19 Comments Add your own

• 1. Aaron  |  February 28th, 2008 at 11:40 am

  If I may be blunt: What a crock of shit.

  It’s not bad enough that they toss out terms like “local web advertising” (what the hell is a “local ad” on the internet?), but the entire “study” was designed to give the result Magid needs to justify their existence.

  After proudly proclaiming “55% of respondents cite TV as their primary source of news information,” they bury the fact that the people they surveyed were “2,700 local news viewers.”

  Wait a minute… that means among TV news viewers, 45% of them don’t even use it as their primary news source?!

  Magid excluded non-TV news viewers from their study, but still have the balls to declare TV “the most effective video advertising platform?”

  I can only hope the ANA laughed them out of the room.

  All this study shows is that TV news viewers like TV news. Brilliant! I hope H-A got their money’s worth from that gem of wisdom, because it says nothing about the myriad reasons the number of TV news viewers is shrinking by the day.

• 2. Michael  |  February 28th, 2008 at 12:13 pm

  I think the real key point to take away from this study is the disparity in advertising revenue online.

  The general public will hit their local news outlets online for breaking local news and weather if they can’t find it through search engines.

  So there is a disconnect in terms of advertising revenue and traffic, I assume.

  But, the problem may not just be lower numbers of online salespeople at TV stations. I think the sales personnel assigned to online sales at most stations don’t truly understand the medium and see it as a “junior position” to the real money of on-air sales.

• 3. Michael Gay  |  February 28th, 2008 at 1:00 pm

  Just to clarify, the Michael above isn’t the Michael that works for Hearst-Argyle. I would agree with his assessment that consumers trust local media sites for local breaking news and local breaking weather. Have you ever tried to track storms on weather.com? It’s painful and you hit refresh a lot in case something new is happening.

• 4. oakling  |  February 28th, 2008 at 1:21 pm

  I would like to think that the reason is that we’re better-informed about media bias than previous generations may have been as a group.

  Personally, I don’t watch TV news because it moves too slowly for me. With written news, I can analyze it based on my own knowledge of the subject and of possible bias, I can get more information than the TV news ever gives me, I can do more research right away; with the TV I am stuck there waiting for them to go through it at their own pace. I find that generally I have taken in just about all the information they are going to give me in the first minute or two of a segment, and then just when I expect them to switch to something else, they go stand around asking people stupid questions.

  If you find someone on the street who witnessed a shooting and has something interesting and useful to say, by all means show it. If they didn’t see it but they have insights about the neighborhood context or something, fine. But I have no desire to watch ten minutes of people standing around being like “It was terrible. I am very sad.” And that’s what my local news stations tend to give me - I assume it’s their take on “human interest.”

  And meanwhile, they’re wasting tons of time that could be used to uncover more, and more interesting, local news stories. Or international news stories. They could be researching and educating us about the roots of violence in our community, or going out and showing us all the bizarre and exciting events that are coming up over the weekend, or doing a little feature on a local nonprofit that most people haven’t heard of…. They have so many options, and they are so entrenched in the same boring stuff. Too long on the weather, too long on the kitten that got stuck in a tree, too long on the sensationalist-sounding and irrelevant story they made up to get us to watch in the first place, and then five seconds on national and international news and they’re done.

  (And you know what those sensationalist stories are like - the commercial is all “It’s in many Bay Area homes and it COULD KILL YOU… find out at 11!” and then it turns out to be, you know, water or something.)

• 5. tdc  |  February 28th, 2008 at 1:37 pm

  funny you should mention WEATHER.

  go to thepittsburghchannel right now and try to get demetrius’s forecast.

  try it again in the morning (tomorrow).

  right now, you’ll get an error message. tomorrow he’ll load in a window so tiny you’ll squint. if it appears at all.

  does anybody both to verify that what they purportedly upload actually takes?

  if i sit through a pre-roll i deserve to see the weather ,damn it!

• 6. tdc  |  February 28th, 2008 at 1:43 pm

  btw-

  the ability to deconstruct these sorts of “unbiased” studies online is something ‘older’ tv execs and consultants haven’t quite come to grips with.

  ahhh, them good old days.

  agree w/ aaron.

• 7. Rocker  |  February 28th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

  Most of the “research” published about this business is paid for by somebody with a vested interest in the conclusions drawn. As Aaron points out, that means they (and I’ve done this myself) construct the study in order to prove a point. I think it’s rare that anything is outright fabricated, but you do have to understand the agenda of the source and learn to read between the lines to glean the real spin-free info that is often there…just buried. The trade press is far too oblivious to this, but then again they’re dependant on this stuff since they don’t have the resources to generate real objective info themselves. I get a newsletter from the “Center for Media Research” that is nothing but regurgitated commercial research of this nature…sometimes it’s laughable, sometimes there’s some useful info. But you have to know what it is, and how to intepret it.

• 8. TR  |  February 28th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

  To the point of “what the hell is a local ad on the Internet” — um, an ad purchased by a local business, expecting that if you have a site in, oh, say, Seattle, and they are, oh, say, a Seattle business, chances are they’re going to reach primarily people who are, oh, say, in Seattle? Does happen. Really. And even neighborhood advertisers have been known to pay decently for online advertising opportunities. Otherwise, I agree with the general sentiment “don’t waste time finding out what current TV-news viewers like and don’t like” - find out what the rest of the population is up to, you might learn something.

• 9. Aaron  |  February 28th, 2008 at 5:49 pm

  @TR: Yes, I should have been clearer about my local ad comment. To be more specific: TV stations continue to define “local” in terms of their Nielsen DMA, even when selling ads online.

  To one advertiser, “local” may be the 10-block radius around their shop. To another, it could be a 3-state region, far broader than a single DMA. Other sites provide those kinds of focused advertising opportunities — from neighborhood blogs to paid search results. TV news sites keep trying to sell online ads like they’re TV ads… one size fits all.

• 10. Amanda E.  |  February 28th, 2008 at 5:50 pm

  “why is an increasing number of 20 and 30-somethings not watching local TV news?”

  As a 25 year old, I can answer that question. Your average 20-30 somethings are typically not rooted in the communities in which they reside - most are either still in school or just starting their careers. Many do not have kids yet, nor do they own homes.

  And guess what, local TV news usually consists of packages that don’t affect them. The latest sweeps story on how your kids teacher posts naked pictures of themselves on MySpace doesn’t affect them. The latest package on how the producer’s favorite hidden danger of the day is going to kill your family doesn’t affect them. The latest package on how home prices are going through the roof doesn’t affect them.

  Ask yourself - when was the last time your station regularly produced packages on stories that affect that age group. Spokane for example has Washington State, Eastern Washington, Whitworth and Gonzaga Universities nearby, complete with at least 80,000 or so students affiliated with the schools. I certainly don’t see stories airing regularly on the local stations on issues that affects those students and their world (except for their sports teams of course, they get lots of air time). And the funny thing, at least half the staff in those station’s newsrooms attended school at one of those colleges - so they could find stories if they wanted to.

• 11. Aaron  |  February 28th, 2008 at 6:03 pm

  Sorry, I should have caught that TR is from the West Seattle Blog — precisely the kind of targeted audience that the Seattle TV sites can’t provide right now.

  For example, the Husky Deli (mmm… those sandwiches) has very little interest in advertising to the folks in Everett or Bellingham, and the CPM rates for a king5.com or seattletimes.com make it not worth buying until they can provide an audience that targets their needs.

  Going hyperlocal isn’t just a good idea for coverage reasons, it’s the only way your sales staff will be able to compete online.

• 12. discreet_chaos  |  February 28th, 2008 at 11:46 pm

  I had intended to post something similar to what Amanda E. had to say, but she said it so well…

  Though, I will reiterate her point that not all of the mobile or unrooted audience are college students, but there’s a large percentage of people who move for one reason or another, plus there’s a lot of people who move several times the average rate.

  Heck, look at the television news industry; People move all the time and if it weren’t your particular industry, would you actually watch the news about people you don’t know in a community, where you’re unlikely to stay?

• 13. Rocker  |  February 29th, 2008 at 10:18 am

  At the risk of stating the obvious, 20-somethings have never watched much TV news. That was true 30 years ago.

• 14. Dave  |  February 29th, 2008 at 1:10 pm

  “why is an increasing number of 20 and 30-somethings not watching local TV news?”

  I’d be interested in knowing how much this number has increased if anyone has the research.

  “At the risk of stating the obvious, 20-somethings have never watched much TV news. That was true 30 years ago.”

  Yes, but competition, consumer brand loyalties, and technology have all changed since then. Seems pretty risky to rely on a previous generation’s media consumption habits.

  Most of the young people I know HATE (and I use the word “hate”) local news. It ranges from coverage, to bias, to technology. I think there’s even a slight mental rebellion against what the media deems “relevant” therefore, they ignore it. I got nothing to back that up. It’s just my opinion.

• 15. tdc  |  February 29th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

  ever wonder why fix-o-dent, metamucil, viagra and cialis are major news sponsors?

• 16. TV insider  |  March 1st, 2008 at 1:09 pm

  All research is taken from census data which contains subsets of various sub-groups within the US society.

  Local news viewers are a sub group of all viewers. 76% of people watch local news across the US, viewing an average of 4 times per week. 24% do not watch local tv news. they don’t want it- don’t need it. Local news doesn’t try to attarct that audience. Jon Stewart and Bill Maher can have it.

  However, no other tv genre comes close to this 76% reach and four frequency of viewing. None. Nada. Not even within spitting distance. This 76% - 4 times per week usage has been a consistent finding in media research for the past two decades and continues today. It doesn’t matter whether it is a Magid study, an NBC study, a Smith/Geiger study, an ABC, CBS, MSNBC et al. Local TV news and local tv web sites continue to be used at a high rate, more so than any other TV news entity.

  Nielsen data indicates this high usage…Web Trends data indicates a high usage of local web sites too.

  American Idol doesn’t aggregate as many viewers as does local tv news. Think young people don’t watch local tv news? Check out the ratings on a Fox station following the Idol on a local 10pm news. Through the roof , mid- to high teen ratings in many instances. The 18 -34 demos are very strong in those newscasts. You can look it up if you pay millions of dollars to Nielsen for ratings information although I doubt anyone on this communication line knows how to read ratings.

  When 45-50% of all viewing at a given news time period is aggregated on 4 stations and the other 55% is aggregated across another 100 channels you have to consider that the positive news viewing ratings ratio is on the side of the local news stations.

  Local TV news/web sites are not perfect, can lack relevanc, are often silly/vacuous which is all true but you can say that about any media entity including Google, or Yahoo, the NY Times, Washington Post, Drudge, CNN, Ebaum, College Humor, however, all serve a function for a certain group of users. No entity aggregates everyone. Not even Google.

  Some young people watch local news and some don’t. Some young people read newspapers and other’s don’t. Some consume news off the web - others don’t.

  Viewers/users pick and choose what they want to consume, when they want to consume it and use multiple mediums to do so. Oh and by the way, all those young people watching Jon Stewart aggregate to less than a half of a rating point. Now that is a broad reach program!

  I suspect many young people in the Boston area today will consume weather news regardless of age from local sources due to the storm. People use it when they need it. That is no different than 100 years ago. “Extra - Extra - read all about it.”

  Local television news continues to deliver large audiences across all dayparts — the debates last week in Ohio did a 14 rating on the local NBC affiliate in CINCI and did large ratings at WKYC and other NBC stations in the Ohio market helping aggregate the largest audience ever for MSNBC. Think that wasn’t local news? Think young people didn’t watch it? The post - debate local specials delivered solid ratings as well.

  So opinions are dime a dozen. Bloggers have opinions and social biases. So does everyone else. All I can say, is pay the money to put your own research study in the field and once you do feel free to quote it. Otherwise I will chalk this discussion up to naivete.

• 17. Aaron  |  March 1st, 2008 at 4:35 pm

  I’m afraid “TV Insider” is the naive one.

  S/he makes the classic mistake of citing outlying examples (American Idol, Presidential debates in a hotly contested election) and pretending they indicate a trend or pattern.

  The trend, as you can see looking at ratings in any TV market in America, is that overall TV news viewership is going down, and internet news consumption is going up. There’s no disputing those numbers, and the revenue trends confirm it.

  (Online revenue up 27% year-to-year in 2007, according to IDC. Local TV revenue down 9.5% in the same period, according to TVB. I can’t embed URLs here, but TV Insider should learn to use Google to find the sources.)

  There will be, for the foreseeable future at least, people who rely on TV as their primary news source. No one’s disputing that. The problem for local TV stations is that advertisers value those viewers less and less as they realize the internet provides them a better-targeted audience and more bang for their buck.

  Ad reps (as I assume TV Insider is) take their cut, adding to costs. There’s no middleman making a commission when you buy a Google keyword search, making the internet even more appealing to advertisers.

  What’s embarrassing is that TV stations continue to sell online ads like they’re TV ads, commissions and all, which makes the TV sites less appealing than the search engines and portals.

  That’s what makes people like TV Insider so terrified — their jobs are doomed, once the suits realize they can save money by making TV ads self-service like Google’s.

• 18. TV insider  |  March 1st, 2008 at 6:01 pm

  “The trend, as you can see looking at ratings in any TV market in America, is that overall TV news viewership is going down, and internet news consumption is going up. There’s no disputing those numbers, and the revenue trends confirm it.”

  I have access to TVB and Nielsen data for every LPM and set top meter market in the country. With the addition of FOX local news, HUTS and ratings have gone up across the country in key time periods in local news, not down. Competition has become fierce but news numbers continue to grow overall in many time periods.

  9 and 10 pm news - ratings are up across the country. 11pm numbers are down.
  eevning news numbers relatively flat.
  Morning news 5-7 and 7-9am are up across the country. Weekend morning news up across the country.
  Local cable news ratings in Tampa (Bay News 9) and Orlando (CFCN) and other markest such as the Know Before You GO Cablevision traffic and weather service in NY, LI and CT - are showing through the roof growth.

  Local information remains untapped on air, on digital channels and on line too.

  TV insider is not terrified — we love the web. We love Google, Yahoo, Drudge referrals, CNN referrals. EBaum referrals. They drive extra page views for local stations.

  We buy search words. We research our web sites and make them better. We provide a great service too residenst in times of severe weather. Consider the the hundreds of millions of page views and visits during the horrible hurricane season in Florida few years back or during Katrina and Wilam where local tv station web sites for WWL, WDSU, WGNO, the Times Picayune, local radio stations kept people connected to their community while in they were in desperate straights and living in disparate areas.

  Even when you are away - local information is important. Ever used a cell phone to check out the local weather when traveling? I have many local tv station web sites book marked on my blackberry. I use weather.com too. On air, on line and on demand local information.

  Local tv web sites continue to grow at 20 - 40% each year and video growth on local web sites is typically growing at 80 - 100% rate per year. Revenues are growing too but web sales strategies on the local level are weak but that won’t last - too much revenue there.

  TV Insider is bullish on web — not terrified. I agree that sales on the web might be a different issue so don’t confuse my arguments for poor local tv sales performance.

  Here’s a trend to consider.

  Google stock — once at $707.00 - now at $471.00 - must be just another old media stock now. That is trend line to be reckoned with since there experiments outside of search might be a step further out than the media buying public considered prudent.

  FYI - No - I didn’t indicate the Election and Idol were trends - I only indicated that young people do use television news. Not as often as older folks but you will find plenty of twenty somethings using both local tv and local tv web sites. So please don’t take my comments out of context.

  My last words for tonight and forever on this subject. I have to watch a local newscast tonight because there is bad weather on the way in the mountains which is a good thing for a skiier…also I will look at the live doppler radar on the web site in the morning when I wake up at 5:00am, I will get a snow and board report, look at the traffic cams and then watch the local news starting at 6am or so for the latest traffic and weather report before I head up I -70 to ski at Vail or Copper or Loveland tomorrow depending on weather and snow conditions.

  See I can plan my day based on the local forecast and loal news both on air and on line. I will carry my blackberry with me to see if I 70 is a mess too by looking at the KUSA web cams. Google might help me find these things but the local guys provie the best and most immediate information.

  Now it is your turn to figure out how to monetize me as the consumer based on how I will use all the web and tv tools as a vieviewer/user. I’m spending with my family about $500.00 dollars on Sunday — how do you hook me to spend it with you? Google is not part of plans. TV and other web items will be.

  Looks like some good local snow fell tonight so far.

• 19. tdc  |  March 2nd, 2008 at 12:40 pm

  break a leg!

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