the Spice Girls. But because of the recession, Kerkian says, the idea of small, inexpensive interventions is gaining new traction. "Americans are so aware of the struggles their neighbors are facing, and there is a real desire to help one another, even at a time when they themselves are facing financial hardships. So the ... approach helps -- it's bite-sized enough that we all can feel a sense of doing good, even if we don't have a lot of charitable dollars to spare."
MediaPost
LinkedIn Now Offering 'Freemium" Services
LinkedIn Corp., Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, Skype Ltd. and other Web sites, which reeled in users with free content, are now boosting sales by adding features that customers have to pay for. LinkedIn introduced a product last month that helps recruiting agencies scour the networking site for job candidates. In June, ESPN merged its online magazine with its Insider service, which costs $6.95 a month. Skype has added features such as voice mail and calling plans that allow users to dial land-line phones for a monthly fee. The shift reflects a desire by Web site owners to reduce their dependence on online advertising. Instead, they’re attracting visitors with free content and then selling them premium services or subscriptions, a model known as “freemium.” U.S. consumers will spend $8.55 billion on Web content such as games, music and dating in 2010, up 13 percent from this year, according to Forrester Research Inc. “They’re finding things that are valuable to people that they’re willing to pay for,” said Charlene Li, an analyst with Altimeter Group LLC in San Mateo, California. “Diversity in terms of revenue stream is always healthier because they’re never dependent on a single stream.” LinkedIn said in October that it’s ahead of financial targets for this year. While users can create personal profiles for free, the Mountain View, California-based company introduced paid subscriptions in 2005. Those services give recruiters more access to job candidates and provide business professionals with ways to communicate with one another. Prices range from $24.95 to $499.95 a month. “Professionals have consistently shown a high willingness to pay for unique value-added tools and content,” said LinkedIn Chief Financial Officer Steve Sordello. The company doesn’t disclose its revenue or the percentage of users who pay for the service.
Bloomberg
Message From Michael
WHO’S WRONG OR RIGHT: It doesn’t matter because Michael Jackson didn’t just beat it; he beat everything when it came to the top search topics of 2009. Whether it was Google, Yahoo, Bing or Twitter, the pop idol’s death was the number one topic, almost across the board. No surprise there. What may be a little surprising (and may be heartening) to those who believe such reports only confirm the celebrity obsession culture is that the Iranian election was far and away the top topic for “Twitterers”, according to the official Twitter website as well as spin-off site Whatthetrend.com. That’s not to say celebrities didn’t dominate as usual. On Yahoo, the top ten included Megan Fox, Britney Spears and Kim Kardashian. On Bing, it was Farrah Fawcett, Patrick Swayze, Jon and Kate Goselin, Billy Mays and Jaycee Durgan. And just so you’re in with the in crowd, you should know that Amy Winehouse is out (she was on Google’s GLOBAL “fastest falling” search list) while Lady Gaga is in (She was on Google’s GLOBAL “fastest rising” list.) In the category of entertainment, Google’s list indicates Eminem is back, along with Beyonce and Natasha Richardson. President Barack Obama also had the dubious distinction of making the “fastest falling” list on Google and only made it to number 44 on Yahoo’s list. A different kind of personality also dominated the search engine trends – Vampires. Shows like TrueBlood and movies like The Twilight Saga, New Moon were prominent search items along with Paranormal Activity, District 9 as well as Transformers.
TWO TURKISH DELIGHTS: Continuing the what’s hot, what’s not theme. KralOyun is out; Sanalika is in. If you’re like me, you’re saying, ‘heck, that kral thing is out before I even knew what it was it was and that san thing is in and I don’t even know what it is.’ Well, they’re both virtual world or multi-layer games. Now, you’re saying to yourself, ‘that’s why I didn’t know about them; I’m not some teen video game enthusiast.’ No, actually, that’s probably not the reason. There are some video game enthusiasts who are Message readers. The real reason is that they’re Turkish in origin. According to website TechCrunch whose editors were as surprised as you and I were, the reason is that there are 14 Million Turks online and when they do searches, they do a blanket kind of search which generates more hits. Or something like that. But if you are really into video games (which more and more research indicates is the trend of the future, along with mobile), then Runescape is the name of the game. It isn’t just a multi-player online role playing game (MORPG), according to Yahoo, where it made the top ten list; it’s a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG). Continuing the fantasy vein, Naruto isn’t just an anime or manga, it is THE manga series. It came in at number six on Yahoo’s list of hot search topics and number four on Google’s fastest rising list in entertainment. It is the story of a boy and his sword. Actually, it’s the story about a young ninja who wants to become the ‘hokage’ – the top ninja in his village.
KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES: Or the Gonzalezes. Or the Wangs. Or the Nguyens. The ‘global village’ that is the Internet is very much apparent in the hot search topics. It is most apparent in Google’s Zeitgeist which has four different countries in its top ten of fastest rising global websites. Sanalika mentioned above from Turkey. Tuenti is a Spanish social network based in Madrid and was the third fastest rising site. A newsletter from Vietnam came in 9th (dantri.com.vn). And the tenth spot was one of the more unusual risers. Torpedo gratis is a free SMS service that started in Portuguese-speaking Brazil. Elsewhere there is Peliculasid.com which provides Spanish versions of English movies free. Keep digging and you will also find a South Korean sports page and a Japanese cooking website, all of them fast growing websites on the World Internet. As a cultural footnote to this, it is interesting that three of the top ten blogs coming up in Yahoo’s list of top searches were African-American – Media Take Out, Bossip, and All HipHop. Taking the top spot was relative newcomer TMZ, although ‘old-timers’ Drudge Report and Perez Hilton rounded out the top three.
JUDE THE OBSCURE: If like the title character in Thomas Hardy’s novel (See, I don’t just do rock and roll references), you want to be a scholar, then the various websites and topics from the various search engines can help you. Of course it depends on what you want to learn. For example, I don’t know what learning about the search for the Yeti-like mythical character, Chupacabra, mentioned as one of the hot topics on Yahoo’s buzz blog list does for you. But it is interesting to find that the hot new health food is the Acai Berry whose antioxidant capacity is so much higher than its cousins, blueberries and cranberries, that it is touted as a “superfood” with anti-aging and even weight loss properties. Probably more to the point is the cultural snapshot that the searches provide. Some would say that there is none better for this than Twitter. And you can get that weekly through some of the top twitter hashtags. For example, the top hashtag is #musicmonday where people share the favorite or recommended music choices. But if you want to dig a little deeper, and some might say darker, into the culture, track hashtags #unacceptable where people exchange what they find is ‘unacceptable’ and #3drunkwords which, as the name says, is a way to share the three words someone utters in a drunken state. Warning – some of the exchanges can be raunchy. Much nicer, is #friendfriday where people tweet the names of people they like or think you should follow. It didn’t make Twitter’s top ten, but it did make the top 50 list on whatthetrend. Another one of those footnotes I like so much, whatthetrend noted that one of the top twitters concerned Glee, a Fox TV show about a high school glee club which, while popular in the U.S., is wildly popular in the Philippines, Australia and Brazil. What caused the twitter commotion? The show was pre-empted by the World Series.
TACKY AWARD OF THE YEAR: The honchos at ABC News just made it under the wire, but managed to win my first ever Tacky Award with the December 18th broadcast in which Charlie Gibson made his final appearance. One of the more interesting points he made during his farewell speech was that objectivity no longer seemed to be the valuable asset it once was in news. It was a very thoughtful and heartfelt speech in which he became obviously emotional. That was followed by a series of humorous and serious soundbites from politicians and celebrities talking about Gibson. Out of that, they came to a shot of Gibson at the desk surrounded by the various people who work there. They applauded him; he applauded them. And then… then they immediately went to a promo spot for his replacement, Diane Sawyer, starting Monday, with some marketing genius’s allegedly witty play on the words “no” and “know.” Okay, admittedly, commentary on my part, but the crassness really is astounding.
DUMB PATENTS OF THE YEAR: My message may be a little late for you to rush out and get these for Christmas, but here are some gift suggestions for next year for the person who has everything. A toilet-training watch. Disposable diapers with a camouflage pattern. Condoms shaped like a filled beer glass. A fingernail sander with its own debris bag. A sun visor complete with hair. These are some of the dumb patents applied for in 2009, according to The New York Times. Want some more? Apparently putting two different ideas into one is a big deal for inventors. Things like the combined letter opener, screen cleaner and pen cap. Or the towel that also doubles up as a handbag. Or the combined manure fork and fan-type shavings blower. The greeting card that also can be used to hold socks. And the list goes on… and on… and on.
NOT SO DUMB VIDEOS OF THE YEAR: Okay, so you can’t go out in time for Christmas and buy yourself an abnormality alarm device (another of the 2009 dumb patents), but you can watch some of the great viral videos of the year, courtesy of website Mashable. Some of them you may already have seen. Such as the baby who dances to Beyonce. The president of The Feed Company, Josh Warner, who selected the videos, is probably right when he says the ads on this must-watch video will probably pay for the kid’s college education. Or there is the guy whose guitar was broken by baggage handlers at United, and who now probably has enough publicity to put together a full orchestra. Interestingly, the list dispels the myth that all viral videos must be short, ‘snackable’ videos. The videos range in length from a minute and 39 seconds to 12 minutes and 13 seconds. The top choice is a five-minute homage to one kid’s incredible wall-climbing, stair-case-jumping, rooftop-hopping biking skills, produced by Inspired bicycles. The list shows how companies can capitalize on the viral video phenomenon – such as Volkswagen’s video showing how a subway staircase was turned into piano keys, convincing two-thirds of the people in a test to use the stairs instead of the nearby escalator. Or, how companies can embarrass themselves—Microsoft attempting to some how connect the release of Windows 7 to a kind of The Big Chill gathering of friends. And, if you liked last year’s viral video of the guy catching Ray-Ban sunglasses with his face, you’ll love this year’s spoof version where a guy catches a laptop with his butt.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS: To all my friends and acquaintances, strangers and not-so strangers, subscribers and other readers, broadcasters and ink-stained wretches, new media and old media people, social media and anti-social media friends, those in the mainstream and those not even in the river, mobile and stationary; whoever you are, I wish you peace and happiness. The message will go silent over the holidays…unless something really interesting happens. But we’ll be back in the New Year with a look at the trends and issues, predictions and prognostications for the next year in media.
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.
Top Ten Christmas Carols
10. I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas, Bleached Bright Like Sammy Sosa's Face
9. Don We Now Our Gay Apparel, Fa La La La La La La La La, For The Adam Lambert Concert, Fa La La La La La La La La
8. I Saw Mommy Injecting Santa Claus with the H1N1 Vaccine
7. Oh Holy Crap, My Family's Driving Me Crazy
6. Frosty the Snowman, Had a Carrot on His Face, Til Some Young Punks Relocated It, To a Very Naughty Place
5. Here Comes Tiger Woods, Here Comes Tiger Woods, Driving Really Fast. Here Comes Elin Woods, With a Seven Wood, Clobberin' Tiger's Ass
4. Your Name Isn't On the List, Must Have Been Someone We Missed, Since You're In a Tux and Frock, Go Meet Michelle and Barack, Saaaaa-laaaa-hi
3. You're Beginning to Look a Lot Like an Owl, You've Had Too Much Botox
2 .Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Oops, I Forgot, You're a Jew
1. Deck the Halls with Junk Made in China, Fa La La La La Our Country's Screwed
The Late Show with David Letterman
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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
602 Communications
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In This Issue
Two Things to Include in Every Anchor Intro
CNN Lags Behind MSNBC in Prime-Time Ratings
Comcast Could Own 100% of NBCU by 2014, Analyst Foresees
Tiger's Affairs Cost Millions in Lost Ads
Pepsi Skipping Super Bowl Next Year
Twitter Hacked by Iranian Cyber Army
Popes Taps Cyberspace to Reach Youth
Time Names Bernanke Person of the Year
Newsstand Gets Undercover Visit from Murdoch
Book of Tens: Epic Media Feuds of 2009
Quotes
"One of the great movements in my lifetime among educated people is the need to commit themselves to action. Most people are not satisfied with giving money; we also feel we need to work."
- Peter Drucker
"There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else."
- Peyton Conway March
"We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own."
- Ben Sweetland
Two Things to Include in Every Anchor Intro
by Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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http://www.602communications.com
Twitter: gnewell
Facebook: facebook.com/gnewell
Pay special attention to the first and last line of the anchor intro. This critical story element should start strong, then give an enticing taste of what's to come.
The first line of your package should be the strongest of the piece. It should grab your attention, leaving the viewer curious for explanatory details. As you're reviewing scripts, pay special attention to this critical beginning. It should contain the most interesting and provocative fact from the story. Don't save it for later. Put your most dramatic and amazing fact in the first line.
"The mayor is in jail tonight."
"Jennifer never thought that three pigs would end up in her basement."
"Get ready for a big tax hike."
Don't start with history. Never begin a package with background information or past happenings. Avoid the temptation to tell the story chronologically. Packages that "begin at the beginning" are doomed to start with old and outdated facts. Most reporters tend to saunter up to the impressive story details, assuming viewers will stick around while they methodically build to the juicy stuff. Remember that all our viewers have ADD. You have seconds to impress them, not minutes.
Weak: "The mayor's office finished up its financial assessment today."
Stronger: "The mayor says the city is broke."
Weak: "Frank Johnson has been the chief resident at City Hospital for five years."
Stronger: "City Hospital refuses to give any more flu shots."
Finally, end the anchor intro with a promise of specific information to be revealed in the package. Most anchor intros end with generic phrases. Show the audience there is real meat inside the package. Identify the juiciest fact in the piece, then make a specific promise of the great coverage to come.
Weak: "Joe Smith is here with more."
Stronger: "Joe Smith tells us why the mayor won't give an inch on school funding."
Weak: "Bob Jones has details."
Stronger: Bob Jones tells us the clever way the family escaped the burning building.
Weak: Jessica Martin has been checking out the story.
Stronger: Jessica Martin tells us why these pets won't go to new homes.
Remember, this last line of the anchor intro is a tease, plain and simple. It's purpose is not just to inform, but to bridge the viewer on to the great content within the story. Feel free to pull these lines directly from story teases you used earlier in the newscast.
Graeme Newell is a broadcast and new media marketing specialist. He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free. Find out more here.
CNN Lags Behind MSNBC in Prime-Time Ratings
CNN will finish 2009 behind MSNBC in prime-time ratings, the first time CNN has ever trailed a competitor other than the Fox News Channel over a full calendar year. That finish had been expected. In recent months, CNN, which continues to stand behind its policy of steering clear of the opinion-based shows that draw large prime-time audiences for its competitors, has also trailed its own sister network, HLN (formerly Headline News). CNN has frequently finished fourth in the news channel category. CNN will finish the fourth quarter of 2009 in fourth place — another first — and with two weeks left has been fourth on more than 100 nights this year. But the end-of-the-year ratings for the news networks — which were being presented this week because nothing is likely to change by Jan. 1 — are bringing some other, less expected, results. One is the ability of Fox News, which had the biggest ratings year in its history, to grow even against the heavily viewed election year of 2008. (Both CNN and MSNBC were down sharply from last year.) Another surprise has been the steady growth, up 9 percent in prime time, of HLN, where hosts do offer opinions. Perhaps most surprising is the overall growth in viewing for all the news networks over the last several years. For example, even with its competitive problems in prime time, CNN has had more viewers on average this year than it did in 2006 or 2007. So has MSNBC. But they both have been left in the dust by Fox News. Fox has averaged 699,000 viewers for the year, up 10 percent, in the weeknight prime-time hours. (All figures cited here are for viewers ages 25 to 54, the audience that determines success among news networks because that is the group sought by news advertisers.) MSNBC was second with 307,000 viewers, while CNN averaged 297,000. But CNN remained much stronger than MSNBC everywhere but in those prime-time hours. CNN’s morning show, “American Morning,” beat “Morning Joe” on MSNBC for the year, 161,000 viewers to 136,000. (HLN’s “Morning Express” even beat “Joe” with 158,000.) And from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. CNN beat MSNBC, 185,000 viewers to 101,000. (In all cases both networks were again far behind Fox News.)
NY Times
Comcast Could Own 100% of NBCU by 2014, Analyst Foresees
Comcast could buy out General Electric Co.'s 49% interest in the NBC Universal joint venture for $17 billion in the next four years, according to Citigroup media analyst Jason Bazinet, a scenario that the analyst believes would not only make sense for the Philadelphia MSO, but would be affordable. According to the JV agreement, Comcast would have the right to buy out a portion of GE's stake in the joint venture after 3.5 years and the rest seven years after the deal closes. But in a 20-page research note issued late Wednesday, Bazinet wrote that it might make sense for Comcast to buy out GE early. GE would have to request that Comcast buy out its interest, which Bazinet is assuming it will do. The analyst estimated that the partnership would increase revenue from $18 billion in 2010 to $20 billion in 2014 and cash flow would rise from $3.3 billion to about $4.2 billion in the same time frame. Free cash flow is expected to increase from $1.6 billion to $2.5 billion in 2014. Bazinet estimates that Comcast would have to shell out about $17 billion to buy out GE's 49% stake, representing a 20% premium to the value of its interest in the JV. That, the analyst said, could be funded partly with Comcast cash on hand -- estimated to be about $11.6 billion by 2014 -- and $11.5 billion in debt that could be tacked on to the partnership. Bazinet wrote that NBCU should be debt free by 2014, which would enable Comcast to heap more debt on the partnership and still maintain a 2.75 times leverage ratio. "All told, this suggests there is about $23 billion of available funds. In effect, this suggests Comcast would have about $6 billion more in available funds that the 49% stake would cost," Bazinet wrote.
MultiChannel
Tiger's Affairs Cost Millions in Lost Ads
Tiger Woods’s indiscretions will cascade through Golf Inc., costing the PGA Tour, television networks such as CBS and merchandise vendors like Nike Inc. $220 million or more in lost revenue. Woods’s indefinite leave from the sport, announced Dec. 11 after he disclosed marital infidelity, deprives professional golf of its biggest draw. In his absence, tournament crowds may be 20 percent smaller, according to organizers. Television audiences may shrink by half, based on Nielsen Co. data from past events. TV advertising may drop by as much as 40 percent, said Aaron Cohen, chief media negotiating officer at New York-based ad agency Horizon Media Inc. Nike, which built its golf equipment business around Woods, stands to lose more than $30 million in sales, according to Claire Gallacher, an analyst with San Diego-based Capstone Investments Inc. “It’s not so much a ripple effect as it is a tsunami,” said Rick Gentile, a former CBS Sports executive producer who teaches at Seton Hall University. “The aura is gone.” The PGA Tour received revenue of $773 million from tournaments and television in 2008, according to its annual report. In turn, broadcasters received $642.7 million in TV advertising revenue, according to New York-based TNS Media Intelligence. Should Woods sit out the entire year, ad spending will skid 30 percent to 40 percent, Cohen said in an interview
Bloomberg
Pepsi Skipping Super Bowl Next Year
Ads for the drinks won't appear in next year's Super Bowl on CBS. Instead, the company plans to shift ad dollars to a new marketing effort that's mostly online. Pepsi was one of the biggest advertisers in this year's game and has advertised every year since 1987. Frito-Lay, a unit of parent company PepsiCo Inc., will still have Super Bowl commercials in the 2010 game. The company, which is based in Purchase, N.Y., spent $33 million advertising products like Pepsi, Gatorade, and Cheetos during the 2009 Super Bowl, according to TNS Media Intelligence, $15 million of it on Pepsi alone. Ad time for the NFL championship game cost about $3 million for 30 seconds, on average. Those prices may have dipped to as low as $2.5 million per 30 seconds for the 2010 game, according to Jon Swallen, senior vice president of research for TNS Media Intelligence. Pepsi had been a major advertiser during the Super Bowl. According to TNS, the company spent $142.8 million on the 10 Super Bowl ads from 1999 to 2008, second only to Anheuser-Busch, which spent $216 million. Pepsi recognizes Super Bowl ads can be effective for marketing, spokeswoman Nicole Bradley said, but the game doesn't work with the company's goals next year. "In 2010, each of our beverage brands has a strategy and marketing platform that will be less about a singular event and more about a movement," she said. The nation's second-biggest soft drink maker is plowing marketing dollars into its "Pepsi Refresh Project" starting next month as its main vehicle for Pepsi. The project will pay at least $20 million for projects people create to "refresh" communities. A Web site will go live Jan. 13 where people can list their projects, which could range from helping to feed people to teaching children to read.
Yahoo News
Twitter Hacked by Iranian Cyber Army
A group calling itself the Iranian Cyber Army hacked into Twitter, knocking the microblogging service offline early Friday morning. The group also hacked Iranian opposition Web site mowjcamp.org, redirecting traffic to its own site, where it claimed to have ties to Middle Eastern countries. It appears that hackers tampered with Twitter's DNS server records. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone wrote in on the company's blog that Twitter's DNS records were temporarily compromised tonight but have now been fixed. "As some noticed, Twitter.com was redirected for a while, but API and platform applications were working," Stone wrote. "We will update with more information and details once we've investigated more fully." The hackers defaced Twitter's and mowjcamp.org's home page, as people attempted to log into the service. While Twitter's service is now running, mowjcamp.org remains down. The message "written in confused English," according to the BBC, criticizes the United States for sanctions on Iran. "USA think they controlling and managing internet by their access, but they don't, we control and manage internet by our power," the message read. The hackers left an e-mail address. Searches for the mowjcamp.org on Google and Bing were also influenced by the hackers at the time. The mowjcamp.org YouTube channel continued to show demonstrations in Iran
MediaPost
Popes Taps Cyberspace to Reach Youth
Pope Benedict XVI, who at 82 still handwrites his speeches rather than use a computer, is tapping YouTube, MySpace and podcasts to lure disenchanted youth into the Church’s fold. Reaching out to the cyber-faithful, he this year debuted on YouTube, Google Inc.’s video-sharing site, and has a MySpace playlist that includes a rap song by Tupac Shakur. His midnight Christmas Mass next week will be podcast, and for the first time ever a Webcam will broadcast the Pope’s appearances from his apartment window overlooking St. Peter’s Square. “New media will be increasingly important for the Church and the Pope himself has said the Internet is a tool,” Don Paolo Padrini, 36, a priest in the northern Italian village of Stazzano, said in an interview. “It demonstrates the Church isn’t afraid of technology and is keeping up with the times.” Pope Benedict, who was elected in April 2005, is looking for ways to reach out to the young amid a decline in church attendance and following. Catholics were overtaken for the first time last year by the world’s 1.1 billion Muslims, according to the Vatican Statistical Yearbook. Attendance at Mass in the U.S. fell to 25 percent in 2002 from 75 percent in 1965, according to “Index of Leading Catholic Indicators: The Church since Vatican II” by Kenneth C. Jones. “The new digital arena, the so-called cyberspace, allows (people) to encounter and to know each other’s traditions and values,” the Pope said in a May speech. It’s for “young people, who have an almost spontaneous affinity for the new means of communication to take on the responsibility for the evangelization of this ‘digital continent,’” he said. The Vatican’s efforts to tap digital technologies go back to the 1990s. As his health began to fail, Pope John Paul II started the official Vatican Web site in 1995 and sent text messages to Catholic subscribers to his weekly Angelus prayer. The late pontiff also called the Internet a tool to “promote justice and solidarity.” “You must find new ways to spread voices and images of hope through the ever evolving communication system that surrounds our planet,” Pope Benedict said this year.
Bloomberg
Time Names Bernanke Person of the Year
Time magazine on Wednesday named Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke as its 2009 Person of the Year, calling him "the most powerful nerd on the planet." Bernanke will be featured on the cover of the magazine that hits stores Friday. He beat out Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, President Obama, Apple CEO Steve Jobs and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi among other finalists. Time said Bernanke was the reason the U.S. financial crisis wasn't worse. "The story of the year was a weak economy that could have been much, much weaker. Thank the man who runs the Federal Reserve, our mild-mannered economic overlord," the article said. "He didn't just reshape U.S. monetary policy; he led an effort to save the world economy." Bernanke was sworn in as Federal Reserve chairman in February 2006. He spent years in academia, as a professor at Princeton, Stanford and New York universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to the Fed's Web site.
CNN
Newsstand Gets Undercover Visit from Murdoch
Imagine the scene: a busy newsagent's shop in west London one morning. A hard-pressed woman behind the counter recognises two smartly dressed men in suits as sales representatives from the newspaper publisher News International. With them is a polite, elderly gentleman she cannot place. But he is the one who asks all the questions. How many copies of this or that paper do you sell? Are you getting your copies on time? What's your major problem at the moment? He seems like a nice guy and she answers without hesitation. The two reps smile indulgently in the background. After a couple of minutes, they depart. She looks a little baffled until one of her regular customers, who happens to have entered the shop as the group left, says to her: "Do you know who that man was?" "No idea." "It was Rupert Murdoch." And that, it transpires, was indeed the case. The head of one of the world's largest media conglomerates had called in to speak to Daxa Solanki, who – with her husband, Amraish – runs Jads newsagents, in Turnham Green. Murdoch, 78, chairman of the mighty News Corporation, visited several newspaper retailers incognito to gauge the concerns of the people who sell copies of his four Wapping titles, the Times, the Sun, the Sunday Times and the News of the World. The walkabout took place in July, around the time that Murdoch's British operation took over the delivery of its papers from its former distributors. A News International spokeswoman confirmed that the media mogul had wanted to see for himself what life was like for newsagents and to understand their problems. "He visited several shops in the west London area," she said. "He just wanted to know what was happening on the ground."
The Guardian
Book of Tens: Epic Media Feuds of 2009
SARAH PALIN VS. LEVI JOHNSTON
America's most famous retired Alaska politician took on America's most ... uh ... most famous baby daddy? Most unlikely pistachio pitchman? Most notorious Fleshbot-award-winning Playgirl model? Most cunning hoarder of unspecified damning personal information that could possibly derail a certain almost-mother-in-law's presidential prospects? We're not sure what to call him. Maybe you're on Team Sarah, maybe you're on Team Levi -- us, we're not taking sides because we want the deliciously surreal tango danced by these two masters of media to go on forever. Seriously, it's way better than anything we saw last season on "Dancing With the Stars."
JON VS. KATE
They had a bunch of kids, these two. They were cute kids, more or less. Mom and Dad exploited these cute kids to get on TV, and, for a while, everybody was mildly entertained. But the real show didn't really start until their stupid marriage started to come apart at the seams, and then Jon started acting out by canoodling with a new tabloid-ready gal pal, and then Kate changed her signature reverse-mullet haircut, and then Jon huddled with his new "spiritual adviser" Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, then Kate switched back to her reverse-mullet, and then ...
TIGER WOODS VS. A FIRE HYDRANT. AND A TREE. AND HIS IMAGE.
Or, if you want to believe the gossip mill, perhaps this should just be: Elin (the allegedly wronged and very angry wife) vs. Tiger. In the aftermath of the golf superstar's bizarre car accident, the year's best celebrity scandal arrived as an early Christmas present to the giddy tabloid press. Was Tiger really such a hound that his wife chased after his car with a golf club? Does he have a fatal weakness for party girls and cocktail waitresses? And do any of them have anger-management issues (and ready access to nine-irons) as well? Stay tuned.
RUPERT MURDOCH VS. FREE
In a year in which Wired Editor Chris Anderson insisted, per the title of his book "Free," that information really, truly should cost nothing, Rupert Murdoch came after him a golf club and ... oh wait, we're getting confused here. It was Google Rupert came after with a golf club. Er, no, wait, actually, it's just Rupert who's confused, because if he really wanted Google to stop "stealing" News Corp. content by linking to it, his websites could block Google search spiders overnight by adding a simple bit of HTML. No charge for that bit of info, Rupe.
LETTERMAN VS. EXTORTION PLOT
In media terms, David Letterman was the Tiger Woods of his day (you know, last October): a shameless philanderer who went looking for love in all the wrong places (i.e., the office). So why did we all move on from his scandal so (relatively) quickly? Because Dave came clean from the get-go -- and rather cleverly overshadowed consideration of his own failings by dissecting, on his show, the mentality of the guy Dave claims had the not-so-clever idea of demanding $2 million to clam up. Dave declared seriocomic battle on his "hinky" alleged extortionist -- and won the media war.
SARAH VS. DAVE
Congratulations, Sarah and Dave! You're both on our list twice this year! But really, Sarah Palin deserves way more than just two mentions -- because there was perhaps no feistier feud-er in the public eye this year, whether she was attacking McCain campaign staffers or attempting to derail Obamacare ("death panels!"). But given how long she milked her attack on Letterman for a tasteless joke -- and the fact that they couldn't even agree what the joke was about (Sarah insisted it was aimed at her younger daughter; Dave insisted it was about her adult daughter) -- Sarah vs. Dave definitely makes the cut.
PEREZ VS. PREJEAN
At the Miss USA pageant, judge Perez Hilton asked Miss California Carrie Prejean her opinion about gay marriage. Her answer: "I think it's great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land that you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage and ... I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman ..." Despite seeming to champion marital freedom of choice, Prejean was instantly cast as a heroine among, uh, "opposite marriage" supporters -- and Perez was cast as the nasty queen who derailed her shot at the crown.
ADAM LAMBERT VS. ABC
"American Idol" loser Adam Lambert hijacked the American Music Awards and ABC's airwaves to deliver a performance that included, most notoriously, simulated gay fellatio. A tone-deaf attempt, perhaps, to distance himself from the family-friendly karaoke competition where he made his name -- but more to the point, an assault on the sensibilities of TV viewers of every persuasion. ABC then effectively banned him from its airwaves, prompting Lambert to go on a non-apology tour (I'm the victim of homophobia, he tried to argue) and, well, anyway, how nostalgic we are for Janet Jackson's Nipplegate now!
BIRTHERS VS. OBAMA
Barack Obama can't be president of the United States because he's bl... er, because he's not a natural-born citizen. Yeah, that's it! Because he's from Indonesia or Kenya, not Hawaii, which is barely a real state anyway, or he's secretly half-British or something, or something-something about his Kenyan dad and stuff -- so, yeah. Anyway Lou Dobbs and a few other folks have kindly pitched in to rent a U-Haul van so that the Obamas can move out of the White House. But Barack's ticket back to Kenyanesia or wherever -- sorry, that he's going to have to cover himself.
THE WHITE HOUSE VS. FOX NEWS
Throughout the year the denizens of the White House apparently felt singled out -- terrorized! -- by Fox News. And so, come fall, in the midst of wartime and continuing economic meltdown, a bunch of administration brainiacs sat around and said, basically, "Fox News won't stop picking on us! Let's say mean stuff back to those meanies!" And so they did, on the White House website and on rival networks. Humbled, Fox News apologized, promised to change its bullying ways, and threw a tea party for Rahm Emanuel -- and everybody lived happily after.
Simon Dumenco is the "Media Guy" media columnist for Advertising Age. You can follow him on Twitter @simondumenco
AdAge
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In This Issue
Promo of the Day
Americans Snuggle Up to TV as Recession Drags
HBO Receives Record 17 Golden Globe Nominations
'Big Bang' Leads AFI's Top Shows
'Breaking Bad,' 'Mad Men' Lead Writer's Guild Awards Noms
House Top Time-Shifted Series
'Dexter' Dices Old Showtime Record
Obama Continues to Draw Viewers
Smear Campaign Undermines FCC Officer's Intentions
PTC Calls Out Indecency of 'Family Guy' Episode
Televangelist Oral Roberts Dies At 91
House Votes To Turn Down Commercials
WSJ and NYT's War of Words
Playgirl Turns Down Alleged Nude Wood Photos
Message From Michael
Top Ten Least Popular Mall Stores
Quotes
"No man, who continues to add something to the material, intellectual and moral well-being of the place in which he lives, is left long without proper reward."
- Booker T. Washington, American black leader and educator ((1856-1915)
"The sense of honour is of so fine and delicate a nature, that it is only to be met with in minds which are naturally noble, or in such as have been cultivated by good examples, or a refined education."
- Joseph Addison
"Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them."
- Aristotle
Promo of the Day
Holiday image promos from WBTV Charlotte that allow their viewers to take a breather from their hectic schedules and focus on a comforting holiday scene. 602communications.com/VideoExamples
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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
Americans Snuggle Up to TV as Recession Drags
More U.S. consumers have turned to the great American pastime of watching television as the recession strained household budgets, a survey set to be released on Tuesday shows. More than a third of Americans ranked watching TV, either live or using an On Demand feature or digital video recorder, as their favorite media activity, a 26 percent jump over 2008, the survey of U.S. entertainment preferences says. Nearly three-quarters of the respondents, aged 14 to 75, said hard times had cut into purchases of tickets to movies, concerts and sporting events as well as DVDs and video games. Average TV watching per week surged to nearly 18 hours from less than 16 hours last year, with Internet-savvy millenials -- the generation born between 1980 and 1995 -- charting the largest increase, Deloitte's 2009 State of the Media Democracy survey says. "Television was a big beneficiary of (the recession)," Ed Moran, director of insights and innovation at Deloitte, said in an interview. "The data does not support the demise of television, and advertising on television is still more effective than online ads." TV's renaissance also may be ascribed to viewers' growing passion for their favorite shows, Moran said. "There is much more passion around TV shows and they are using TiVos and DVRs to watch what they want to watch," Moran said. That attachment is fueling better-targeted ads that have become increasingly effective, he said.
Reuters
HBO Receives Record 17 Golden Globe Nominations
HBO received 17 Golden Globe nominations, the most of any television network this year, for the upcoming 67th annual Golden Globe Awards, which were announced today in Los Angeles. "Big Love," "Grey Gardens" and "Into the Storm" led all HBO programming with 3 nominations apiece. The Golden Globe Awards will be presented Jan. 17 in Los Angeles.
Time Warner
'Big Bang' Leads AFI's Top Shows
It's been a pretty huge year for CBS’s “The Big Bang Theory.” The third-year comedy, which built momentum during summer reruns before rising to television's No. 1 comedy this fall, has made the American Film Institute’s list of the top 10 TV shows of 2009. The other two broadcast shows to make the list were both first-year comedies: Fox’s “Glee” and ABC’s “Modern Family.” “Friday Night Lights,” which airs on DirecTV before rerunning on NBC, also made the list, with the remaining six entrants in the AFI’s top 10 coming from cable. HBO had three shows make the list, “Big Love,” The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” and “True Blood.” Also making the list were AMC’s “Mad Men,” Showtime’s “Nurse Jackie” and (perhaps the most surprising entrant on the list) Starz’ little-buzzed-about “Party Down.” On its web site the AFI says the shows selected “best advanced the art of the moving image; enhanced the rich cultural heritage of America’s art form; inspired audiences and artists alike; and/or made a mark on American society.”
MediaLife Magazine
'Breaking Bad,' 'Mad Men' Lead Writer's Guild Awards Noms
AMC's Breaking Bad and Mad Men Monday earned multiple Writers Guild Awards nominations for outstanding achievement in television, the Writer's Guild of America announced Monday. Overall HBO earned a cable industry best nine Writers Guild of America's WGA awards, while AMC, Showtime, Lifetime, Comedy Central, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon also garnered multiple award nods across 17 television categories. Breaking Bad and Mad Men will compete against each other in both the Best Dramatic Series and the best Episodic Drama categories. The latter category is dominated by cable programming, with HBO's True Blood and Big Love also vying for top honors along with Fox's House, the lone broadcast network entry. The 2010 Writers Guild Awards, which also honors excellence in radio, news, promotional writing, and graphic animation, will be held on Feb. 20 simultaneously at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles and the Hudson Theatre at the Millennium Broadway Hotel in New York City.
MultiChannel
House Top Time-Shifted Series
He may have shrugged the Vicodin monkey off his back, but Dr. Gregory House seems to inspire another habit in his loyal viewers. Per Nielsen live-plus-seven-day ratings data, Fox’ House is this season’s most time-shifted program on network TV, as 5.04 million viewers catch up with the ornery doc via their DVRs. That represents a 30 percent increase from the show’s live deliveries (11.5 million). Last season, House attracted a time-shifted audience of around 3.3 million viewers, according to Horizon Media senior vp, research, Brad Adgate. In the period between Sept. 21 and Nov. 29, five of the 10 most time-shifted shows originally aired on Thursday nights: ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy and Flash Forward, NBC’s The Office, and CBS’ The Mentalist and Survivor: Samoa. Grey’s Anatomy adds 4.97 million DVR viewers to its weekly live delivery (12.9 million viewers), as time-shifting accounts for 28 percent of the show’s total weekly draw. The Office’s time-shifted draw makes up 38 percent of its overall audience, adding 3.81 million viewers. While the older-skewing NCIS is seen by some 3.59 million DVR users, the delayed access makes up just 16 percent of the series’ total delivery. The procedural averages a weekly draw of 18.6 million viewers, making it the most-watched series on broadcast TV. With time-shifted viewing, that number jumps to 22.2 million total viewers. That said, NCIS is actually growing its DVR audience. Last season, the CBS drama averaged 2.5 million time-shifted viewers, about 1.1 million fewer (-46 percent) than fall 2009. Adgate notes that the DVR also helps age down the broadcast TV audience. In nearly every case, a series’ median age drops by more than one year upon application of L7 data.
MediaWeek
'Dexter' Dices Old Showtime Record
The fourth-season finale of "Dexter" sliced up bloody good numbers for Showtime, becoming the most-watched original program in network history. The Sunday 9 p.m. show averaged 2.575 million total viewers, up 54 percent over the show's season three ender last year. More than 500,000 tuned in for a replay of the finale at 11 p.m., bringing the show's total viewership to more than 3 million, also a new Showtime record. The finale, in which Dexter murdered a rival serial killer but also suffered a personal tragedy, was the most-watched program of any type on Showtime since a 1999 Mike Tyson boxing match. That helped boost lead-out "Californication" to a series-record 1.1 million viewers for its third-season finale. Also on Sunday night, the fourth-season premiere of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" became the network's highest-rated show ever among adults 18-34, averaging a 3.9, and women 18-34, averaging a 5.6.
MediaLife Magazine
Obama Continues to Draw Viewers
Both ABC and CBS had sit-downs with President Obama Sunday evening, and the ratings show he still pulls in the viewers a year after being elected. CBS' "60 Minutes," which was assisted by an NFL lead-in, drew a season high 16.24 million total viewers Sunday night, when the program's interview with Steve Kroft aired. Later that evening, Oprah hosted "Christmas at the White House" with President Obama and the First Lady at 10pmET. That show drew 11.8 million total viewers, the best number for ABC in that time-slot since the Adam Lambert AMA incident. Those numbers are certainly high, but, even so, neither program topped "Sunday Night Football" and Politico's Michael Calderone points out that the "60 Minutes" sit-down in November of '08 drew a massive 25.1 million viewers.
TV Newser
Smear Campaign Undermines FCC Officer's Intentions
FCC chief diversity officer Mark Lloyd says that he has received hate mail and death threats after what he calls an "incredible right-wing smear campaign." According to a copy of his speech to the Media Access Project at a conference Monday on the future of journalism, Lloyd said his mission at the FCC was not to restore the fairness doctrine or to banish conservative talkers from the airwaves. "Allow me to clear away some mud," he said, pointing out that MAP president Andrew Schwartzman first warned him of the possible right-wing backlash. "I am not at the FCC to restore the Fairness Doctrine through the front door or the back door, or to carry out a secret plot funded by George Soros to get rid of Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck or any other conservative talk show host. I am not at the FCC to remove anybody, whatever their color, from power. I am not a supporter of Hugo Chavez." Instead, he said: "I am an Associate General Counsel and the Chief Diversity Officer, I operate under the direction of the General Counsel to provide legal advice to the Commission. As with the General Counsel's Office generally, my portfolio cuts across the other offices and bureaus at the FCC, but with a focus on diversity." Lloyd came under fire from conservative bloggers and commentators, and some Republican legislators, over his writings as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he was co-author of a June 2007 paper, "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio." During an FCC oversight hearing in September, one Republican legislator said he was concerned Lloyd would become a government speech czar that would achieve fairness-doctrine-like results via new rules and license challengers on broadcasters. But FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said the commission's top diversity executive would be concentrating on broadband and would not be dealing with FCC broadcast license issues. He also said he would make him available for congressional questioning (adding, just as he would any other staffer).
MultiChannel
PTC Calls Out Indecency of 'Family Guy' Episode
The Parents Television Council has filed an indecency complaint with the FCC over the Dec. 13 episode of Fox's Family Guy, that contained what the group called an explicit scene in which a stripper gives a lap dance to a male character. Family Guy airs Sunday at 9 p.m. and is one of the most-watched programs on television with children ages 6-11. PTC's summary of the episode: "Loutish Peter takes his father-in-law and friends to a strip club named the Fuzzy Clam. Peter tells a stripper to perform a lap dance on his father-in-law. She bends over and waggles her rear before his face. "Do I stick the money right inside of her?" he asks. When Peter replies, "No, you do not," his father-in-law asks, "Why? Have you done that before?" Peter giggles nervously. As the woman briefly rubs her rear against the father-in-law's crotch, he asks, "When do I hit her?" Peter pours beer down his in-law's throat and orders the stripper to "give this old bastard the ride of his life." The stripper writhes up and down against the father-in-law's body, shakes her breasts in his face, then straddles his lap and thrusts her groin against his. Lois' father grunts in pleasure, then spasms and collapses to the ground as he has a heart attack." PTC President Tim Winter said in a statement: "Families with young children were exposed to this indecent content, which even aired during the first few minutes of the episode. Families who watch television together on Sunday night shouldn't be bombarded by content like this that would be more appropriate for the Playboy Channel. Is this how Fox upholds its obligation to use the people's airwaves ‘in the public interest?' Since when does assaulting families become more acceptable than entertaining them?" He continued: "Apparently Fox must believe that because the program is animated it can air anything it wants on Family Guy no matter how inappropriate or indecent. Fox hides behind satire and animation as an ‘excuse' to air the foulest material imaginable, but Fox needs to learn that broadcast decency laws apply to all broadcast programming aired during the time when children are most likely to be watching, and we urge our members to file indecency complaints with the Federal Communication Commission over this episode."
TV NewsCheck
Televangelist Oral Roberts Dies At 91
Oral Roberts, a pioneer in televangelism who founded a multimillion-dollar ministry and a university that bears his name, died Tuesday. He was 91. Roberts died of complications from pneumonia in Newport Beach, Calif., according to his spokesman, A. Larry Ross. The evangelist was hospitalized after a fall on Saturday. He had survived two heart attacks in the 1990s and a broken hip in 2006. Roberts was a pioneer who broadcast his spirit-filled revivals on television, a new frontier for religion when he started in the 1950s. He was also a forerunner of the controversial "prosperity gospel" that has come to dominate televangelism. The evangelist's "Seed-Faith" theology held that those who give to God will get things in return. Roberts overcame tuberculosis at age 17, when his brother carried him to a revival meeting where a healing evangelist was praying for the sick. Roberts said he was healed of the illness and of his youthful stuttering. He said that it was then that he heard God tell him he should build a university based on the Lord's authority and the Holy Spirit. Roberts rose from humble tent revivals to become one of the country's most famous preachers. He gave up a local pastorate in Enid in 1947 to enter an evangelistic ministry in Tulsa to pray for the healing of the whole person – the body, mind and spirit. The philosophy led many to call him a "faith healer," a label he rejected with the comment: "God heals – I don't." By the 1960s and '70s, he was reaching millions around the world through radio, television, publications and personal appearances. He remained on TV into the new century, co-hosting the program, "Miracles Now," with son Richard. He published dozens of books and conducted hundreds of crusades. A famous photograph showed him working at a desk with a sign on it reading, "Make no little plans here." Unity of body, mind and spirit became the theme of Oral Roberts University. The campus is a Tulsa landmark, with its space-age buildings laden with gold paint, including a 200-foot prayer tower and a 60-foot bronze statue of praying hands.
Huffington Post
House Votes To Turn Down Commercials
The House on Tuesday voted to level off the abrupt spikes in volume felt by television viewers during commercial breaks. The bill — approved by a voice vote — is aimed at stopping TV ads from playing noticeably louder than programs. "It's very frustrating," said Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va. "It's an annoying experience, and something really should be done about it." Irritated by loud commercials, Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., drafted the measure after discovering it was a common complaint with the Federal Communications Commission. Right now, the government doesn't have much say in the volume of TV ads. It's been getting grievances about commercial loudness for decades. Correcting sound levels has its complications. Managing the transition between programs and ads without spoiling the artistic intent of the producers poses technical challenges and may require TV broadcasters to purchase new equipment. To address the issue, an industry organization recently produced guidelines on how to process, measure and transmit audio in a uniform way. The bill requires the FCC to adopt those recommendations from the Advanced Television Systems Committee as regulations within a year and begin enforcing them a year later. Some experts have said they are unsure whether viewers will notice much difference if the bills become law. Different volume levels can be part of storytelling. And some commercials may just seem noisy because they follow a quiet, intense scene.
TV NewsCheck
WSJ and NYT's War of Words
When Rupert Murdoch first went after The Wall Street Journal several years ago, there was little doubt that he intended to directly challenge The New York Times, which was then doing well, and in no small part at the expense of the Journal, long adrift under the stewardship of the Bancroft family. And when Murdoch bought the paper, installing his own Murdochian regime, it was only a matter of time before hostilities would break out. That's now happened, and it appears the trigger was the recent announcement that the Journal would be launching a New York City edition next spring. Yesterday, the Times' media columnist, David Carr, wrote a piece slamming the Journal for shifting to the right in its news coverage, especially of Washington: "The pro-business, antigovernment shift in the news pages has broken into plain view in the last year." The Journal's editor in chief, Robert Thomson, then responded, putting out this statement: "The news column by a Mr. David Carr today is yet more evidence that The New York Times is uncomfortable about the rise of an increasingly successful rival while its own circulation and credibility are in retreat." That got the goat of Times editor Bill Keller, who responded: "While David's column clearly got under Mr. Thomson's skin, I don't see anything in this response that casts doubt upon it. The column was scrupulously fair and, if anything, understated." What's there to make of this word-bashing? Not much, except perhaps the promise of a new and more entertaining rivalry to follow in place of the bickering that went back and forth for years between the New York Daily News and the Post.
MediaLife Magazine
Playgirl Turns Down Alleged Nude Wood Photos
For those women who haven’t yet seen Tiger Woods naked, and there seems to be fewer of them by the day, the wait will continue. Playgirl magazine has decided against publishing nude photos purported to be of the world's No. 1 golfer because it wasn’t able to verify their authenticity. Playgirl director of marketing Daniel Nardicio told People magazine, “Playgirl has decided to turn down the alleged Tiger Woods nude photos, reportedly taken by camera phone by Woods himself. They were impossible to 100 percent verify, hence the unwillingness to go there. This is a prime example of the direction Playgirl does not want to take. I prefer subjects who are willing.” Playgirl, which plans to re-launch a print version next year, reportedly received the images from one of the golfer’s many alleged former mistresses. Woods, of course, has been embroiled in scandal the past few weeks after allegations that he cheated on his wife with nearly a dozen women. He's admitted to unspecified infidelities and is taking a leave of absence from the greens.
MediaLife Magazine
Message From Michael
THE INFORMATION DELUGE: Or, put another way, we need a modern-day Noah to help us survive the information flood. According to the Global Information Industry Center at the University of California/ San Diego, “Americans consumed information for about 1.3 Trillion hours (which totaled) 3.6 Zettabytes and 10,845 Trillion words.” Or, put another way, Americans spent 12 hours a day consuming information which translates to 100,500 words and 34 Gigabytes of information “for an average person on an average day.” Now, this idea may be a little hard to grasp, but the study authors say the actual consumption of information in bytes increased by only 5.4% per year, but the capacity to process data rose by at least 30% per year. Okay, while you’re trying to process that, here are some other points made in the study. Traditional media (radio and TV) still dominate our information consumption pattern, accounting for 60% of the hours spent. Despite the rise in computers, more than three-quarters of U.S. households’ information is spent with non-computer sources. Yet, because of computers, the amount of information “received interactively” is a full third of all words and more than half of all bytes received. The authors make the point that information consumption was passive in the past with the telephone being the only ‘interactive’ medium. Americans spent 16% of their “information hours” using the Internet versus 41% using Television. And reading, which had declined because of television, has actually tripled from 1980 to 2008 because it is the “overwhelmingly preferred way to receive words on the Internet.”
Esoteric but interesting is a point made by the authors that they are only measuring “artificial” forms of information. If they were to include “personal conversation” as a source of information, “it is possible that we receive fewer bytes Info/c than our ancestors did 100 years ago.” Info/c, by their definition, is ‘compressed bytes’ information, and personal conversation is “very high bandwidth” with “stereo vision and sound.” So, three hours of personal conversation at this bandwidth would translate into 135 Gigabytes of Info/c – about four times the average daily consumption today. As to the future… well, the authors admit they’re not so sure. Television represents the biggest shift. Mobile television and video over the Internet may cause the greatest ‘dislocation’ in information, but mobile television is still a ‘niche product’ and Internet video is a complement rather than a supplement to television because the bandwidth challenges means most Internet video is grainy and slow to load. When bandwidths increase, that could result in a dramatic change. The fastest future growth will probably come from computer gaming, according to the report.
Some Caveats: The authors distinguish between data and information, with information being considered a sub-set of data. Also as hard as it may be to believe, the study authors say their numbers are only for home and out-of-home information consumption and NOT work times. The authors also note that their reports are only estimates because “in some cases, behavior is changing so fast that January 2008 and December 2008 may be quite different.” By the way, because I figure that some of my very smart readers would know this, but some (like me) wouldn’t, a Zetabyte is a Million Million Gigabytes.
TO PAY OR NOT TO PAY: That still is the question, and two recent reports did nothing to help resolve the question, according to an article from the Online Publishers Association. The Boston Consulting Group found that nearly half of Americans (48%) would be willing to pay for online news content, but only about $3 a month. More people are willing to pay for unique local news content (72%) or specialized coverage (73%). On the other hand, Forrester Research found that four out of five (80%) were NOT willing to pay with less than one in ten (8%) saying they would be willing to pay if it were one fee for ALL subscription content. A measly 3% liked, or accepted, the idea of micro-payments.
THE NEWS CHALLENGE CHALLENGE: No, that’s not a typo. It’s to say that now the challenge begins for the people behind the Knight News Challenge. The project which has funded such ideas as Adrian Holovaty’s Everyblock and Sir Tim Berner-Lee’s Transparent Journalism had 788 applications by the closing date. This is the place to go, if you want to see what the future of journalism may be. As the site authors note, “nobody knows all the answers.” That’s why the funders, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, say they created their various funding programs – to seed experiments. Some of those seeds grow into oaks. The Everyblock project which provided some templated tools for people to create citizen journalism websites in cities around the world was recently sold to MSNBC for a figure reportedly in the Millions of dollars. The sale has been controversial because of the irony that a mammoth mainstream media operation now owns what was supposed to be a micro-journalism mechanism. But we’ve already talked about that in a previous Message about citizen journalism efforts. In any case, the point is you can visit the site to find several innovative and interesting ideas.
In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I have submitted an application to create a consultancy of news professionals turned news professors. As always I try to keep the Message objective and avoid self-serving statements, so I won’t go into what a great idea it is. However, I have to note that humorously (depending on one’s sense of humor), the Knight project which has a technology and new media focus obviously has a glitch in its technology. I have received more than two dozen emails saying the same thing – that the contest is closed.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: One company (Nokia) accounts for a tenth (9%) of all the corporate taxes paid in one country (Finland). A little factoid buried in an article in The New York Times about the company’s struggles. Even though Nokia dominates the smart phone market (16.2 million phones, compared to Apple’s 7 Million and Research in Motion’s 8.5 Million), Nokia has the lowest growth rate of any company. In fact, Nokia used to account for a fifth (19%) of all corporate taxes paid in Finland. Other factoids were that Nokia accounts for one third of Finland’s total research and spending and one quarter of its total stock exchange capitalization. Similar to the conflicting studies mentioned above about content payment, a report by the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project, found that a quarter (26%) of teenagers of driving age admitted texting while driving, but half (48%) say they have been in a car while somebody else texted. As almost a footnote, or maybe additional perspective, to the Information report above, comScore reports 167 Million Web users watched 28 Billion online videos during the month of October.
FOOTNOTE: As several industry newsletters have noted, the Federal Communications Commission wasted no time in jumping on the question of using television spectrum for broadband bandwidth expansion. I only make this a footnote, because I have hit the subject so often in the last month. But the FCC action is worth noting because it is such quick movement on a controversial topic. First off, the commission issued a “public notice” soliciting comments by December 21st. Then, it followed that with the hiring of a Duke University law professor who has written on the subject and whom TVNewsCheck editor Harry Jessel characterized as a “broadcast TV hitman.”
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.
Top Ten Least Popular Mall Stores
10. Frederick's of Bayonne
9. Old Gravy
8. Ahmadinejad & Fitch
7. Andy Dick's Sporting Goods
6. Williams-Pneumonia
5. Godiva "It Might Be Chocolate"
4. Filene's Damp Crawlspace
3. Regis' Used Hip Emporium
2. Dead Body Shop
1. Amy's Wine House
Late Show with David Letterman
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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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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
Find the Right Keywords to Promote your News Web Site
Nielsen's Top Ten Lists for Media Industry 2009
Bad Economy Good for CNBC
NBC Launches 'Chuck' Game for Twitter, Facebook
ABC Creates Online 'Lost University'
GE Pledges $345 Mil in Ads to NBC
Ad Spend Falls 11.5%: Nielsen
Marketing Spend Heading To Interactive: Forrester
Most Click Away From Halting Video: Study
AP Launches File-Based Video Delivery
Sony Taps YouTube Phenom to Auto-Tune the Ads
Koreans Celebrate 'IPTV Day'
Admitting You have an Internet Addiction: Quiz
Quotes
"A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, American author, wit, poet (1809-1894)
"All words are pegs to hang ideas on."
- Henry Ward Beecher, American preacher, orator, writer (1813-1887)
"The wise weigh their words on a scale with gold."
- The Holy Bible
Find the Right Keywords to Promote your News Web Site
by Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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http://www.602communications.com
Twitter: gnewell
Facebook: facebook.com/gnewell
Keyword advertising is one of the hottest new opportunities to advertise your news web site. These are the text ads that appear to the right on search engine pages like Google, MSN and Yahoo. Pay-per-click advertising provides quantifiable results and an opportunity to target people looking for information on specific keywords. Anyone searching for "Memphis football" is someone I want to point to my sports web page. Advertisers have learned that this kind of qualified lead is worth a premium ad rate.
The problem is newbie keyword advertisers can quickly burn through an entire media budget if they pick the wrong words in Google's Adwords. Should they pick "Memphis football highlights" or "Memphis football scores?" Each will have a different advertising rate, and bring in a differing quality and number of people. It is absolutely essential that the right keywords be selected.
Far too many ad buyers make their learning curve mistakes with real dollars and real ads. They end up wasting thousands of dollars. Everyone has a learning curve in this new advertising space, but the good news is there are software products that can eliminate a lot of the guesswork. The process breaks down into two steps. First, creating the largest list of relevant keywords possible, and second, testing the actual keywords to track cost effectiveness of the plan.
Coming up with a massive list of relevant keywords can be tough. Luckily, there are free tools like Google's Adwords keyword tool at: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
The problem with these free services is your ad competitors probably have the same tools. There are also paid tools that work quite well. One of the better ones is "Keywords Analyzer." This software can be configured to display the other ads using those words on Google's Adwords and Yahoo's PPC network. It also displays the number of competing ads, the maximum bid and other relevant facts.
After you have generated your whopping keyword list, group those words into smaller lists. Arrange your keywords into groups that have at least one word in common. For example, test "Memphis weather" vs "Memphis forecast" vs "Memphis weather report." Also don't forget to test commonly misspelled words. "Memphis forcast" may have a much lower pay-per-click rate than the properly spelled "Memphis forecast." Test a lot of different combinations. Sometimes the strangest words are used to find common things. You can find a great ad bargain by thinking broad, then doing your homework to laser in on effective click through rates.
Once you're ready to buy ads, make sure you follow up and track the people your ads attracted. How long did they stay on your site? Did they click on any ad links while visiting? Did they watch any video? By tracking and testing different keywords, you can learn the most effective keywords that attract the highest paying prospects.
Graeme Newell is a broadcast and web marketing specialist. He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free. Find out more here.
Nielsen's Top Ten Lists for Media Industry 2009
Nielsen has released its list of top ten lists for the media industry in 2009 and appointment viewing, particularly live shows. Broadcast nets continue to lead the TV pack, while cable tops the time shifters. The top two regularly scheduled programs by household rating were both American Idol, the Wednesday edition (14.4 rating) and the Tuesday edition (13.8). ABC's Dancing With the Stars (12 rating), NBC's Sunday Night Football (11.7), and the Dancing With the Stars results show (9.9) rounding out the top five, followed by NCIS: L.A. (9.8), NCIS (9.4), NFL on ESPN (8.8), Sunday Night NFL Pre-kick (8.8) and The Good Wife (8.5). NBC had the top four single broadcasts when its almost daylong coverage of the Super Bowl is divided into distinct segments, which it was. The game was tops with a 42 rating, followed by the pre-kick, kick-off and post-game shows. In fact, NFL football accounted for nine of the top 10 single telecasts, the other being the Oscars with a 20.6, coming in at number eight. But while broadcasting's live programming dominated the day-and date viewing, cable topped the list of time-shifted programming. Battlestar Galactica was tops with an additional 59.4% viewing from time shifters. Mad Men was second with 57.77% more (perhaps all those viewers watching Sunday night football over on NBC), followed by Damages with 56.3%, Rescue Me with 53.2%, True Blood with 46.9%, Stargate Universe (46.5.9%), Sanctuary (45.9%), Heroes (the top broadcast show with 45.9% as well), Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (45.5), 10 Things I Hate About You. Dollhouse, and Melrose Place (all 44.9). Other highlights: Top TV ad product placement in terms of brand recognition was Subway plug in Biggest Loser when contestants eat at restaurant; most likeable ad was Budweiser ad with Clydesdale fetching tree branch; Weather Channel, ESPN and CNN came in number four, eight and 10, respectively on the list of top Web sites accessed over mobile phones.
Broadcasting & Cable
Bad Economy Good for CNBC
CNBC is in its fourth year of double digital profit growth, president Mark Hoffman said here Wednesday, highlighting that the network's coverage of the financial crisis elevated its viewership abroad and reach in digital media to new heights. Speaking at the annual UBS Global Media and Communications Conference, Hoffman also said he is excited about CNBC's outlook under the likely future ownership by Comcast, which is looking to acquire a 51% in parent company NBC Universal. Current majority owner GE has never interfered and has been very supportive of CNBC, he told the Wall Street crowd. And the time he has spent with Comcast chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and COO Steve Burke "has laid a tremendous foundation for where we're headed," Hoffman argued. Asked about ratings gains amid the financial crisis, he said the initial effect was a "spectacular audience" that allowed the second-most profitable NBC Uni channel behind USA to temporarily go "from a niche channel to really a populist channel." The usual 300,000 or so average viewership per hour in measured homes, which exclude trading floors and the like, at times jumped to more than 1 million during the crisis, he said. What about advertising trends? Auto and financial advertisers are key for CNBC, and many pulled back amid the crisis and recession, Hoffman said. "They are back now," he added. The current fourth quarter has been "much better" than thought in the U.S., and Europe has also done well, according to the CNBC boss. And first-quarter 2010 trends seem similar. "We're cautious, but we're optimistic," Hoffman said.
Hollywood Reporter
NBC Launches 'Chuck' Game for Twitter, Facebook
This is deviously clever. NBC is launching a "Chuck" game that gives points to fans who talk about the show using social media. The game is called "Mission: Chuck Me Out" and is located here, designed to track users who mention "Chuck" on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace (so ... on Twitter and Facebook, in other words). In fact, every Tweet that mentions "Chuck" can earn the user a point. The ginormous nerd fan who racks up the most points between now and March 10 will be rewarded by having their photo appear during the NBC program in one of Chuck's mental flashes. The game is similar to the “Biggest Gleek” game Fox launched for “Glee” in August. So for the cost of just about nothing, NBC's game could get "Chuck" fans chattering about the show even more than they already do in social media circles. Again, deviously clever -- assuming all these cyber components work as expected. "The fans of 'Chuck' have been incredibly passionate and supportive of the show," said Adam Stotsky, president, NBC entertainment marketing. "We want to reward this loyalty and activate further social conversation about the incredible new season. This innovative promotion is an excellent way to accomplish both objectives."
THR Feed
ABC Creates Online 'Lost University'
I've learned everything I need to know in life by watching -- in no particular order -- "The Honeymooners," "F Troop," "Seinfeld," "West Wing" and the Tour de France. Just in time for the digital age comes another "educational" TV moment -- this time, curiously, from those fine creative minds of ABC's engrossing, sometimes frustrating, series, "Lost." They've created "Lost University," a faux online university, where professors of USC and UCLA, offer up real-life answers or theories when it comes to the fictional TV show's more pressing questions surrounding physics, philosophy, and all that pseudo-mythology fans lean on. For example, Sean Carroll, a Caltech professor, teaches an introduction to physics of time Travel. "Lost University" is a marketing tool from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment group. In the past, real-life colleges have had courses on all kinds of TV shows with the intent of eliciting what those characters and storylines mean for the culture at large. Here are some current real offerings: Rochester Institute of Technology's "Introduction to Cultural Studies: "The Simpsons"; Georgetown University's "Philosophy and ‘Star Trek'"; CUNY's Brooklyn College's "South Park and Political Correctness"; University of Washington's "Management Lessons from ‘The Apprentice'"; and Oberlin College's "Chosen: ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.'" Using TV shows as marketing tools, which equates to teasing students about real-life questions, can glam up sometimes-boring educational themes. I'm all for that. But we shouldn't take things too far. "Lost" is still a TV show, not a lesson in quantum physics. "It's a great medium, because you don't want a TV show to become didactic," Caltech professor Sean Carroll, told the Los Angeles Times. He goes on to say: "It's the perfect marriage of entertainment and education." Well, not perfect. Confusion still reigns in TV. There are always many more questions then answers to most scientifically tinged entertainment writing. Just ask some former fans of "Heroes." There are plenty of courses to consider in Lost University: "HIS 101: Ancient Writing on the Wall," "PHI 101: I'm Lost, Therefore I am," "PHY Seminar: New Physics with Jeremy Davies"; and "SCI 201: Jungle Survival Basics." "Lost" students are required to do homework and exams. Those with staying power receive a diploma at the end. Strangely, there is no course called "Writing 201: How to finish a long TV series, tie up loose ends, and give viewers a big splashy finish."
MediaPost
GE Pledges $345 Mil in Ads to NBC
It might be a year or more before Comcast takes control of NBC Universal, but it already has lined up a major advertiser for NBC: General Electric. According to a regulatory filing, GE plans to buy at least $59 million worth of ads each year for five years once the deal giving Comcast 51 percent of the new NBCU joint venture closes. In addition, according to the AP, GE will buy $50 million in ads for the 2012 Olympics, bringing the total five-year-commitment to at least $345 million. The filing came one day after GE said it would purchase from Vivendi the portion of NBCU it didn't already own, then sell Comcast a 51 percent stake in a revamped version of NBCU. Meanwhile, Comcast evp David Cohen told Reuters that the parties intend on filing the necessary antitrust documents to government regulators next month. He said he expects the process to take nine to 12 months but that if a year passes without approval, the companies have an option to extend the deal for another six months. "We welcome regulatory scrutiny, and we welcome congressional hearings because that gives us the opportunity to make our case," Cohen said. "I can absolutely, definitively say prices are not going to go up for Comcast customers any more or less than they would have without this transaction."
MediaWeek
Ad Spend Falls 11.5%: Nielsen
Only three media advertising areas have shown growth through the first three-quarters of this year: cable TV, Spanish-language cable TV and free-standing newspaper inserts. The Nielsen Company says overall U.S. advertising spending declined 11.5% from January through September -- compared to the same time period a year ago -- to $83.4 billion. Cable TV climbed 9.1%; Spanish-language cable TV improved 36.7%; and free-standing insert coupons rose 11.2%. Sixteen other main categories declined anywhere from 0.5% for the Internet to 48.3% for local Sunday supplements. While cable generally posted better numbers, other TV areas showed mostly double-digit declines. Broadcast networks sank 13.9%; syndication TV dropped 15.9%; Spot TV in the top 100 DMAs sank 16%; and spot TV in smaller markets, 100 through 210, were 12.6% lower. One lesser hit TV area was Spanish-language network TV, down 4.6%. Radio generally fared a bit better than TV. Spot radio was down 9.6%, while network radio was off 10.2%. Nielsen says many of the same declining advertising categories continue to hurt media sales results. Automotive factory/dealer advertising was chopped 30.9% to $5.4 billion, and local auto ad dropped 26.9% to $2.4 billion. Wireless phone media lost 5.4% to $2.5 billion; pharmaceutical was down 4.6% to $3.2 billion; and motion picture advertising slipped 1.7% to $2.5 billion. Improving categories included fast -food restaurants, up 1.8% to $3.1 billion and direct response commercials, 3.3% improved to $1.8 billion. The overall top 10 categories have fallen 12.7% to $25.7 billion.
MediaPost
Marketing Spend Heading To Interactive: Forrester
Interactive marketing will approach $55 billion and represent 21% of all marketing spend in 2014, benefiting from search, online display, email marketing, social media and mobile marketing, per Forester's Interactive Marketing Forecast. The firm predicts that the shift will result in overall lower marketing budgets, the end of old-media agencies, and interestingly, a new identity for Yahoo. The firm, which surveyed 204 marketing executives across industries, found that the recession is accelerating the shift to interactive, mobile media, and social media. The executives also said that marketing is gaining more power in corporations because of its connection to consumers. The firm says 40% of marketers said that marketing is the strategic leader of their organization. By far, print will suffer the cuts. A full 60% of respondents to Forrester's survey said they are boosting interactive budget by shifting money from other media. Forty percent of those who are increasing interactive media said they will take money from direct mail; 35% said newspaper media will get the axe to feed interactive; 28% said magazines. By contrast, only 12% said TV will get cut. When the marketers were asked to parse media by which would see its effectiveness increase, stay the same or decrease, marketers were most optimistic about social media, online video, search engine optimization, mobile, paid placement in social media, email and paid search, in descending order. Near the bottom were outdoor, telemarketing, radio and newspapers.
MediaPost
Most Click Away From Halting Video: Study
Nearly 7% of video streamed by top content-delivery networks is slow-loading, indicating that Web video still falls short of offering TV-quality viewing, according to new findings by video analytics firm TubeMogul. The study was based on a sample of 192 streams over two weeks from CDNs including Akamai, Limelight, Edgecast, Panther/CD Networks and Bit Gravity. The companies collectively help to power video across thousands of sites, including popular video-centric properties like Metacafe, msnbc.com and ESPN. TubeMogul also found that when users encounter mid-stream rebuffering (when the little progress wheel pops up), 81% bail out on the video. That means post-roll ads attached to balky video clips largely go unseen and views of halting stand-alone video ads are not completed. "The technology just isn't there yet to have a TV-like experience," said David Burch, marketing director at TubeMogul. "And if it's an advertiser hosting video on a branded site or distributing it across the Web, people are just clicking away when they see that spinning wheel." Regardless of quality, the popularity of Web video continues to grow. The average time Americans spent watching online video jumped 35% to three hours, 24 minutes in the third quarter compared to a year ago, according to the latest Three Screen report from Nielsen. The total number of viewers increased 15% to 138 million.
MediaPost
AP Launches File-Based Video Delivery
The Associated Press has introduced a file-based video news delivery service, providing broadcast customers with a modern delivery platform that better integrates with their digital newsroom production systems. AP Media Port will allow customers to receive video news stories as separate digital files, which will be dispatched to the client as soon as each story is ready. This means clients will no longer need to record stories from AP's Global Video Wire feed based on a 24-hour bulletin schedule. "By introducing AP Media Port delivery, our clients will find it even easier to integrate AP content into their digital workflows," said Nigel Baker, vice president of business operations for the AP. "They'll also be able to identify the footage they need much faster," he added. The Media Port server is a customized high-end server installed in customer data centers. It captures and forwards the video files to the customer's production system. Video editors at the customer location can access AP content on the Media Port server through an intuitive Web browser interface that was designed by AP's editorial, business and software development teams. It includes many features that were influenced by feedback from customers who participated in a one-year pilot version of the service. The server has a "backhaul" function that automatically resends videos that were missed by the customer (often before a customer knows a file is missing). This feature, AP says, all but eliminates the need for time-consuming file retransmission requests which have historically been managed over the phone or via e-mail. The servers are accessible remotely by the AP, allowing it to monitor their health and install software updates as needed.
TVNewsCheck
Sony Taps YouTube Phenom to Auto-Tune the Ads
Jay-Z may have declared "Auto-tune is dead" months ago, but don't tell that to The Gregory Brothers. The group, which has parlayed the audio processing technique into Internet phenomenon "Auto-Tune the News," has crossed over to the marketing realm to help amplify 180 LA's ongoing campaign for Sony Electronics. "We had to find a way to take the existing campaign and generate some additional PR or social currency around it," said Amir Farhang, 180's creative director of digital and innovation. "We'd all seen 'Auto-Tune the News' and how huge of a following they'd garnered in the last year, and we're huge fans ourselves. We knew we could work with their current momentum in pop culture to make something memorable." The Gregory Bros tweaked existing assets from Sony's now-ubiquitous "Panel of Experts" spots starring Peyton Manning and Justin Timberlake. Having sliced, spliced, added effects and inserted themselves into the mix, the group produced a dizzying two-minute music video complete with an original Auto-Tune-aided audio track. Auto-Tune the Ads" video has racked up more than 500,000 views since it was posted two weeks ago. According to Farhang, it was best for 180 LA to let the Gregory Bros just do their thing.
ClickZ
Koreans Celebrate 'IPTV Day'
One of the ingredients in South Korea's emergence as a global broadband leader has been a government-steered national focus on promoting new technology. With that in mind, the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) declared December 12 to be IPTV Day. The date was chosen because it is the one-year anniversary of the launch of linear IPTV service. It may not exactly sound like Mardi Gras, but perhaps young IPTV markets like the U.S. could use such a promotional push to make sure there is continued energy and focus on IPTV innovations. Maybe our own Federal Communications Commission could do something similar--though the FCC may have one or two other priorities on its mind these days. Anyway, Happy IPTV Day, Korea!
Fierce IPTV
Admitting You have an Internet Addiction: Quiz
"Mr. Alexander, 19, needed help to break an addiction that he called as destructive as alcohol or drugs. He found it in Fall City, where what claims to be the first residential treatment center for Internet addiction in the United States just opened its doors...for $14,000 it offers a 45-day program" - The New York Times
Fall City treatment center has provided this checklist to help individuals determine whether they or a loved one are suffering from internet addiction:
[] Do you surf the internet alone?
[] Do you plan social gatherings around your ability to access the internet?
[] Have you ever turned down an invitation to a kegger or other drink and/or drug-based recreation in order to use the internet?
[] Is the statement: "I have seen more pixellated and/or downloaded boobs than real, live boobs" true for you or your loved one?
[] Is the statement "I have never seen real-live boobs, I have all the ones I need on the internet" true for your or your loved one?
-Please count one for each of the follow terms/abbreviations that you understand and/or use:
[] pwned
[] nsfw
[] WoW
[] lemon party
[] lol
[] lolcatz
[] btw
[] btw,dyhatlbswm?*
*The last letters of this phrase may or may not indicate "wardrobe malfunction."
[] Do you tweet more than ten times in a 24-hour period?
[] Do you tweet more than 24 times in a 24-hour period?
[] Does the term "going off the grid" frighten you? Please count two points if it induces sweat and/or shrieking fits.
[] Are a majority of the people you count as friends individuals you have never actually met in person?
[] When was the last time you spoke to a live individual? If within the last eight hours, do not mark anything, if between 8 and 24 hours, mark one, if between 24 hours and one week, mark two, if over one week, please look online for our agoraphobia treatment options, available from home! (Note: phone conversations can be counted as speaking contact, barring conversations with telemarketers, home-shopping personalities, or any brand of tech support. Headset communications with other WoW users cannot be counted)
[] Do you check your e-mail hourly or more regularly? Work e-mail does count; remember, denial is one of the most common features of addiction problems.
[] Have you ever had to reupholster your parents' basement couch cushions because of your internet 'usage?'
[] Have you ever seen a donkey show? (If show was viewed in Mexico, or on any spring-break excursion, feel free to leave this box blank)
[] Have you witnessed more than a dozen celebrity sex acts, despite living in Topeka?
[] Have you ever referred to food as "manna?"
[] Do you picture yourself as having a health-meter?
[] Do you ever accidentally refer to yourself and/or sign credit card receipts with your screen name?
[] Does your internet usage interrupt your sleep? Waking up, restlessness, or guilt inspired by images seen while surfing the web count when answering this question.
- Please count one for every message board you contribute to daily or more frequently (commenting on news sites counts)
- Please count one for every blog you maintain regularly or on which you have admin access
- Please count one for every social networking site you visit daily or more frequently
- Please count one for every person you hated in high school, but whom you've friended on Facebook, anyway.
If you have checked 0-3 boxes: you likely do not have a problem. Fall City would like to offer their self-monitoring software, though, at a low cost of just $19.99/mo. in order to make sure you maintain a healthy internet attitude.
If you have checked 4-8 boxes: you are exhibiting addictive behaviors which, if not checked, could develop into a full-blown problem. We recommend a week's stay at Fall City in order to nip those bad habits in the bud.
If you have checked 9-12 boxes: just claiming that your internet use is a product of fitting into and competing in the modern world doesn't change the facts: you are spending a dangerous amount of time on the web. You may consider yourself a functioning internaholic right now, and it may actually be helping you both personally and professionally, but who knows how long you can keep all those balls on the trapeze. See? That sort of metaphor-mixing is just one of many side-effects of your addiction. We suggest a 12-week course of treatment, starting immediately, with weekly follow-up appointments to continue indefinitely.
If you have checked 12 or more boxes: you are a Robert Downey Jr.-level addict; no matter how many times you may pull the plug, your need to connect will always be stronger, and you'll soon resort to behaviors like stealing wireless signals, sitting in coffee shops for hours on end in order to get your fix, even creating excuses like "having a job" and "the way the majority of the world does business" and "how else will I know where my interview/party/new apartment is?" just to check your e-mail. We strongly suggest you check in for an extended stay, at least a year, in order to really have a chance at leading a normal, productive, internet-free existence.
Follow Jilly Gagnon on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jillygagnon
Huffington Post
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