Paid Content has a nice quick hit interview with Associated Press editor Tom Curley. He touches on the Google deal (”not affecting anybody”), the way the AP’s structure is changing, the Yahoo consortium and more. Curley says if people want to use AP content, they should pay for it. “This nonsense that you can just take the first paragraph or use the picture small doesn’t really fly with us. People die trying to take those pictures.”
With so much news and content floating around, Curley says breaking news sits at the top of the heap. We believe that breaking news is worth more these days than it ever was. So breaking news is a premium business.”
Curley also broaches the idea of the AP becoming a news aggregator with sharing between members. “The joy is not in searching, the joy is finding the content that you want. Well, we think we can make that much better and also that sets up a lot of possibilities in terms of revenue, especially around behavioral advertising.” Fifty newspapers are currently participating in a trial, and the AP hopes as many as 3,600 orginizations would eventually participate.
The Chicago Tribune’s recent story on a company that told store Santas not to say “ho ho ho” because it could be demeaning to women is one that would generally attract an avalanche of comments. But the site’s bad word filter threw most of the comments out the window because if you write “ho,” your comment won’t go through. “The program includes a ‘heat index’ that polices profane language,” editor Timothy J. McNulty wrote. “If the program detects a high percentage of profanity or words that suggest violence, it automatically kills the comment.” I guess it’s a three hos you’re out rule.
This 90 second segment of a recent WESH/Orlando newcast makes my fillings hurt: blonds make men dumb, shouts out to their family members - and Sesame Street toys. Oy.
Doug Anmuth, the internet analyst from Lehman Brothers, estimates that 1% of TV ad revenue (about $491 million) may shift to the web due to the writers strike. Most of that money would go to the big players, such as Yahoo, AOL and MSN. And you have to wonder if it will ever go back to TV.
The King in King World Productions, Roger King died Saturday from complications of a stroke. King was responsible for the syndication success of Oprah, Dr. Phil, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Rachel Ray and Inside Edition — a true titan in the entertainment industry. “Roger was the best sales executive this industry has ever known,” said Oprah Winfrey.
I’m that expert. I grab the remote just as a show fades to black, tap the fast-forward button three times, and then hit play within a second or two of the end of the commercial break. I’m so good at it, the networks should sue (remember ReplayTV a few years ago?) But last night, as I was expertly skipping through a break in one of the final fresh 30 Rock episodes, I was fooled. I saw Tina Fey running around and I hit play. But… it’s actually something called “30 Rock Holiday Funtimes,” little moments from the show that are actually commercial spots for Federal Express. Brilliant, I guess.
Negotiations in the writers strike have broken off with no plans to resume. With most series out of fresh episodes, reality and game shows will soon take over the airwaves. Aren’t you thrilled?
Hulk Hogan stars in the return of American Gladiators on NBC. Looks like I’ll be playing a lot more Xbox over the next few months.
Called the Open Content Platform, CNET is offering widgets for its major brands. The content is a mix of text and video (some brands offer more flexibility than others), but as TechCrunch asks, “Who will use them?” The widgets have embedded advertising, but the revenue is not shared with publishers. But CNET does offer customized partnership opportunities, from co-branding to licensing to affiliate programs.
In a new initiative called Campus Connection, ESPNU is teaming up with universities to solicit student content for all of its platforms: web, TV and print. The students will work with their professors and athletic departments, and they can submit play-by-play, analysis or reporting involving their own schools. “This initiative will give each participant an opportunity to gain invaluable professional experience through various ESPN multimedia services, which will shape some of the future reporters, writers and producers of the sports-media world,” said ESPNU VP and GM Burke Magnus. So far, ESPNU has partnered with 11 universities, with more on the way. Great idea.
The media technology company Macrovision is buying Gemstar-TV Guide for $2.8 billion, an unusual match-up that triggered a 22 percent drop in Macrovision’s stock. Explains the AP, “Macrovision Corp. wants to allow consumers to call up information about TV shows, view personal photos or access music libraries on a variety of electronic devices through a combination of its security software and Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc. programming data. Macrovision develops technology to prevent unauthorized copying and viewing of video, music and other content.” Asked what will happen with TV Guide Magazine (which only old people read these days), Macrovision’s CEO said he didn’t have a “deep background in that area.”
Update: Rafat Ali blogs on PaidContent, “The Macrovision-Gemstar-TV Guide deal makes conceptual sense on the technology and services side, but what about the media business? What about the magazine, the TV channel, and the websites? It doesn’t really seem central to the combined company’s vision, however they want to spin it.”
If you work in local TV, this is one of the most important things you’ll read this year. Borrell Associates just published its report, “Local Online Advertising Outlook for 2008,” and it underlines some disturbing challenges for local media, especially TV stations. Borrell’s team is predicting a 48% growth in local online ad dollars next year, but standard display ads are forecast to grow by just 9%. “The decade-long era in which the banner ad ruled the web appears to be drawing to a close,” the report reads.
So where’s the growth? Local search, directories and long-form video. And the average local TV site is out of position on all three. Search is the domain of Google and to a lesser extent, Yahoo and the others. Directories like Local.com (+138%) and Business.com (+84%) are pulling in local revenue hand over foot, yet very few (if any) local TV operations have succeeded in drawing significant traffic and revenue to a directory product. Not to mention, competition is stiff with established competitors like CitySearch, local newspapers and successful upstarts like Yelp and Marchex. Then there’s long-form video. While pre-rolls are going strong for the time being, most analysts agree they’re a transitional ad unit. Borrell predicts most of the growth will center around long-form advertorial video. But as I wrote earlier this week, most TV sites don’t have the targeted audiences — which are created through search, directories, classifieds and niche communities — to successfully sell long-form video. You don’t visit a TV site to find something, like a house or a plumber or a restaurant. And few local TV sites have succeeded in creating niche sites with vibrant communities. So while local TV has a long track record of success in video advertising on TV, newspapers and directories are leading the way in long-form video sales on the web.
All this adds up to a big red flag for local TV stations, and it mirrors much of what we’ve been preaching here on Lost Remote: the web is not TV. And Borrell sums it up with the bombshell line, “It is unlikely that any web operation can grow to its full potential without being significantly separated from its parent.” In order to have any shot at growing real internet dollars over the next few years, TV stations must hire smart web people and cut them loose to do what it takes to win, even if it sounds counterintuitive. Stations must invest heavily in new products and technology that match targeted audiences with advertisers in innovative ways. It’s called making it a real priority. (If this sounds familiar to LR readers, it should.)
Borrell also underlines the important point that convergence sales (packaging TV and the web) is not a sustainable strategy. “The notion that a single operation can successfully deliver content to multiple media types has rarely worked for local media in the past,” the report reads. Borrell advises beefing up web-only sales teams to handle the job. (I agree, but not to the exclusion of training TV account executives to at least cue up an online sale.) And I’ll add this about convergence sales: in most deals, the client does not get competitive value out of the web portion of the package. That’s because the campaign is usually designed with TV in mind — driven by TV AEs — and then the web is tacked on it. Or the web value is inflated to beef up the package. As clients become more sophisticated (agencies will be first), they’ll realize this disparity and go elsewhere on the web.
All in all, this report confirms my fears that TV sites will lose share of local revenue (which is only 9.3% right now) unless they make the web a priority.
The Omaha World-Herald’s site, Omaha.com, crashed shortly after yesterday’s mall shooting. And as of this writing (Thursday at 11 a.m. PT), the site is loading intermittently. Ouch. Apparently the site crashed from 2:15 to 5 p.m. yesterday, and returned with a streamlined design (minus ads, video and non-essential features.) But it continues to load very slowly if at all. The paper said it was in the process of adding extra servers. A newpaper’s defining moment, and it’s failing to deliver on its primary platform — which I’m sure is a boon for the Omaha TV sites, like WOWT.com.
Adds Michael:KETV.com saw significant traffic, including a very large number of people live streaming our coverage. With both CNN and Drudge Report linking to our content, you can imagine the spike. It’s days like those that we can appreciate the reliability we have being on IB’s technical network.
The NY Post is reporting that NBCU chief Jeff Zucker is planning substantial staffing cuts at NBC News and MSNBC “including eliminating an entire level of MSNBC’s management team, in a bid to save between $20 million and $40 million.” CNBC, with a new competitor in Fox Business, will be spared. A company insider told the NY Post that with NBC’s ratings decline, the writers strike, and an anticipated tough economy heading into ‘08, “the pace and proportion of cuts may accelerate rather than wane after the current round is complete.” The news is expected to come down this week or next.
This ought to be interesting. In a new rule, the NBA is now requiring coaches to wear microphones during televised games. The league is also mounting cameras in the locker rooms. Of course, the NBA says it will edit out strategic discussions and swearing, but not all the coaches are keen on the new requirements. “Everything in the locker room, when you go in there and talk, is strategy,” said Pistons coach Flip Saunders. “Unless they’re going to watch guys put their socks on.” Of course, I bet the next step is to stream it all online…
It’s easy to say that Newsblues.com founder Mike James is jaded. After all, that’s why he quit the business to start a controversial industry site. But it’s hard to argue with his assessment of TV news these days:
TV news, and those who draw paychecks from it, have become lazy, sloppy, and too willing to trust consultants rather than their own instincts. The industry no longer delivers news. It falls back on formulas. Content has become predictable. It takes the easy way out. It tries to fill an ever-increasing news hole with artificial preservatives.
Absolutely right, although there are some exceptions out there. As I’ve written many times before, my hope is the internet will help bring quality, relevancy and innovation back to TV newsrooms (which will soon become multiplatform newsrooms). But it takes newsroom leadership brave enough to embrace it, and so far, success stories are too few and far between.
Forrester analyst James McQuivey predicts that Apple won’t be able to do with video what it did with music. “MP3 players, including the iPod, are valuable from the day you buy them because your entire CD collection provides immediate content to fill the device. The video hardware business is different,” because you can’t rip video DVDs to iTunes, he explains. “To make matters worse, the one bright spot iTunes had going for it — the TV show download business — is stalling.” His advice for Apple? Get NBC back, for one. And get more aggressive in bringing professional and user-generated web video to iTunes. “Envision ubiquitous ‘download this to iTunes/iPod’ links that go beyond those few web videos formatted as video podcasts,” McQuivey writes. Hmmm, good idea. Because at the end of the day, there’s not enough interesting stuff on my AppleTV compared to my DVR. What do you think?
In this year’s installment of the ongoing saga, “Violent video games are destroying the fabric of our nation’s youth,” the National Institute on Media and the Family has issued their 12th-annual report card to help parents judge which games are suitable for children this holiday season. The report finds that efforts to protect children have not kept pace with the rapid growth of the gaming industry, and producers, retailers and consumers (i.e. parents) are guilty of “growing complacency’ when it comes to excessively violent games.
A screen grab from the hyper-realistic game Call of Duty 4.
Adds Ed in comments: “There seems to be this perception that because they’re ‘games,’ they must be for children. But, all the games on the list are rated ‘M’ and clearly are not for children, any more then ‘Saw 4′ or ‘CSI’…”
…and a bag of chips, too. Not content to stop with buying DoubleClick and owning online advertising, Google is looking for more partners and purchases to build a one-stop for media-buying on all platforms. We all knew that’s what they wanted, but now they’re saying it openly. Tim Armstrong, Google’s president of advertising, said their toe-dipping in selling ads in print, radio and television had shown that marketers would like a joint system that lets them better manage ad inventory. The target date is five years.
Anybody have any skinny on this? WSJ has an article that Nielsen has some new technology to offer publishers and netcasters that thwarts online video piracy. Digimarc is reportedly on board as a partner.
Update from Cory: Nielsen has just announced a new service that will allow publishers to track the viral distribution of their video across the internet. The goal is to “establish an industry-wide rules-based solution” using Digimarc’s watermarking and fingerprinting technology. Press release below…
Hulu is offering a handful of HD video samples for its beta testers, but you have to have big pipes to see it: 2.5 mbps or higher with a 3 GHz or faster PC. “The quality of these samples is certainly impressive,” writes Mark Hendrickson in Techcrunch. Meanwhile, iTunes has added HD video podcasts over the last several weeks. I’ve been watching Diggnation HD on my Apple TV, and it’s very clear (although not like watching a HD channel on TV, mind you.)
Paid Content has a nice quick hit interview with Associated Press editor Tom Curley. He touches on the Google deal (”not affecting anybody”), the way the AP’s structure is changing, the Yahoo consortium and more. Curley says if people want to use AP content, they should pay for it. “This nonsense that you can just take the first paragraph or use the picture small doesn’t really fly with us. People die trying to take those pictures.”
The King in King World Productions, Roger King 
In a new initiative called Campus Connection, 
This ought to be interesting. 
Forrester analyst James McQuivey 
