The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills.  Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site.  Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.

Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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In This Issue
Promo of the Day
U.S. Media Ownership Restrictions Eased
Scripps Aims to Reinvent Local TV News
Healthcare Vote Delivers Viewers for Cable News
'Life' Draws Discovery's Best Debut Ratings in a Decade
IFC Goes 'Slightly Off'
Old Spice Finds Success in Viral Ad Campaign
Site Aims to Send Limbaugh to Costa Rica
After Year of Pain, Advertising Making Gains
Message From Michael: State Of The News Media -- 2010
Old Spice's FaceBook Quips


Quotes

"I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention.  To not be like your parents.  To not be like your friends.  To be yourself.  To cut yourself out of stone."
- Henry Rollins

"If we are to achieve results never before accomplished, we must expect to employ methods never before attempted."
- Francis Bacon

"The reinvention of daily life means marching off the edge of our maps."
- Bob Black


Promo of the Day
Since launching online just over a month ago, Old Spice's “Smell like a man, man” commercial has been a viral Internet sensation; the original 30-second ad had logged 5.1 million hits by late last week, making it the sixth-most- watched YouTube video over 30 days, and it caused a nine-fold increase in monthly traffic to OldSpice.com in February. (Read the continuation of this article below in this newsletter).

A sampling of their popular viral campaigns - Different Scents for Different Gents/The Man Your Man Could Smell Like/Armpit Mountain/Swagger - can be viewed here:602communications.com/VideoExamples

To see the rest in each series, go to www.oldspice.com/videos/

Share your creative work with your promo peers on the 602communications.com site.  Just email it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Flash (.flv) or QuickTime (.mov) files, size 320 x 240, are preferred, but WindowsMedia (.wmv) files will also be accepted.  Large files may be sent via http://www.yousendit.com.  You can also mail your clip a DVD to Graeme Newell at 1011 Lyndhurst Falls Lane, Knightdale, NC  27545.


U.S. Media Ownership Restrictions Eased
Back in the 1970s, before there was such a thing as the internet, the Federal Communications Commission thought it wise to restrict newspaper companies from buying TV stations in the same markets, fearing that it would create monopolies over the news and silence opposing views.  These are different times, and many would like to see those rules eased.  It may now happen, finally.  A federal appeals court has decided to lift a stay on a 2007 FCC rule change allowing newspaper companies to buy TV stations in the top 20 markets, as well as in smaller markets where there was no worry of creating news monopolies.  The court has lifted the stay as it considers challenges to the FCC rule change by both sides of the issue.  In theory the court’s ruling could open up a flood of cross-ownership deals, though it would seem unlikely in the present media climate where both newspaper and TV owners are struggling so.  At some point, the court, the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, will rule on the legality of the FCC rule change, but in the meantime the FCC will be reviewing its own position on the ownership issue, and it’s a good bet that the agency, now controlled by Democrats, will back away from the 2007 rule change and decide that the old cross-ownership ban should remain in place after all.
MediaLife Magazine


Scripps Aims to Reinvent Local TV News
Scripps, which owns such venerable TV stations as WXYZ in Detroit and WMAR in Baltimore as well as seven other stations, wants to reinvent local TV news, TVNewsCheck reports.  Scripps President and CEO, Rich Boehne, says in the report, "We're also just spending a lot of time looking at local TV news and just saying that right now it suffers from a plague of sameness.  How do you break from that pack?  How do you broaden the audience?  How do you sort of reimagine and reinvent and think again about what local news should look like?"  TVNewsCheck's Harry Jessell then asks if the Scripps TV stations will experiment with some new ideas in their TV newscasts.  Boehne responds, that they will.  "What those look like and what markets we do them in and what time slots they air, we haven't determined yet, but I think you definitely should expect to see some experimentation out of us.  When I talked to our people, I say I wake up in a hotel room a 125 mornings a year and I turn on local news and I don't know where I am.  It all looks the same and if you change the channel it looks the same four times over.  To us, that just says that there's got to be a fabulous opportunity in here, again, to reimagine what the local news needs to look like."
TV Week


Healthcare Vote Delivers Viewers for Cable News
Sunday night’s U.S. House of Representatives vote on healthcare reform was must-see-TV for cable news viewers.  Fox News Channel led the big three cable news networks with 965,000 primetime viewers 25-54 on Sunday night, up 37 percent from the 705,000 viewers it averaged in the demo for the entire week.  CNN averaged 637,000 25-54s that night, up 181 percent from its 227,000 viewer weekly average, while MSNBC averaged 315,000 25-54s, up 39 percent from 226,000 for the week.  The big night helped two of the three networks to significant week-to-week gains in primetime among the 25-54 set; FNC was up 27 percent and CNN was up 40 percent, with MSNBC up a slight 1 percent.  Meanwhile, in other cable ratings, ESPN’s “SportsCenter” averaged 601,000 total viewers on Sunday from 6:56 to 8 p.m., up 19 percent from the same night last year thanks to the network’s five-minute interview with Tiger Woods.  Golf Channel also scored an interview with Woods, averaging 150,000 total viewers from 7:30 to 8 p.m., up 168 percent from 50,000 viewers in the 7-8 p.m. timeslot on the same night a year ago.
MediaLife Magazine


'Life' Draws Discovery's Best Debut Ratings in a Decade
The Discovery Channel's latest nature project, "Life," debuted with the network's best ratings for a new series in a decade.  The series, four years in the making, shows animal footage in eye-catching high definition.  It had 11.8 million viewers for its first episode at 8 p.m. Sunday.  The second episode immediately followed and reached 11.5 million viewers, the Nielsen Co. said.  That exceeded Discovery's popular "Planet Earth" series from three years ago and outpaced the broadcast networks, except for the CBS Sunday lineup.  Within that CBS lineup, it's becoming apparent that viewers like seeing bosses put in their place. "Undercover Boss" is emerging as a hit.  It was the fifth most popular show on the air last week, with 14.47 million viewers, Nielsen said.
Huffington Post


IFC Goes 'Slightly Off'
Should IFC stand for Increasing Funny Content, rather than Independent Film Channel?  That's what it sounds like based on the network's upfront presentation yesterday.  IFC is putting a greater focus on comedic shows, including a slate of expanded originals led by the scripted show "The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret," from former "Arrested Development" actors David Cross and Will Arnett, which premieres this fall.  Under the new tagline "Always On. Slightly Off.," signaling that the network will still embrace its off-kilter indie roots, IFC will also introduce a half-hour program based on the faux newspaper The Onion called "Onion News Network."  It's the first time the paper has ventured into television.  Other new series include the Kids in the Hall reunion "Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town" and "Dead Set," a satire about the U.K. edition of "Big Brother."  The shows should play well to IFC's viewer base, which is 70 percent male.  The network has also placed six shows in development, including "I Love the A.D.'s," in which animated biblical characters interact with a slacker-esque Jesus.
MediaLife Magazine


Old Spice Finds Success in Viral Ad Campaign
Since launching online just over a month ago, Old Spice's “Smell like a man, man” commercial has been a viral Internet sensation; the original 30-second ad had logged 5.1 million hits by late last week, making it the sixth-most- watched YouTube video over 30 days, and it caused a nine-fold increase in monthly traffic to OldSpice.com in February.  You'd need to be barricaded in your man cave to have missed the suave fellow with the six-pack abs, towel wrapped around his waist, who steps out of the shower and brandishes a bottle of body wash.  “Hello ladies,” he says.  “Look at your man.  Now back to me.  Now back at your man.  Now back to me.  Sadly, he isn't me.  But if he stopped using lady-scented body wash and switched to Old Spice, he could smell like he's me.”  That's Isaiah Mustafa, actor and former pro football player, who, in over-the-top mock earnestness, exhorts males of the species to drop the girlie goop and “smell like a man, man.”  One moment he's on a boat, brandishing an oyster filled with “tickets to that thing you like” the next, he's got a handful of diamonds.  The 30-second ad, packed with quirky wink-and-a-nudge humor, ends with a camera pulling back, revealing the shirtless Mustafa on horseback.  He then — quite unnecessarily — tells us, “I'm on a horse.”

It's a combination of witty ad copy and over-the-top delivery that, since its debut Feb. 4 on the Old Spice Facebook fan page, has spawned parodies, a Twitter, imonahorse, an online campaign to land Mustafa a Saturday Night Live hosting gig and even an entry in Urbandictionary.com.  But perhaps what's most notable — especially given that the 73-year-old brand's clipper ship and hoary sea captain have long made it seem like the unofficial scent of older male relatives everywhere — is who it's aimed at.  “In recent memory we haven't targeted women directly,” Old Spice's brand manager James Moorhead said.  “So our goal was to find a way to reach out to them.  We wanted an ad that men and women would enjoy together.”  It's significant that it ran in theaters on Valentine's Day, and before airing on television, it was released to Old Spice's Facebook fan page “where we can tell that a quarter of the fans are female,” he noted.

It would be easy to contrast it with the other 800-pound gorilla of the body wash market, Unilever's Axe brand, which, according to research firm Mintel International Group, owns the biggest share of the mass retail market (with $51.1 million in sales for the year ending last August; Old Spice High Endurance and Old Spice Red Zone accounted for $44.8 million).  Especially with Axe's reputation for risqué taglines and ads filled with sexy women and props like tennis and soccer balls.  But the creative team at Portland, Ore.-based Wieden + Kennedy, the ad agency that's been helping the Procter & Gamble-owned brand reach the armpits of America by aiming at the funny bone for the past three years, denies it has Axe in particular in the cross hairs.  “There are a couple different brands out there,” said Wieden + Kennedy's Eric Baldwin, one of the creative directors behind the ads.  “This was more of an acknowledgement that a lot of times, it's the girlfriend or significant others that are doing the purchasing. So we thought a dual message would be effective.”  Also key in reaching both sexes is leveraging the laugh factor.  "Categories like deodorants and body washes tend to be what we called low involvement," Moorhead said.  "So humor is a great way to spark interest and create a deeper connection with the brand."
Chron


Site Aims to Send Limbaugh to Costa Rica
If Rush Limbaugh is going to fly off to Costa Rica, he ought to at least fly first class, and now he’ll be able to do just that.  A group of non-Rush fans set up a fund-raiser of sorts after Limbaugh vowed to flee to Costa Rica if the Obama administration succeeded in getting a health care reform measure through Congress.  The purpose of the fundraiser: to raise money to buy Limbaugh a one-way ticket at a cost of just under $1,200.  It was done through the web site ATicketForRush.com, and it claims it raised the money in just 18 hours.  The drive has been so successful that the site is now collecting money to cover Limbaugh’s moving expenses, rent on an apartment and Spanish lessons, assuming the No.1 conservative radio talker is not fluent in that tongue.  As of this morning the site had raised $2,201.  If Limbaugh should turn down the ticket, apartment, moving expenses and Spanish lesson, the site says it will donate the collected funds to Planned Parenthood.
MediaLife Magazine


After Year of Pain, Advertising Making Gains
The numbers are finally in for last year's total advertising expenditures, and—no surprise—they show that newspapers, magazines, radio and local television took the biggest hits, the Internet continued to grow and cable television held its own.  Overall, though, it was a year full of pain.  Ad spending in 2009 came in at $125.3 billion, a drop of 12.3% compared to the prior year, according to data released Wednesday by Kantar Media, formerly known as TNS Media Intelligence.  The good news was that fourth-quarter ad spending fell by only 6%.  In addition, preliminary numbers for the first quarter of 2010 show most media categories doing better than they were a year ago, said Jon Swallen, a senior vice president at Kantar Media.  Even so, the improving numbers are against weak comparisons, and media industries are still a long way from where they were before the recession.  “Eventually we'll get back to where we were before this mess hit a year and a half ago,” Mr. Swallen said.  “Clearly the free fall was a lot faster than the re-ascent is going to be.”   Internet display advertising—Kantar doesn't track the much larger category of search advertising—rose 7.3%.  Cable TV was 2009's other winner, with ad spending down just 1.4%.  Network television also didn't do too badly.  Advertising, though down 7.6% for the year, turned around in the fourth quarter to rise 4.1%.  Everything else suffered.  Radio fell 20.3%, local television plunged 23.7%, magazines dropped 17.4% and newspapers 19.7%.  All of those media categories felt the combined pressure of the recession and competition from the Web.  “The telltale sign is that for them, the ad recession started back in 2007,” Mr. Swallen said.  Most categories are doing better in 2010, even if some of them, like magazines and radio, aren't quite back in positive territory.  The biggest turnaround may be taking place among newspapers. According to Mr. Swallen, advertising is flat so far this year, which puts the category on track to record its best quarter in two-and-a-half years.  He credits an improving outlook for major advertisers like retailers and car makers.  “There are indications that these companies are beginning to allocate more money toward marketing and advertising in expectation of an uptick in consumer spending,” Mr. Swallen said. “If that holds up, newspapers should benefit.”
Crains New York


Message From Michael: State Of The News Media -- 2010
SHOW ME THE MONEY:  That seems to be the over-riding theme of this year’s annual report on the state of the news media by The Project for Excellence in Journalism.  And for good reason.  One of the more startling facts cited in the report is an analysis by market research and investment banking firm Veronis Suhler Stevenson that says that even after the economic recovery, by the year 2013, the three “old media” – newspapers, television and radio – will take in 41% less revenue than they did in 2006.  41% less revenue.  That is not just bad news for them, it’s bad news for “new media” because they rely so heavily on ‘old media’ for actual content.  With online advertising showing a decline last year for the first time since 2002, the report says the question for online journalism is the same as mainstream journalism – how to pay for it.  The report notes that after 15 years of transitioning from print to digital, about 90% of newspaper revenues still come from the print side.  In local television, the report notes, online only added 8% to the bottom-line.

Add to that equation the fact that of those people who have a favorite news website (most don’t have one), only 7% say they would be willing to pay for it.  As to community journalism, or citizen news sites, most of their funding comes from either their own pockets or from contributions.  Since 2006, Jan Schaffer of the J-Lab Institute for Interactive Journalism, told the report authors that community journalism sites received more than $141 Million in non-profit funding, which is nice, but is not a lot of money in the reality of modern day media economics. Only a third (30%) of those sites are fully funded through either contributions, donations or advertising.  Even then, the report notes, that in its study of 60 such sites that were considered “exemplary”, four had already died.  The fact of the matter is that while some of these sites produce impressive work, they don’t have the resources to provide the day-in, day-out news coverage, the authors say.

CHICKEN OR EGG:  Both traditional or mainstream media and new media or community journalism face another similar problem – balancing expenses and revenue.  By implication, the report raises the question whether the cutbacks have impacted the quality of the product, both online and offline, so that consumers are less willing to pay for it; or whether consumers have become such grazers of news, both online and offline, that the quality of the product does not make enough difference for them to pay for it.  Newspapers are the prime example.  The report cites an anecdote which it says is the metaphor for the state of the industry.  Newspaper delivery contractors in Spokane were complaining that the Monday edition of the newspaper didn’t have enough “throw weight” for them to be able to pitch the paper up on the porch of people’s homes.  But not only have they cut back staff, they’ve cut back on circulation to outlying areas and cut-back on promotion for new circulation.  It’s not just newspapers either.  The report notes the continued erosion in network television audiences has seen a continuing cutback in news investment, citing in particular the recent ABC News announcement.  In local television, the report says staffing peaked in 2007, with a cutback of 1,200 jobs in 2008 and 450 jobs in 2009.  And with audiences dropping and revenue in a “free fall,” as the report puts it, stations can no longer just add new newscasts or sponsored segments to make up the revenue.

Bucking that downward trend is cable news, and leading the way, of course, is Fox News.  The question, according to the report, is whether it’s news.  By adding “ideological talk show hosts” to its prime time line-up, the network has distanced itself so far ahead of the competition that its prime time viewership is nearly bigger than CNN and MSNBC’s audience combined.  While Fox’s investment in news was up 10% (compared to a drop in news investment by CNN and HLN), three quarters of the Fox investment (72%) went to its host-driven programs “including multi-million dollar salaries,” says the report.  So, only a quarter (28%) of that investment by Fox (about $188 Million, according to the report) went into actual news – and that figure is less than half what CNN and HLN spend.  As a matter of perspective, the report notes that, yes, Network TV audiences continue to decline while Cable TV audiences either improve or hold steady, BUT the Network Evening News with an estimated 22.3 Million viewers each weeknight at the dinner hour still has five times the number watching Cable news at any given moment in prime time.  And that’s when more TV sets are in use.

SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER:  Remember that show parodying consumers’ ADD-like lack of focus?  Well, apparently, that parody may be paradoxical.  The report says that the American news consumer is becoming more and more a “grazer” not only online but with offline platforms as well.  Only a fifth (21%) say they rely on one destination and only a third (35%) say they have a favorite news website.  Most (57%) rely on two to five websites.  Instead they rely heavily on search.  Even then they only read the headline, byline and first sentence of text without even clicking on the story because, apparently, that is “valuable enough,” says the report.  But even though they rely so heavily on search, they don’t range far.  Of the 4,600 sites that the report and Nielsen identify as news and information sites, 7% account for 80% of the overall traffic.  Of those 4,600, Pew put the number of ‘real’ news websites at 199 that were actually “originators” of news content as opposed to “aggregators” or “commentators.”  As further evidence of the short attention span issue, even visitors to those sites only averaged 3 minutes and 6 seconds per visit.  Contrary to what you might have thought, the report says niche sites, focused on health or science for example, have smaller audiences who don’t stay as long and don’t come back as often.  Also, contrary to what you might have thought, while local sites account for more (87 sites or 44%) of the top 199 sites, they account for only a quarter (25%) of the traffic; National and International sites were slightly fewer (74 sites or 37%), but they accounted for double the audience (65%).  The point, according to the authors, is that a broad range of topics can draw a broad range of traffic.

PAY UP OR SHUT UP:  Back to the ‘show me the money,’ theme, the report notes that while four out of five consumers (81%) say they don’t mind ads on online websites, roughly the same number (77%) say they ignore the ads, with nearly half (42%) saying they “never” click on an ad.  That obviously has implications for the online revenue model where metrics are still in flux.  Do you measure by page views, unique users, page impressions, or pay-per-click?  As noted above, very few (7%) are willing to pay for news content.  The reason, according to the report, is pretty simple.  If you have so many sources for news, would you pay extra for The New York Times version, even though it may be higher quality, when you can get it for free elsewhere?

REPORTS OF JOURNALISM’S DEATH:  You know the rest of the line.  Well, according to the report, it’s true.  They are greatly exaggerated.  But it’s all in the eye of the beholder. In its summary of major trends, the report authors contend that “the notion that the news media are shrinking is mistaken.”  How so, you say?  They say that while “reportorial journalism is getting smaller… the commentary and discussion aspect of media, which adds analysis, passion and agenda shaping, is growing.”  As I say, it’s all in the eye of the beholder.  However, what may speak more to the question of journalism’s debatable death is two other trends noted by the study.  One is that because of the shrinking news staffs, the newsmakers are setting the tone of news coverage, at least initially, because the news operations in their rush to get on air or online, often ‘report’ the newsmakers’ version unedited and virtually verbatim.  That version often then becomes the accepted version as it is spread through the Internet.  Add to that the fact that the “ranks of self-interested information providers” are growing.  These are the spin-masters, the companies with sophisticated dissemination methods that often by-pass the traditional news media.

RAISING THE LAZARUS OF JOURNALISM FROM THE DEAD:  The possible solution to those last two points may be a combination of “pro-am” news and “unbundling” of news, according to the study.  In the case of pro-am news, the report points to a multi-university study showing that even the “best new-media” sites have limited ability to produce content.  As noted elsewhere in the report, most of the ‘new’ news on citizen media sites is commentary, more than news, and most are not updated daily.  The solution may be a collaboration of old media and citizens in a pro-am – professional and amateur – model for news.  The ‘unbundling’ concept is a little less clear.  With consumers by-passing news organizations and instead hunting by topics or event, there is a question of which topics and events get covered.  The ‘civic news’ that may be important but may not be interesting, may also not be covered under this scenario.  So, the question is how do you adjust the finances and culture of newsrooms to get both important and interesting covered appropriately.

FOOTNOTE OR DISCLAIMER:  As before, I have boiled down the massive report into a 30,000-word summary and then boiled that down further into this 1,800 word summary.  So there is always the chance for some distortion or unintentional disinformation, although I have tried to be as balanced as possible.  Plus, I have to confess, there is more commentary and analysis in this message than normal.  That is why this is only “part one” of my summary.  Also, as a further disclaimer, the past week has been an eventful one in terms of media news.  The federal government released its plans for the future of broadband, with its call for the feds to stake a claim on the broadcast spectrum.  Plus, the SXSW (South by South West) confab in Austin also took place.  More on those two events in a later message as well.

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.


Old Spice's FaceBook Quips

Don't smell like sunsets and baby powder. Smell like jet fighters and punching.

Touchdowns are the best ref call because both armpits are exposed.

If manliness were a color, what color would it be? Probably grey or brown or something. Or dark blue.

Instead of leaving cookies for Santa, why not leave some Old Spice? He’s the hardest working man during Christmas, and his red suit gets very hot.

Smelling bad is the same as looking bad to the little eyes inside other people's noses.

Performs in real man situations like basketball, recon and frenching.

Scrub your outer shell of weakness away, and leave your inner shell of power shining.

An experienced seaman knows the gentler sex is unlikely to board a vessel whose deck, galley, and undercarriage has not been scrubbed as clean as the shiny inside part of an oyster shell. This Old Spice Deck Scrubber gets rid of dirt, odor and barnacles, working harder than lazy soap and lathering way better than just ...your hand alone. So start scrubbing, sailors, and don’t forget to wash behind your everything.

Let’s admit it men, we don’t have a lot of tricks up our collective sleeves. Sure, ladyfolk make their skin all sparkly and their hair asymmetrical, but the best we can do is choose a button-up or a sweater. That’s why it’s important to smell great.

Whether you know it or not, a 24/7 odor and wetness cockfight is going on in your armpits.

Refreshed and smelling great, the Old Spice man has the day at his mercy.

Man has come up with his best ideas in the shower. If only man had showered more, we’d have hoverboards, an escalator to space and a mind-controlled television. So take a long and thoughtful shower, and bring humanity one step closer to a gas-powered toothbrush.

How many scents does Old Spice make? How does 4 million sound? Also, how does 12 sound?

What's better than seeing a hot girl on a beach? Nothing. Nothing is better. Maybe nachos. A hot girl lying on nachos. But that's impossible.

We don't want to spoil this commercial for you, but let's just say a guy flies through a tree and then eats a golf club. Oops.


facebook.com/OldSpice


-------------------------------
The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills.  Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site.  Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.

Graeme Newell
602 Communications
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(919) 217-4438
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter

The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills.  Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site.  Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.

Graeme Newell
602 Communications
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(919) 217-4438
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter


In This Issue
Hanging On To A Lead-In Audience
ABC Names Amanpour 'This Week' Moderator
A&E, Discovery Vie for Palin Reality Show
'South Park' Most Watched Premiere In Decade
Yahoo Gives 'Life' to Discovery Promos
Engagement, Persuasion Key to Viral Ad Effectiveness
Comments Can Be Key To Engagement
Social Media Habits Near Addictive, Survey Finds
Facebook Visitors Loyal, Data Shows
Twitter Followers Don't Equal Influence: Research
Sweeping Ad Fraud Bill Worries Ad Execs
Motion Control Advances Means Gamers Could Play 'Outside'


Quotes

"This I do know beyond any reasonable doubt.  Regardless of what you are doing, if you pump long enough, hard enough and enthusiastically enough, sooner or later the effort will bring forth the reward."
- Zig Ziglar

"Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness."
- Thomas H. Huxley

"Beyond the mountain is another mountain."
- Haitian Proverb


Hanging On To A Lead-In Audience
by Graeme Newell
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
http://www.602communications.com
Twitter: gnewell
Facebook: facebook.com/gnewell

The promo slots at the end of primetime are unquestionably some of the most important moments of the entire news day.  The viewer is just minutes away from the newscast.  If you can get this huge audience to hang around just a few more minutes they can exponentially increase your news numbers.

Unfortunately, the network does not make it easy to hold this audience through this break from hell.  Although it varies from network to network, the general structure looks like this:

1)  End of network prime show
2)  "Stay tuned for scenes from next week's show"
3)  Local Station end-of-prime tease
4)  Commercials
5)  Next week's show preview
6)  Commercials
7)  Network Promos
8)  Credit Squeezed Network Promos
9)  Local Station Credit Squeeze Tease
10) Local Break (optional)
11) Start of the newscast

For local newscasts the best opportunities come with item three and item nine.  It is important to realized that these two teases serve very different purposes.

The local station end-of-prime tease is for viewers who just watched the prime show.  It comes seconds after the network show ends and is one your best shots to hold an audience.  The goal here is to showcase all the very best sound and video in your entire cast.  This one tease should contain the most magical moments of your entire show.

Most stations fall far short of the goal.  Typically, this tease contains a talking-head anchor describing the news, instead of showing me the great stuff that's coming up.  The tacit message here - "I really couldn't be bothered to actually show you video or sound from the best stories in my newscast, so you'll just have to trust me...it's great."

Some of the time, the problem is "video hoarding." Producers hold back their best sound and video.  They don’t want to "give it away" in the open.  Reinforce with your team that great video belongs in BOTH the open and the story.  It is perfectly okay to use these precious resources multiple times.

In the bustle of producing a show, this all-important open tease is often an afterthought rather than a priority. It simply tells the news rather than enticing viewers into the show.  This tease hangs on to prime viewers. Doing a good job on this tease will drastically improve your news numbers.  If you must neglect something, choose any other part of the show.  Better to neglect something later in your show than to neglect this critical tune-out point.  Every component in this segment should have incredible power and a focus that holds on to viewers.  Craft the pre-show with the same attention to detail used in the top story.  It's that important.

So judge your end of prime tease by the amount of talking head and VO.  The goal - all fantastic sound and video that defies even the sleepiest viewer to turn away.  No talking heads.

Graeme Newell is a broadcast and new media marketer who specializes in core emotional drivers.  He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free.  Find out more here.


ABC Names Amanpour 'This Week' Moderator
Christiane Amanpour will leave CNN to join ABC News as moderator of Sunday public affairs program This Week beginning in August, the networks announced Thursday (March 18).  Amanpour will replace George Stephanopoulos who left This Week in December to join Good Morning America.  ABC News senior White House correspondent Jake Tapper will be the regular interim anchor until Amanpour starts this summer.  Tapper and Nightline anchor Terry Moran were internal candidates for the position.  ABC News also held discussions with Ted Koppel, who left ABC News in 2005 after 42 years at the network.  In making the announcement, ABC News president David Westin concludes a series of anchor transitions that began last year when Diane Sawyer left Good Morning America to take over World News.  Amanpour will bring that foreign news focus to This Week, said Westin.  She will also contribute to other ABC News programs and front primetime documentaries.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/450418-ABC_Names_Amanpour_This_Week_Moderator.php


A&E, Discovery Vie for Palin Reality Show
Sarah Palin is getting closer to having her own reality show.  Sources say A&E Networks and Discovery Communications want to acquire Palin's project, which focuses on the ex-governor giving a guided tour of her native Alaska -- visiting fishing boats, taking a trip to a gold mine, to cite a couple examples.  Mark Burnett is executive producer.  The working title: "Sarah Palin's Alaska."  A&E Networks hasn't officially put in a bid for the project, but sources indicate that the company is interested in the project for several of its brands -- A&E, History or Lifetime.  Discovery Communications is likewise vying for the project for one or more of its outlets, such as TLC.  Some sources say the flagship Discovery Channel is no longer in play, while others say otherwise.  Palin is asking for between $1 million and $1.5 million per episode, a hefty amount for a first-year cable series.  The former Alaska governor initially pitched the show to broadcast networks.  Given the show's laid-back nature theme and lack of high-stakes drama that tends to typify broadcast reality hits, industry executives see cable as a better fit for the show.  A&E is the home of bold reality fare like "Intervention" and "Dog the Bounty Hunter," while Discovery has compatible outdoors series, such as Alaska-set "Deadliest Catch"  "It will sell," predicts one insider.  "One way or another."
THR Feed


'South Park' Most Watched Premiere In Decade
The 14th season premiere of Comedy Central's "South Park" was the most watched debut for the show since 1999.  The episode, which mocked celebrity sex addiction, was seen by 3.7 million viewers.  The series launch of new show "Ugly Americans" drew a solid 2.1 million viewers and ranked as the network's most watched premiere among its key young male demographic since "Important Things with Demetri Martin."  Overall, Wednesday was the most-watched night of the year for Comedy Central.
THR Feed


Yahoo Gives 'Life' to Discovery Promos
Discovery Channel is partnering with Yahoo on an ambitious promotional effort for the cable TV network's high-profile "Life" series debuting March 21.  Breaking March 20, the campaign for the 11-part nature program narrated by Oprah Winfrey will feature a number of advertising "firsts" on Yahoo.  These include a home page takeover on the day of the premiere that includes floating images of critters and allows users to select a "Life"-themed design that will stay up for the entire day.  For the first time, an entertainment advertiser will also use Yahoo's Rich Media Ads In Search product and tandem units that interact on the Yahoo Mail home page.  Other aspects of the campaign allow users to choose different animals featured in the series as their Yahoo Messenger display image and share video clips from "Life" with people on their Messenger buddy list.  As part of the build-up, Discovery will also sponsor the NCAA Scoreboard on Yahoo Sports on March 21 and launch a front-page takeover of Yahoo Mobile over the weekend aimed at the 25- to-54-year-old demographic.  Terms of the ad deal between Yahoo and Discovery were not disclosed.  Produced by the BBC for Discovery Channel, "Life" was four years in the making and was filmed across every continent in the quest to capture life in all its most spectacular and bizarre forms.  The two companies also teamed on the award-winning "Planet Earth" and "Blue Planet" series.
MediaPost


Engagement, Persuasion Key to Viral Ad Effectiveness
The Holy Grail for many marketers is having their big-budget TV spot become a viral hit online, providing millions of dollars worth of free exposure from consumer pass-along.  The bad news is the chance of this happening is pretty slim, and even if it does, there's a good chance the spot won't do much to persuade viewers.  Those are the conclusions of a Millward Brown study of TV commercials posted online.  The researcher found that less than 15 percent of 102 ads studied were viral hits.  (Millward Brown defines a viral hit as a spot that generates more than 1,000 views per week in the United Kingdom market or 5,000 in the U.S.)  In other words, for every Old Spice "The man your man could smell like" spot that has generated more than 4.5 million YouTube views, there are five duds.  What's worse, Millward Brown found that even those spots that do achieve viral success don't necessarily mean consumers get the intended commercial message.  It has developed a scorecard for determining spots' "viral potential" based on factors like its buzz, distinctiveness and celebrity.  "There was no relation between persuasion and viral potential," said Ann Green, svp of marketing solutions at Millward Brown.  "It's interesting to notice these viral ads are very engaging, but they may not be ultimately persuasive."  Millward Brown is now offering its creative viral potential measurement as part of the copy-testing process. It has crafted 10 tips for making a TV spot viral, few of which come as a surprise.  They include great creativity, wide dissemination, good search optimization and, perhaps most important, the need to "cross your fingers."  Of the ads Millward Brown studied, spots for E-Trade, Audi, Snickers, Walmart and Coca-Cola were viral hits.
AdWeek


Comments Can Be Key To Engagement
As products become more commoditized and companies try to outperform their competitors, a better customer experience is becoming an increasingly important way to differentiate.  Customer engagement plays a large role in the overall customer experience.  There has yet to be a standard definition of customer engagement, but Ron Shevlin, an analyst at Aite Group, LLC defines engagement as: "Repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand."  Essentially, customer engagement is a measure of relationship strength.  Most organizations already accept the fact that active customer engagement correlates with growing income and profit because of the way it makes customers more loyal, generates positive word of mouth, and reduces the probability that a customer will switch suppliers.  It is now commonly believed that an organization that can positively affect engagement is more likely to see these engaged prospects consider the company's products, make prospects convert to customers, and purchase more regularly.  Organizations developing customer engagement strategies focus on creating a positive and consistent online and offline customer experience.  As engagement becomes a key behavioral indicator, organizations will need to be able to link points of customer engagement with bottom-line improvements.  Therefore, it is becoming increasingly important to monitor and measure customer engagement.  There is yet no universal formula for measuring customer experience.  One approach is to take the quantity, quality, breadth and depth of interactions between the company and the customer into consideration when measuring customer engagement and then measure the correlation between the pattern of engagement and known stages of the purchasing process.  The advent of social media has raised the question of whether we can apply the same approach to measuring engagement to online interactions.  As marketers look for ways to measure engagement of social media, research suggests that many are using time spent on a site as the most important performance metric, followed by unique page views.  Since most social sites are not transactional, increased interaction does not necessarily indicate a more engaged or more loyal relationship. While the number of postings, completed profiles and participation in polls or forums indicates interaction, they may not indicate loyalty.
MediaPost

Social Media Habits Near Addictive, Survey Finds
How addicted are we to social media and text messaging?  According to a new survey, 48 percent of social media users check or update Facebook and/or Twitter after they go to bed and 56 percent feel compelled to check Facebook at least once a day.  Then there's the 7 percent of people who said they wouldn't mind being interrupted during sex by an electronic message.  Those are some of the results of a survey of 1,000 people by Retrevo Inc., a Sunnyvale company that runs a consumer electronics shopping site.  "When almost half of social media users say they check Facebook or Twitter sometime during the night or when they first wake up, you have to wonder if these people aren't suffering from some sort of addiction to social media," Andrew Eisner, Retrevo's director of community and content, said in a blog post.  As The Chronicle detailed in stories on tech addiction in November, Retrevo previously found that 36 percent of people ages 35 and younger said they often used Facebook or Twitter after sex, with men twice as likely to tweet or post Facebook updates after sex.  In the new survey, more than 40 percent said they don't mind being interrupted for a text message, even during a meal.  And 7 percent "said they'd even check out a message during an intimate moment," Eisner said.  Meanwhile, 18 percent of those under 25, and 11 percent over 25, said they can't stay away from Facebook for more than a couple of hours without checking.  And 61 percent under 25, and 55 percent over 25, check Facebook at least once daily.  Also, 28 percent of iPhone owners check or update Twitter before they get out of bed in the morning.  And 26 percent check or tweet before they turn on their TV.  That leads to the 23 percent who rely on Twitter for their morning news.  "Could we be witnessing the first signs of social media services beginning to replace 'Good Morning America' as the source for what's going on in the world?  Can they also provide more stimulation than a morning cup of coffee?" Eisner said.
SFGate


Facebook Visitors Loyal, Data Shows
A few weeks ago when I posted my blog entry about Facebook being the largest news reader I received a few comments and emails noting that visitors aren't as valuable if they don't come back.  Advertisers and retailers need some assurance that visitors will return again and again.  Hitwise data indicate that visitors from Facebook.com are more loyal to News and Media websites than are visitors from News.Google.com.  In particular, among the top 5 Print Media websites in the week ending March 6, 2010, 78% of Facebook.com users were returning visitors compared to 67% from Google News.  The figures are almost identical for Broadcast Media, with a 77% returning rate for Facebook.com compared to 64% for Google News.  In most cases, Google.com is the #1 source of traffic to these sites.  Interestingly, visitors from Google are less likely to be returning visitors than average for either Google News or Facebook.  This reinforces the long term value to News and Media organizations of working with the likes of Google News and Facebook. With recent Pew Research showing that Newspapers have seen ad revenue fall 26% during the year and 43% over the past three years, understanding where to find loyal readers is becoming increasingly important.
HitWise Weblogs


Twitter Followers Don't Equal Influence: Research
Sorry, Ashton.  New research indicates that there's little correlation between one's follower count on Twitter and cultural influence.  Researchers examined the Twitter accounts of over 54 million active users, out of some 80 million accounts crawled by their servers.  They then measured various statistics about these accounts, including audience size, "retweet" influence and mention influence.  And?  Those with the largest number of followers may be "popular" Twitterers, but that's not necessarily related to their influence.  In other words, "High follower counts don't always mean someone is being retweeted or mentioned in any meaningful ways," writes ReadWriteWeb.  The researchers also examined the ability of Twitter users to influence others, and determined that the most influential users hold significant influence over a variety of topics, as opposed to being experts in just one area.
MediaPost

Whole article and charts here: ReadWriteWeb


Sweeping Ad Fraud Bill Worries Ad Execs
The government may soon wield a great deal more power over the online advertising business, and that's quickly spreading fear across the entire ecosystem, including publishers, ad networks, agencies and even their clients.  Virginia Congressman Rick Boucher is set to introduce a consumer privacy bill over the next few weeks that will likely impact the entire $25 billion online ad market, according to sources.  And while that's got many worried, another seemingly unrelated piece of legislation—the proposed financial reform bill aimed at cleaning up Wall Street—has industry insiders sweating.  Baked into that bill is language that would grant expanded powers to the Federal Trade Commission, which could theoretically go after shady advertisers or data abusers faster, hit them harder and punish any other companies that enabled their illegitimate activities.

For their part, the feds believe some of the paranoia is misplaced.  In fact, while many have feared that privacy legislation would require consumers to actively opt in to receive targeted ads, Rep. Boucher (a Democrat) told Mediaweek his bill would be less onerous.  "Where I want to go with this is generally opt out," he said, meaning Web users would be able to opt out of receiving targeted ads.  That's easier for publishers and advertisers to stomach, though Boucher's bill will likely require them to be far more upfront in how they use consumer data.  Boucher sees that as a positive.  "If I were [a publisher or advertiser], I would want Internet users to have a sense that their experience is more secure, that they know what information is collected about them, and they be given much more control.  They will be more trusting of electronic commerce...It's good for business." 

Meanwhile, the FTC says it's only out to get the real bad guys.  "We think the industry needs to do a better job of ensuring that consumers know what they are agreeing to with online advertising," said FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz.  "The new rule-making authority is really about hard-core fraud.  It doesn't make sense to initiate rule making where business practices and consumer attitudes are still evolving like behavioral targeting...We prefer self-regulation.  We would not be looking at rule making [in this area]."

Such unregulated power is what's worrying many ad execs.  Even more fearsome is the idea that, under its new authority, the FTC would be able to impose financial penalties on violators running into the millions.  Those penalties could apply to companies seen as aiding and abetting the guilty party.  In theory, an ad network that does something wrong could implicate its site partner, as well as agency and advertiser.  "That really scares you," said Mike Zaneis, the Interactive Advertising Bureau's vp, public policy.  "That would definitely create a chilling effect throughout the industry."
MediaWeek


Motion Control Advances Means Gamers Could Play 'Outside'

Recent advances in motion controller technology as exhibited by Sony's PlayStation Move and Microsoft's Project Natal reveal a future where newer generations of gamers could play things like sports or in places like "outside."

Football?  "These technologies show that we're not far off from more active children," said futurologist Ben Carlson.  "The evolution has been rapid.  First controllers vibrated, then the Wiimote simulated bowling, and now Project Natal has us jumping around the living room.  At this pace kids could be playing outside by 2015."

Game companies have remained quiet about any future technologies that might have kids playing outside, but one Sony engineer did hint that "things were happening."  And from Microsoft, the company behind motion capture controller Project Natal, images have been circulating the Internet showing a teenager throwing a football though its authenticity has not been verified.

Carlson said a future of kids playing looks imminent, but by no means is assured.  "The Earth could be destroyed by a planet-smashing asteroid, or a zombie plague could wipe out 98% of the population.  I don't think we'd have to worry about kids going outside under those scenarios," he said.

Vicki Wilson of the Parents for Safety First organization said the group his worried about the impact this future technology might have on children.  "It's bad enough these new contraptions have kids moving around the living room instead of sitting safely on the couch, but to actually have them moving around outside?  We work tirelessly to stop the plague of skinned knees and bruised elbows, only to have something like this come around."

Wilson suspects that companies like Band-Aid manufacturer Johnson & Johnson might be helping fund research into these products.  "Who else has more to gain from seeing our kids bleed?" she said.

Representatives from Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony or Burger King did not return our calls.

By Brian Briggs follow me on Twitter or Buzz.

BBSpot


------------------------------------
The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills.  Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site.  Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.

Graeme Newell
602 Communications
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(919) 217-4438
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter

The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills.  Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site.  Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.

Graeme Newell
602 Communications
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(919) 217-4438
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter


In This Issue
Promo of the Day
CNN' Klein Fears Social Nets, Not TV
More Visiting Social Nets During Major TV Events
Showtime to Promote Emmys Via Social Nets
Twitterers Not Big for Visits to News, Media Sites
Engagement Key for Rich Media Video Ads: Study
NBC Sees Primetime Ratings Gain Sans Leno
ABC Mulls Idea of Midday News
Kids Get Glimpse of Playboy Promo on Time Warner
Lohan has Beef with E*Trade Baby
Nevada Can Ban Brothel Ads, Court Rules
Murdoch's Middle East Move Viewed with Suspicion
Message From Michael
Top Ten Signs You Spend Too Much Time On Twitter


Quotes

"One set of messages of the society we live in is:  Consume.  Grow.  Do what you want.  Amuse yourselves.  The very working of this economic system, which has bestowed these unprecedented liberties, most cherished in the form of physical mobility and material prosperity, depends on encouraging people to defy limits."
- Susan Sontag

"Society never advances.  It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other.  Society acquires new arts, and loses old instincts."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Society can exist only on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly as he thinks."
- Yutang Lin, Chinese writer and philologist (1895-1976)


Promo of the Day
For many viewers, the weather report is the most important reason they watch a local news channel.  So why is it always relegated near the end every newscast? 

KCNC decided to break from this unwritten code and give Denver viewers what they wanted: a full weather forecast in the first 10 minutes of the 10pm newscast.  Check out these 4 stylish promos sent by KCNC Promotion Director Ed Cushing.

602communications.com/VideoExamples

Share your creative work with your promo peers on the 602communications.com site.  Just email it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Flash (.flv) or QuickTime (.mov) files, size 320 x 240, are preferred, but WindowsMedia (.wmv) files will also be accepted.  Large files may be sent via http://www.yousendit.com.  You can also mail your clip a DVD to Graeme Newell at 1011 Lyndhurst Falls Lane, Knightdale, NC  27545.



CNN' Klein Fears Social Nets, Not TV
CNN’s U.S. president, Jonathan Klein, said he worries more about competition from social- networking sites such as Facebook Inc. than from other cable news networks.  “The competition I’m really afraid of are social- networking sites,” Klein said at a media conference in New York.  “That threatens to pull people away from us.  The people you’re friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information.  Well, we want to be the most trusted name in news.”  CNN, owned by Time Warner Inc., has lost ground in television ratings. News Corp.’s Fox News has retained the top spot with 2.3 million primetime viewers this year, and NBC Universal’s MSNBC is second with 800,000, according to data from Nielsen Co.  CNN, once the most-watched cable news network, has averaged 687,000 primetime viewers this year.  Klein said ratings are only one way of measuring the audience and that growth will come from the Internet and mobile phones, pitting CNN more against social networks.  In the U.S., users of Facebook, the largest social- networking site, more than doubled to 112 million in January from a year earlier, according to Reston, Virginia-based research firm ComScore Inc.  Time Warner, based in New York, fell 7 cents to $30.53 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading.  The shares have gained 4.8 percent this year.
Bloomberg


More Visiting Social Nets During Major TV Events
Americans are getting into the habit of going online while watching television, with 10% or more of viewers visiting social networks, searching the web and browsing content during major TV events.  Recently, when 29% of the U.S. population tuned into the Academy Awards on March 7, more than 13% of those viewers spent time on the web at the same time.  For the 2009 Oscars, 25.6% of the population tuned in and 8.7% surfed the web simultaneously.  A large percentage of those watching TV and surfing the web visited Facebook, Google or Yahoo!, a trend also seen in this year’s Super Bowl Super Bowl.
Nielsen Blog


Showtime to Promote Emmys Via Social Nets
Showtime is bringing Emmy campaigning to social media networks with the first-ever extensive effort to use Facebook and Twitter to promote shows to TV academy members.  The network, which each year innovates its Emmy campaigning with some unique twist, is launching an awards-targeted Facebook page and Twitter feed to supply a steady stream of content and information to Hollywood insiders.  "Through social networking, we can now inform and communicate with awards voters instantly, providing them with valuable information that will provide easy access to Showtime programming in a user-friendly environment," said Richard Licata, executive vp corporate communications at Showtime.  "Whether it's a tweet about our streaming site and the availability of a new episode or a reminder that a balloting deadline is approaching, the pages will help you stay connected."  Using the name "SHOgold," the pages will be promoted throughout the year via the network's more traditional print, online and DVD award campaigns.  At this year's Golden Globes, Showtime had the most series wins of any network and later celebrated its first SAG Award.  Last year, Showtime extended Emmy campaigning to portable devices, offering original series through mobile networks.
Hollywood Reporter


Twitterers Not Big for Visits to News, Media Sites
A couple of weeks ago, I did a follow up post on my blog entry, "Facebook Largest News Reader?".  The entry illustrated that Facebook users prefer Broadcast Media while Google News readers prefer Print Media.  Several readers requested that I add Twitter to the mix.  Twitter.com accounted for 0.14% of upstream visits to News and Media sites last week.  (Note that we are measuring website visits from Twitter.com only.)  This compares to 3.64% from Facebook and 1.27% from Google News.  Facebook was the #3 source of visits to News and Media websites last week.  Google News was the #11 site and Twitter.com ranked #39.  Twitter has enjoyed explosive growth, nearly tripling share of US Internet visits year over year last week.  However, News and Media companies have not seen similar growth rates in upstream traffic from Twitter.  Upstream visits from Twitter.com to News and Media sites have grown by 54% over the past year.  Compare this to upstream visits to All Categories of websites, for which visits from Twitter.com have more than doubled (138%).  So where are all those Twitter.com visitors going?  The majority (60%) are going to Social Networks and Entertainment sites (mainly photography and video sharing sites).
HitWise Blog


Engagement Key for Rich Media Video Ads: Study
When it comes to rich media ads on the Internet that employ video, engagement really matters.  Environment, not so much.  That’s the major, and perhaps, surprising takeaway from a new research study conducted by VideoEgg and comScore.  The two companies surveyed the opinions of 14,000 Web users, who were presented with ad campaigns of various types of Web sites from six top brands: Doritos, GE, Hyundai, Telus, Toshiba and Alliance Releasing.  Specifically, the study examined the effectiveness of rich media video ads versus traditional banner ads.  The idea was to prove the theory that banner ads which contain video are more engaging.  And the more engaging a Web ad is the more it can impact brand metrics such as aided and unaided awareness.  In addition, the study looked to gauge whether site environment—particularly contextual relevance—played a role in how well such ads performed.  Overall, video ads proved to be more engaging, found the study—and engaging ads move the needle better than standard ads.  Not surprising was that VideoEgg’s own AdFrame units, expandable placements that take over a portion of a Web page, were roughly twice as impactful as standard IAB banners when it comes to driving awareness.  “What we saw was the overwhelming power of engagement to change metrics,” said VideoEgg president Troy Young.  “Online advertising is really easy to ignore.  Knowing you have someone’s attention really matters.  The takeaway here if you want your propaganda to work [is] get people to engage with it.”  But more eye-opening was the study’s findings on the importance of environment, or lack thereof.  When conducting the survey, VideoEgg and comScore classified sites running video rich media banners into three groups: branded sites, smaller but still contextually relevant sites and noncontextually relevant sites.  According to Young, while users responded to branded sites more favorably, ads on those sites were not any more engaging than they were on non-contextually relevant sites.  That will surely rile up some big brand publishers, who make their living on selling the importance of context.  And many won’t love the idea that the study was commissioned by VideoEgg, itself a leading ad network.
MediaWeek

NBC Sees Primetime Ratings Gain Sans Leno
Two weeks into non-Jay Leno programming, NBC's audience for the final hour of prime-time TV has increased by 45 percent.  While NBC doesn't necessarily have any hits in that hour, the instant response by viewers indicates they are more comfortable with the traditional mix of drama, news and reality rather than a late-night show moved into prime time.  The failed experiment of Conan O'Brien taking over the "Tonight" show and Leno moving into prime time ended just before the Olympics.  Leno was averaging 5.15 million viewers in his new slot, the Nielsen Co. said.  Through two weeks of other programming, the network is averaging 7.44 million at 10 p.m. Eastern, 9 p.m. Central.  Local affiliates expressed anger that Leno's low ratings hurt their late local news.
Yahoo News


ABC Mulls Idea of Midday News
With the audiences for traditional network news shows steadily declining, executives at the broadcast news divisions are continuing to brainstorm new ideas on how to expand their offerings.  For example, ABC News executives, according to multiple sources, have recently tossed around the idea of creating a midday news and lifestyle program that would be one part Good Morning America, one part The View.  Informally, people in the industry have nicknamed the embryonic project Midday America.  How ABC stations would fit the new show into their daytime line-up remains unclear--and it's still a strong possibility that the project will fizzle out long before it ever makes it onto the air. 
The Observer


Kids Get Glimpse of Playboy Promo on Time Warner
A technical glitch at Time Warner Cable caused promotional video for The Playboy Channel to air on two channels devoted to children on Tuesday morning, the company’s local spokeswoman confirmed.  Melissa Buscher said that equipment failure led to ads for The Playboy Channel to appear in the promo box for Channel 552 Kids on Demand and Channel 555 Kids Preschool on Demand.  The Playboy promos ran from 6:15 a.m. until 8:14 a.m. in parts of Cary, Morrisville, Garner and Goldsboro.  Customers in Wilson and Johnston County may have also been affected, but Buscher says there has been no confirmation those areas were impacted.  “We apologize to our customers that this happened,” Buscher said.  A service call from a concerned parent alerted the company to the problem.  “We took the initial call seriously and began to fix it immediately,” she says.  “It was a technical failure that caused the programming to be rerouted.”  She denied that the cable’s computer system had been hacked by an outside source.
BizJournal


Lohan has Beef with E*Trade Baby
The actress Lindsay Lohan has sued E*Trade Financial Corp for $100 million, saying a "milkaholic" baby girl who appeared in a recent commercial was modeled after her.  Lohan alleged that online brokerage's use in the ad the girl, also named Lindsay, improperly invoked her "likeness, name, characterization, and personality" without permission, violating her right of privacy.  In her lawsuit filed Monday in a Nassau County, New York state court, the 23-year-old actress sought $50 million of compensatory damages and $50 million of exemplary damages.  She also demanded that E*Trade stop running the ad and turn over all copies to her.  In the ad, a baby boy apologizes to his girlfriend through a video chat for not calling her the night before because he was on E*Trade.  The camera switches to the girl, who asks suspiciously, "And that milkaholic Lindsay wasn't over?"  It then switches back to the boy, who uneasily replies "Lindsay?" before another baby girl, presumably Lindsay, moves into the frame and asks, "Milk-a-what?"  Lohan was ordered in 2007 to serve one day in jail, undergo an alcohol education program and spend three years on probation after admitting to drunk driving and cocaine possession.  Lohan's lawyer Stephanie Ovadia did not return requests for a comment.  An E*Trade spokeswoman declined to comment, saying the New York-based company had not reviewed the complaint.  A copy of the complaint is available at www.tmz.com.  The New York Post reported the lawsuit earlier Tuesday.  It said Ovadia maintained that Lohan has the same "single-name" recognition as celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Madonna.  "Lindsay" was in 2008 the 380th most popular name for newborn American girls, according to the U.S. Social Security Administration.  That was down from 241th in 2004, when Lohan's popular film "Mean Girls" was released.
Rueters


Nevada Can Ban Brothel Ads, Court Rules
A federal appeals court has upheld a Nevada law that bars legal brothels that operate in some of the state's rural areas from advertising by newspaper, leaflets and billboards in Las Vegas, Reno and other places where prostitution is illegal.  Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto hailed the ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel in San Francisco, while a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada promised to appeal.  The laws had been challenged by the ACLU, a Nye County brothel called the Shady Lady Ranch and two newspapers: the High Desert Advocate and Las Vegas City Life.  Prostitution is illegal in Clark and Washoe counties - which include Las Vegas and Reno - and three other Nevada counties. Ten Nevada counties authorize prostitution by local ordinance.  The 9th Circuit panel decision, issued Thursday, reversed a ruling by U.S. District Court Judge James Mahan in Nevada that two 1979 state laws prohibiting brothel advertising in counties where prostitution is illegal were overly broad and unconstitutional.  The laws also prohibit brothel advertising in theaters and on streets and public highways.  The 9th Circuit noted in its ruling that Nevada was unique among states because it has a "nuanced boundary," rather than total criminalization of prostitution.  But the state still seeks to confine the sale of sex acts through licensing and advertising restrictions, the judges said.  It's a violation of the First Amendment for the state to restrict advertising by a legal industry, and it's wrong for a court to make exceptions because the state doesn't want to have it advertised that legalized prostitution exists, ACLU attorney Allen Lichtenstein said.
Editor & Publisher


Murdoch's Middle East Move Viewed with Suspicion
The tie-up between Arab entertainment giant Rotana and pro-Israel media mogul Rupert Murdoch is viewed in Egypt not only with suspicion but as signaling the decline of Arab film and art heritage.  In a country where film and television attract some of the largest audiences across the Arab world, the tycoon's foray into the Middle East is widely seen in cultural circles as a ruse to benefit Israel.  Murdoch's News Corp last month acquired a 9.09-percent holding in the Rotana Group of Saudi royal and business tycoon Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, with an 18-month option to double the stake.  Rotana is one of the largest film producers in Egypt and also owns the rights to hundreds of Egyptian motion pictures.  In Egypt, which signed a 1979 peace treaty with Israel but has resisted a warming of cultural ties, there has been wide suspicion that the tie-up with Rotana is part of a Murdoch scheme to thaw frosty Arab views of Israel.  "Murdoch will enter every Arab home to impose normalization" of ties with Israel, said Egyptian film critic Ola al-Shafei.  The partnership amounts to "a defeat for the Arab film and art heritage," she added.  Scriptwriter Osama Anwar Okasha wrote that Murdoch's stake in Rotana was a "Trojan horse" designed to stealthily penetrate Arab culture.  Egypt's state-owned film company has already threatened to stop working with Rotana, whose bouquet of free-to-air satellite channels target an Arab audience across the Middle East that is equally opposed to Murdoch's politics.  "The Arabs see Murdoch as a person who does not respect them, their faith, or heritage," wrote Palestinian journalist and poet, Iqbal Tamimi.  "The majority say that he is gambling with his money if he thinks that the Arabs will forget his far right-wing political news machine, or his pro-Israeli stands," she added.  Murdoch has made no bones about his unabashed support of Israel for decades, and has received a number of awards from Jewish groups amid debate over his own Jewish roots.
Middle East Online


Message From Michael
INTERNET ENEMIES:  More than 60 countries experienced some form of Internet censorship last year, according to a report just released by Reporters Without Borders.  That is twice as many as the year before.  Several of those countries qualify as “Internet Enemies” – Saudi Arabia, Burma, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.  The group says these countries “are determined to use any means necessary” to stop people from using the Internet.  China has created “the world’s largest netizens prison” with 72 people arrested.  The enemies list may not be surprising.  A little more surprising are the countries “under surveillance.”  Okay, Turkey and Russia may be not so.  But Australia and South Korea?  South Korea is often cited as having the best Internet infrastructure in the world, but it also has the “best” laws aimed at restricting Web users by challenging their anonymity, according to the group; while Australia, claiming it is protecting citizens against pornography, is looking at implementing a highly developed Internet filtering system.  The report was released on what the group dubbed Cyber Censorship Day.  The group also awarded the Iranian women’s activist group (we-change.org) its first “Netizen Prize” for their efforts to use the Internet.  The reporters without borders report also notes that many countries have made Internet access and freedom a major goal, including the U.S. which, it says, in January made freedom of expression on the Internet the number one goal of its foreign policy.

THE INTERNET IN FIVE MINUTES:  That’s the promise of a creative agency specializing in web design and data visualization, known as JESS3.  It may not be exactly true but it’s pretty dang interesting nevertheless, as it lays out such stats as the fact that Facebook serves 6 Million page views each minute on its more than 30,000 servers.  Or that YouTube serves more than One Billion videos every day while Twitter serves up 27.3 Million tweets a day.  Of the 247 Billion emails sent round the world last year, 200 Billion of them were spam, and that 148 Thousand ‘zombie computers’ (used for botnet spamming) are created every day by hackers who have created more than 2.6 Million bits of malicious code last year.  None of the stats are attributed (as we are so careful to do in our Message) but many of the facts are ones that we have talked about in messages.  In any case, if you want to see for yourself, go to http://www.jess3.com/blog/2010/02/our-social-media-history-animation.html.

A DAY THAT WILL LIVE IN INTERNET HISTORY:  This Wednesday when the Federal Communications Commission is expected to unveil its plan to bring the benefits of broadband to (and I’m quoting) “healthcare, education, energy and the environment, government, public safety and homeland security, job training and small business.”  One of the most controversial aspects of the plan is the possibility that the federal government will reclaim some of the digital spectrum bought by broadcasters when they had to switch from analog signals.  The executive director of the “Broadband Omnibus Initiative”, Blair Levin, says more than 25,000 filings have been made.  As a side note to that, YouTube has set up a “citizen tube” site which allows people to pose questions to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.  So far, there are only eight questions from 76 people which gathered all of 172 votes.  Anyway, moving on… Levin says the most interesting set of filings focus on the role of personal data in the Online world and what it means to privacy.  As he says, many of the innovative applications developed by businesses involve consumers sharing personal data.  As he puts it in his latest blog, “20th century notions of privacy protection break down once information is put into digital format.”  And, as a side note to this… a study commissioned by Microsoft shows that fewer than 15% of consumers surveyed in the U.S. and U.K. believe that information online would have an affect on them getting a job.  In the U.S., it was only 7%.  Yet, in reality, it’s ten times that number with 70% of recruiters and HR professionals saying they’ve rejected applicants because of information they found online.

FOLLOW THE LEADER:  Okay, so Ashton Kucher has more than 4.6 Million Twitter followers.  But the vast majority of tweet-makers (a term I just made up) have less than ten followers.  Specifically, only a quarter (26%) had ten followers or more, according to an analysis by Internet security firm Barracuda Labs.  Much less than half (40%) were following ten or more people.  However, while those low numbers have gotten a lot of media coverage, it should be noted that the report shows the percentage of people with ten or more followers was actually up from a year ago when only 20% had ten or more followers.  But then again, the report says you have never even heard a single peep from a third (34%) of them since the day they opened their account.  Of course, since this is an Internet security firm, it looks at the Twitter “crime rate.”  When Twitter first started in 2006, only one percent qualified as crime – meaning they had malware or other malicious content.  By 2009 that figure had jumped to 12%.  The report also notes a slowdown in the Twitter growth rate.  In what it called the “Twitter Red Carpet Era”, the social networking site was growing a whopping 20% a month, driven mainly by the influx of celebrities like Kucher and Oprah and others.  Now it’s down to 0.34%.  As always, in the interest of balance, there is another dimension to the Twitter phenomenon.  A market research firm reports that Twitter and Facebook fans are good for business, because they are more likely to buy products they follow (67%) or recommend those brands (79%).

NOT CHAMPAGNE:  But they may soon be popping the cork over a new service called Bubbly which is basically a voice-based form of Twitter.  Instead of texting, people leave very short audio messages, from 30 seconds to a maximum of a minute.  And it is catching on like wildfire in India as well as Japan and India.  Just like the Twitter growth, Bubbly’s growth has been fueled by celebrity adoption… in this case, the stars of Bollywood.  The company that launched the service says it plans to skip North America and Europe for now and focus on areas which rely heavily on mobile use, such as India where, by 2012, it is expected there will be 650 Million cell phone users.  Also, just as in the U.S., where media companies quickly adopted Twitter, media companies in Asia are doing that with Bubbly.  The BBC is already using it to send out breaking news announcements in India.

COCKTAIL CHATTER:  You could become a media mogul.  A Michigan man who has decided he’s tired of the cold weather and wants to retire in Florida is selling his television station on eBay.  He originally was asking for a Million dollars, but says he’s willing to take half that for a ‘cash sale.’  Bud Kelley says the station is profitable, but things like the weekly Bingo game which is one of the station’s most popular shows just take up too much energy.  The station, WKMG-LP, is located in Muskegon (West Michigan’s Shoreline City, according to the official city website), population 40,000.  The station is a low power station, but is in the Grand Rapids market and the station signal is carried on cable.

GO SOUTH BY SOUTHWEST, YOUNG MAN:  It doesn’t have quite the ring of Horace Greeley’s original exhortation, but no doubt the newspaperman turned politician would be urging that today because SXSW is the place to be.  SXSW is the acronym for a week long festival held in Austin, Texas, and which features an eclectic combination of new media, new music, independent films and technology.  As long as I was pointing out dates to watch, add SXSW which runs from March 12 to March 21.

BUMMER FOOTNOTE:  The “News Industry” has lost jobs at three times the rate of job loss in the economy as a whole.  That discouraging piece of news comes from the Unity (Journalists of Color) report tracking layoffs.  Now, confession here, the news is old.  The report came out last year, but I recently came across it again, as I researched the issue of layoffs and cutbacks for a message reader.  Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, there have been 24,511 layoffs in the print area, 8,333 in broadcast and 1,172 in magazines.  And since January of 2008, more than 200 news operations have shut their doors.

BLATANT PLUG:  The Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication is holding its annual Bluejeans Workshop this Saturday.  It’s a one-day hands-on training and learning experience in which “veteran journalists… give you the tools to take back to your newsroom.”  Topics range from blogging, ethics, job skills for the new age of journalism, multi-platform journalism and on-air performance.

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 Signs You Spend Too Much Time On Twitter

10. You miss son's soccer game waiting for Lady Gaga to post what she had for lunch.

9.  You answer the phone: "Twello?"

8.  You've spent millions developing iPhone waterproofing technology so you can tweet in the shower.

7.  You haven't touched your CB radio in months.

6.  You ask yourself, "What would Jesus tweet?"

5.  You sleep-tweet.

4.  No number 4 -- writer on Twitter.

3.  You stopped paying attention to this list after the first 140 characters.

2.  Even Ashton Kutcher thinks you tweet too much.

1.  Walked in on the landscaper "retweeting" your wife.

The Late Show with David Letterman

-----------------------------------
The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills.  Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site.  Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.

Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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(919) 217-4438
Web Site
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The Marketing Ideanet is a free idea sharing newsletter published by 602 Communications. We are a TV training and consulting company that specializes in improving front-line news and marketing skills.  Check out thousands of cutting edge examples at our web site.  Join us on Facebook and Twitter.

Sent via TVSpy's email servers. Visit TV Spy's Marketing Matters.

Graeme Newell
602 Communications
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
(919) 217-4438
Web Site
Facebook
Twitter



In This Issue
Research Questions for Meaningful Change
ABC Seeks New Brand of Digital Journalists
Discovery Channel's Success Story
Circumventing Cable Fees Via Internet
Cable Ops Must Share Channels, Appeal Court Says
MSNBC Extends BreakingNews Brand To Facebook
Tweeters Not So Social Afterall
Media Companies Seek New Avenues for Revenue
TV Station for Sale on eBay
Betty White to Host 'SNL'
Barbie Goes 'Mad'
Success of Reality Show The Senate Spurs Futility TV Copycats


Quotes

"Questions focus our thinking.  Ask empowering questions like: What's good about this?  What's not perfect about it yet?  What am I going to do next time?  How can I do this and have fund doing it?"
- Charles Connolly

"The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions."
- Anthony Jay

"The purpose of art is to lay bare the questions which have been hidden by the answers."
- James Baldwin


Research Questions for Meaningful Change
by Graeme Newell
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
http://www.602communications.com
Twitter: gnewell
Facebook: facebook.com/gnewell

You'll probably spend a boatload of money on that next research survey, but are you getting data that will truly motivate change within your organization?  Are you getting the standard template questions used by every station in the country, or something customized to your organization?  When designing a survey, it is important that you roll up your sleeves, jettison the perennial survey gems, and craft questions your team will actually use.  This means working backwards from the frontline solution, not working forward from the questions.

Baseline audience information is important to assess, but far too many surveys provide little else.  This is especially prevalent with tracking surveys.  We ask the same general questions year after year, in hope of tracking improvement.  Sure, this information is nice to know, but does it lead to real change within your organization?

There should be few questions on your survey that do not lead to a corresponding and immediate action by your staff.  For example, if I ask my wife "Do you think I am a good husband?" there is little I can do with the information in her answer.  I will get a general impression, but I cannot take any action with this information.  But if I ask my wife "What specific things could I do around the house that would make you feel better about our relationship?" now I have information I can act upon.

So the question "What shows on our channel are appointment viewing?" is a good one.  That's because it would answer the question "Which of our shows should go to the top of our promotion list and have the greatest chance of creating a viewing habit?"  It would lead to an immediate restructuring of your on-air scheduling strategy.

Make your research company start the process from scratch - no templates.  Begin the questionnaire process with a careful assessment by your managers and frontline supervisors.  What answers about the audience will empower them to take a specific and decisive action?  Try to reduce questions that provide general audience impressions.  Look for information that will empower them to move forward with a resolute step.

Ask the team "What are the most important things you would like to know about our audience?"  However, this question must be followed up with "What immediate action would you take if you had an answer to that question?"  If they cannot give you an answer to that second part, then it should not be on the survey.

So here is the structure of the staff's answer:
"If I knew this, I would take this immediate action."

Examples;
Graphics: "If I knew the audience's taste for adventure and excitement, I would immediately adjust the speed and clutter factor in our on-air look."
Producers: "If I knew how the audience felt about scenes of violence, I would adjust the amount of graphic violence in my shows."
Editors: "If I knew the audience's level of fascination with big name stars, I would immediately adjust who and what is featured in my in-show teases."
Marketing: "If I knew whether our audience sees itself as more tough or more smart, I would adjust the style of humor used in our image marketing."

So put your own research to the test.  Whip out your last questionnaire and give each question the actionable test.  Are there a lot of questions that inform, but are not actionable?  How many of those questions led to a specific reaction within your organization?

Graeme Newell is a broadcast and new media marketer who specializes in core emotional drivers.  He guarantees that his teasing seminar will immediately increase your news ratings or his workshop is free.  Find out more here.


ABC Seeks New Brand of Digital Journalists
ABC, which two weeks ago announced major staff reductions in a restructuring of its news operation, is already looking to staff up again with its new brand of digital journalists.  According to a couple of internal job postings e-mails, ABC has "multiple openings" for digital journalists who will need to be able to shoot their own video, produce, write and deliver stories on-air and online.  An ABC source says that while some will be working as one-person operations, the plan is usually to work in teams of two or three.  The new digital journalist will also need to be the point person for news in various regions, which include domestic and international locations and will need to have strong booking and tech skills.  An ABC spokeswoman confirmed the job postings, but could not say how many slots there were.  Some will be replacing old positions while some will be new posts.  They will be open to all ABC staffers, though not those who decide to take the buyouts the company has offered.  In a job description that suggests the pace of digital journalism, the posting says candidates must be "capable of prioritizing and handling multiple projects simultaneously, under tight time constraints."
Broadcasting & Cable


Discovery Channel's Success Story
Rupert Murdoch’s deputy, Chase Carey, looked out on the cable television landscape last fall and found a rival he wanted to emulate.  Discovery Communications, he said, is “a road map of where I’d like to be.”  That is a big endorsement of Discovery, especially considering that it is just one-ninth the size of Mr. Murdoch’s company, the News Corporation.  It is a testament to the fact that Discovery, the owner of 13 cable channels in the United States, has become a favorite on Wall Street, and its chief executive, David Zaslav, has become the subject of envy in the television industry.  These days, every media company seems to wish it were a cable TV company, drawing revenue from subscribers and advertisers.  Within cable, analysts say Discovery is particularly well positioned because it owns most of its shows and it can cheaply replay those shows in dozens of countries.  (Many others rely more heavily on independent producers, limiting their international potential.)  The company’s channels, including the Discovery Channel, TLC and Animal Planet, are not the most watched on TV, although its hits, like “Deadliest Catch” and the defunct “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” regularly draw millions.  They succeed because the shows are unscripted and relatively cheap to create.  Mr. Zaslav “has woken up a sleeping new giant,” said the media analyst Jessica Reif Cohen of Bank of America Merrill Lynch.  “I think that Discovery has the best secular growth prospects in the industry,” she said, comparing it to the Walt Disney Company 25 years ago, when Michael Eisner first took charge there.  Mr. Zaslav, whose favorite phrase at meetings is “keep it going,” now faces arguably bigger, more weighty challenges with three new channels, one for children with Hasbro, one in 3-D with Sony and Imax, and one with Oprah Winfrey.  At the same time, he is pushing Discovery to further increase market share overseas, where international versions of Discovery and Animal Planet are beamed into 180 countries, it says.  “They produce shows with a mind toward how they can use them around the world,” David C. Joyce, an analyst at Miller Tabak, said.  Discovery, with its headquarters in Silver Spring, Md., was founded by John S. Hendricks as one channel in 1985.  Discovery’s stock price doubled in the last year, outperforming most other cable companies (and reaping a $34 million bonus for Mr. Zaslav).  International revenue accounted for about $1.2 billion last year of the company’s $3.5 billion in total revenue.  That international slice has quadrupled in the three years that Mr. Zaslav has run the company.
NY Times


Circumventing Cable Fees Via Internet
There are certain timeless truths about people who don’t own a television, chief among them that they love to tell you they don’t own a television.  These days, they are still out there, but they have rivals in the realm of zealotry: people who do watch television — sometimes plenty of it — but don’t own a cable box.  Those who belong to this crowd are only too happy to remind you that they can watch most of what you watch, but don’t pay $60 a month or more for the privilege.  They will explain gleefully how they (legally, for the most part) circumvent the cable companies.  And they are becoming more voluble, as cable bills rise and technology improves.  “I tell everybody at my workplace about it all the time,” said Sundance McClure, a Web developer from Lakeside, Calif., who canceled his cable service nine months ago when the cost inched toward $100 a month.  Whenever colleagues talk about what they watch on TV, he said, “I always tell them, ‘Yeah, well, you know, we don’t have to pay for any of that.’ ”  Whether this makes Mr. McClure popular at the office does not seem to be the point.  He gains pleasure from watching hours of television a day with the help of PlayOn, a $40 software download that aggregates Internet content and streams it to his Xbox 360, a game console attached to his TV.  It’s impossible to quantify how many people have ditched their cable service, and the cable providers are eager to paint them as a minority fringe.  But with devices like Xbox and Apple TV and software like Boxee making it easy to stream Internet content to a television, mention the phenomenon in just about any gathering, and someone is likely to pipe up about his or her way of watching cable free.  And, yes, by and large they do enjoy making other people jealous.  “The two questions I get asked most often are, one, ‘Do you really save that kind of money?’ and two, ‘Can you really see everything that you want?’ ” said Gerald Ortega, who has been proudly documenting his divorce from cable since July 2008 on his blog, Replace Television.  “And the answer to both of those is yes.”  And no.  Though you shouldn’t expect a cable-cord cutter to volunteer this information, a monthly bill is not the only thing you must do without.  Because they command hefty advertising rates, few sporting events are streamed live.  Premium channels like HBO and Showtime also keep their original programming behind a pay wall, since they rely largely on subscriber revenue.  So a rabid football or “True Blood” fan who decides to dump cable had better have some very hospitable neighbors (preferably, ones with a premium package).  Cable executives say they are not worried.  Setting up a cable-free life is still too daunting for most people, since most of the work-arounds involve a lot more than just grabbing the remote (assuming you can find it under the sofa cushions).  “We don’t consider it a threat to our business,” said Maureen Huff, a spokeswoman for Time Warner Cable.  “Being able to watch TV on the Internet is not new.”  Without question, the cost of watching television is going up: The average household cable bill in the United States hit $64 a month in 2009, up from $47.50 in 2004, according to Leichtman Research Group, which specializes in media research.
NY Times


Cable Ops Must Share Channels, Appeal Court Says
A three-judge U.S. Court of Appeals panel has upheld the Federal Communications Commission's rule that cable operators must share channels that they own or partially own with competitors, TheWrap reports.  The court's decision was 2-1 in upholding the FCC's ruling.  Cable operators, such as Cox and Comcast and Cablevision, have argued against the FCC's ruling, saying that the rule violates the First Amendment.  They also argue that the rule is out-of-date, as satellite and phone company competitors have eaten into the market share of the cable operators.  The FCC first installed the rule around 10 years ago, and renewed it for another five years in 2007.  According to the article, written by former TVWeek Washington whiz Ira Teinowitz, "Most of the channels affected are regional sports channels, but some cable systems own several national channels, too.  And they could soon own far more if Comcast’s deal for NBC Universal goes through."  The judges said while the cable companies have lost market share, they still control a majority of the market.  But, the judges did say that if cable continues to lose its grip on the market, the FCC may no longer have the justification to renew the rule in 2012.
TV Week


MSNBC Extends BreakingNews Brand To Facebook
Last November, MSNBC acquired the Twitter account @breakingnews, which was started as a basic newswire by Michael van Poppel and gradually grew to 1.4 million followers (it’s now up to over 1.6 million).  A month later, MSNBC announced that it had acquired BreakingNews.com, which has become a web portal for the online newswire.  And today, it’s managed to complete the trifecta: MSNBC has just launched a Facebook Page at Facebook.com/BreakingNews.  MSNBC spokesperson Gina Stikes says that the new Facebook account will only send updates for the biggest stories to break (you can still use its other feeds if you want to receive every story to come from the service).  The page is obviously still quite new (it only has 645 fans right now), but you can expect that the grow quickly.  Just how quickly is the big question, though: we’ll have to wait to see if MSNBC will be able to leverage its large community on Twitter to establish its Facebook page.  In any case, it’s managed to take ownership of the term “breaking news” across a large swath of the web, which is no small feat.
TechCrunch


Tweeters Not So Social Afterall
Twitter may be a fast-growing social network, but most of its 50 million accounts merely follow other users rather than posting their own messages.  In fact, a whopping 73% of Twitter accounts have tweeted fewer than 10 times according to a new report from Barracuda Networks, a Web security company.  It seems that Twitter is becoming more of news feed than a social network, said Paul Judge, author of the report and chief research officer at Barracuda.  And that raises questions about its growth potential, as well as how the Internet phenomenon will make money.  As of December 2009, only 21% of Twitter account holders were what Barracuda defines as "true users," meaning someone who has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people and has tweeted at least 10 times.  That indicates that most Twitter users "came online to follow their favorite celebrities, not to interact with their buddies the way they would on Facebook or MySpace," said Judge.  The follow-only trend exploded when celebrities helped push the microblogging site into the mainstream during a six-month period that Barracuda calls Twitter's "red carpet era."  From November 2008 to April 2009, several celebrities, including Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey and John Mayer, joined Twitter.  And the site grew 21.2% in the month of April 2009 alone.  "The most famous people have already joined Twitter, so I don't think they'll see another growth spurt like that," Judge said.  So the question now, said Judge, is whether Twitter can get more of these followers to start tweeting themselves.  "The bottom line is, most of these people are getting online because Ashton asked them to," Judge said.  "If those people do nothing after that, [Twitter's] growth can't hope to continue."
CNN Money


Media Companies Seek New Avenues for Revenue
Richard Gringas calls it an "experiment."  The Monday after Thanksgiving, Salon.com started selling cube-shaped martini shakers, shower-rings that look like meringues, and coffee mugs designed like paper cups (for that eco-conscious soul with a sense of humor).  Though not a "massive success," that experiment made money for the 15-year-old news and feature site, said Gringas, CEO of Salon Media Group Inc.  And finding new ways to make money is much on the minds of news media executives as advertising sales plummet.  News organizations are turning to wine and travel clubs and hiking subscription rates to make money.  Some upstart local news outlets are setting themselves up as nonprofits and turning to foundations and individual donors, rather than advertising, for support.  In the long run, though, there may be no escaping advertising's grip on media.  "There's a lot of experimentation going on now and shifts in strategy to drive new revenue," said Randy Bennett, senior vice president of business development for the Newspaper Association of America.  After debuting what it describes as a successful launch of a wine club in 2008, the Wall Street Journal entered the travel market in January.  If you liked that Journal article on Vietnam, perhaps you'll also like the Journal's 12-day culinary tour inspired by the paper's story, said Imtiaz Patel, vice president of group sales and strategy.  The trip starts at $4,299.  The Journal counts 100,000 members in its wine club, about twice as many as it did a year ago.  Members pay about $70 to get 12 wines recommended by the Journal. Shoppers can also buy individual wines.  "It's a great revenue stream," Patel said. He declined to say how much revenue wine and travel have generated for the paper.  Newspaper executives say they are careful about preventing any conflicts of interests that would blur the line between reporting on wine and selling it.  "We're diligent about this," Patel said. "Our reporters will never opine on anything we sell."  And for older media sites, there is a limit as to how much you can branch out into ventures like wine and travel without losing your identity as a news site.  "You don't want to turn yourself from a content source to a shopping mall," Patel said.  "You'll destroy your brand."
Portfolio


TV Station for Sale on eBay
You don’t need pockets as deep as Comcast’s to get into the TV business. Or even be a millionaire, apparently.  A UHF station in Western Michigan — WMKG-LP, Channel 38 — that shows a mix of live talk shows and family and outdoor sports programming, is “priced to sell” at $550,000, according to its listing on eBay.  And the owner, Bud Kelley, says he will go even lower.  Mr. Kelley originally listed the station — including the license and equipment, but not the broadcast tower — on the online auction site for $1 million before he dropped the price.  He said last week that he would be happy with a $500,000 cash sale.  Most of the people who have inquired so far have been “tire-kickers,” he said, though serious offers have come his way.  “It’s a real station, not a toy,” said Mr. Kelley, 67, who has run the 24-hour station since it went on the air in April 1990.  “It’s just retirement time for me.”  Mr. Kelley said the business, run out of Muskegon, was profitable even though he has not made the switch to a digital signal from analog.  A new owner could spend $100,000 or more to add a digital transmitter.  The station used to have a half-dozen people to help produce a local news show, but financial pressure in recent years took it out of the news business.  Mr. Kelley still carries a camera around, though, because “it’s hard to take the newsroom out of the boy,” he said.  Mr. Kelley said he planned to move to Florida with Michelle, his wife of 35 years — “and not much longer if I don’t get rid of this station” — and spend his time on his other passions, including bicycling, fishing and square dancing.
NY Times


Betty White to Host 'SNL'
The Internet has gotten its way: Betty White will host "Saturday Night Live."  NBC said Thursday that the 88-year-old actress will host the show May 8. "SNL" executive producer Lorne Michaels says he can't think of a better way to spend Mother's Day weekend than with White.  The announcement followed a campaign on Facebook urging the sketch show to make White a host.  The group attracted nearly half-a-million supporters.  White, whose starring roles include "The Golden Girls," was given a lifetime achievement award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards in January.
Yahoo News


Barbie Goes 'Mad'
After three seasons, “Mad Men,” the television series about advertising in the 1960s, has attained a level of popular-culture cachet.  There have been magazine cover articles, calendars and an episode of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” all devoted to it, spoofs on “The Simpsons” and “Saturday Night Live,” and even a “Mad Men” category on “Jeopardy.”  Soon, the show will enter a realm of the pop-culture pantheon that its creator, Matthew Weiner, says has surprised even him: Mattel plans to bring out versions of Barbie and Ken styled after four “Mad Men” characters.  The dolls are part of a premium-price collectors’ series for adults that Mattel calls the Barbie Fashion Model Collection.  Although there have been Barbies and Kens based on other TV series, among them “I Love Lucy” and “The X-Files,” the dolls will be the first licensed line for that collection, Mattel says, with a suggested retail price of $74.95 each.  The characters to become dolls are Don Draper, the show’s leading man; his wife, Betty; his colleague at the Sterling Cooper agency, Roger Sterling; and Joan Holloway, the agency’s office manager who was Roger’s mistress.  That two dolls represent a relationship outside wedlock, and Don Draper’s propensity for adultery, may be firsts for the Barbie world since the brand’s introduction five decades ago.  But for the sake of the Barbie image, her immersion in the “Mad Men” era will go only so far: The dolls come with period accessories like hats, overcoats, pearls and padded undergarments, but no cigarettes, ashtrays, martini glasses or cocktail shakers.
NY Times

Success of Reality Show The Senate Spurs Futility TV Copycats

The unexpected success of ABC's breakout reality megahit, The Senate, may precipitate a torrent of copycat shows.

In The Senate, 100 aging windbags are divided into two Tribes, placed in a muggy swamp, and challenged to solve problems through cooperation.

ABC was initially disappointed.  Instead of cooperative problem solving, the Tribes engaged in juvenile name-calling, sanctimonious posturing, and pompous bloviating.  While the Tribes failed to achieve anything, viewers were oddly attracted.

"Like a ten car pile up, you have to look," Virginia Heffernan, The New York Times TV critic explained.  "The Senate is even more riveting.  It is a ten-car wreck where the uninjured drivers ignore the dying and the damaged.  Instead of calling an ambulance, they pontificate, fulminate, and blame the other Tribe for the crash."

The Senate has become the show you love to hate.  Each week over 45 million American tune in to see which tribe can be more hypocritical, demagogic, and inane.

Network executives believe that viewers want more "futility TV"--reality shows where nothing happens and everyone acts the fool.  "What America wants is Seinfeld with only Kramers," CBS CEO Les Moonves concluded.  "They want to watch blathering, incompetent fools accomplishing nothing."

At CBS Moonves has four "futility TV" reality shows under development:

    * NASCAR is the ultimate in 'futility TV."  Cars, plastered with advertisements and corporate logos, go round and round and round and round and round a racetrack.  The ennui is relived only by commercials and occasional crashes.

    * The Real Unemployed of Dayton, Ohio follows depressed out-of-work journeymen as they fruitlessly hunt for jobs, suffer surly teenagers, and receive foreclosure notices.  "If Americans want futility TV, we will give them futility TV," Moonves promised.

    * Wall Street follows the lives of a dozen rapacious bunko artists, a.k.a. Managing Directors, as they compete to enrich themselves by snatching mega bonuses while ruining the economy.

Each week, one contestant is voted "off the street" and receives a lump sum $25 million "golden parachute," an annual $6 million pension, lifetime health and life insurance policies, access to the company-owned luxury apartments, unlimited use of a corporate jet, a grand tier box at the Metropolitan Opera, membership at country clubs, court-side tickets to New York Knicks games, and box seats at Yankee Stadium,

    * Court shows beginning with People's Court were the grandfather of reality shows.  In CBS's Supreme Court two Tribes--The Tight Ass Catholics and The Diversity Ditherers--decide complex constitutional cases.  Since the sphincterly challenged Catholics outvote the Ditherers five to four, the outcome is never in doubt.  The drama of Supreme Court lies in Tight Asses betraying their legal principles and employing twisted logic to achieve the result they want.

In the pilot, using legal reasoning that would embarrass a first year law student, the Catholics granted corporations to ability corrupt democratic elections through unlimited campaign spending.  Since this absurd result could never happen in real life, one questions if Supreme Court deserves the label "reality show."

Follow Steven Clifford on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stevenclifford

Huffington Post

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Graeme Newell
602 Communications
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