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A new study shows iTunes has passed Best Buy and Target and is now second only to Walmart in sales of music in the U.S. According to Apple, the iTunes store now has more than 50 million customers and has sold more than 4 billion songs. Press release after the jump.
Read the full post 1 comment February 26th, 2008
A new study by NBCU finds that some ads are memorable - even for users of TiVo and other digital video recorders - who skip through the ads. Among the most memorable spots? Those Mucinex ads with the green phlegm monsters, and Bourne Identity ads with Matt Damon (who my female friends would note is not a green phlegm monster). The fairly limited study tracked a group of folks who watched the premier of Journeyman earlier this fall. WSJ: “The most successful ads concentrated the action and the brand’s logo in the middle of the screen, didn’t rely on multiple scene changes, audio or text to tell the story, and often used familiar characters. People were also more likely to remember an ad in fast-forward mode if they had seen it once before live.”
Add comment February 26th, 2008
This is fascinating. A University of Washington journalism class is aggressively blogging the 2008 campaign. They’re attending primaries and caucuses, cameras and laptops in hand. The professor, David Domke, says he’s noticed a lean towards Obama among the students in part because of the way Obama’s campaign staff respected the bloggers. “The Obama campaign treated us like pros — they called us back within minutes, set up interviews, got us press passes, went out of their way to make the campaign accessible,” Domke writes. “The Clinton campaign, in contrast, didn’t return a single phone call, didn’t provide press access, and did virtually nothing to encourage our coverage.” Domke concludes: “The Clinton campaign has made the case that Obama is nothing but rhetoric; he’s supposedly all words, while she’s all action. Our experiences showed us that their campaigns — at least in Seattle — were exactly the opposite. In their treatment of my students, Clinton’s campaign was all talk, while Obama’s was all walk.”
Meanwhile: Obama is establishing himself as the candidate who keeps the most distance from the national media, reports Politico.
14 comments February 26th, 2008
Look at WACT-TV’s website, the award-winning Action 25 News…
Snazzy, huh? Well, it’s completely fake. All a scam to sell job training DVDs for $300 a pop. (Thanks, Jack!)
16 comments February 26th, 2008
Yahoo Buzz debuted in beta overnight, and at first glance it looks and behaves exactly like Digg. Vote stories up and the most-buzzed appear on Yahoo’s home page. But there’s one big difference: you can’t submit a story. Explains Wired’s Scott Gilbertson: “Buzz aggregates stories from select publishers and then users can vote them up or down. While that means Buzz will lack the variety of sources that you’ll find on Digg, it also handily eliminates a good bit of spam and the pointless link bait articles that clutter up the Digg homepage.”
So who are these select publishers, and how do we get on the list? After scanning the stories, you’ll see mainstream publishers like Washington Post, bigger independent sites like Huffington Post as well as the occasional Wordpress blog. Interestingly, Yahoo says smaller sites will probably not make the Yahoo home page because of the “Digg effect” (their sites will crash). Publishers who want to get on the list are told Yahoo Buzz will “be accepting more publishers soon” and to sign up for an email.
I think Yahoo Buzz is an interesting idea, especially since it combines search popularity with voting to create that Buzz score. The tech-savvy folks, though, will stick with Digg. Yet the massive reach of Yahoo will pull in mainstream users who might think this is all that and a slice of bread. But the big question is, why didn’t Yahoo do this sooner?
4 comments February 26th, 2008
- The web original show Quarterlife premieres on NBC tonight at 10/9c
- Digg founders hold town hall meeting on site problems, features
- HBO launches YouTube channel with clips from popular shows
- CBS projects $21M in digital revenues for March Madness
1 comment February 26th, 2008
The IAB released new online advertising numbers for 2007 that show a 25 percent growth over the year before. In the fourth quarter alone, revenues totaled $5.9 billion, a 13 percent increase over the third quarter. “The record $21.1 billion year of interactive advertising is the culmination of consecutive record quarters throughout 2007,” said David Silverman, partner, PricewaterhouseCoopers. “The continued record growth evidences the importance and uniqueness of interactive media to both consumers and the marketers that are trying to reach them.” Press release…
Read the full post Add comment February 25th, 2008
Oscars ratings were down 20 percent over last year to 32 million viewers — the lowest since Nielsen began tracking viewership back in 1974. Adds MediaWeek: “ABC tried to put a good face on the declines, pointing out the a larger number of viewers could have watched the telecast in DVR playback, and that the telecast pulled in more viewers than any of the other awards shows this season.” I think it has less to do with DVRs and more to do with the Academy’s increasing disconnect with the general public. But that’s just me.
5 comments February 25th, 2008
Like many big advertisers, Kimberly-Clark says it’s adjusting its media mix to spend less on TV and more on “nontraditional media,” including the internet and event marketing. In 2004, Kimberly-Clark spent 60% of its budget on television. This year, it will spend 46%.
2 comments February 25th, 2008
The print edition of the Kentucky Post pulled the plug at the end of the year, and KYPost.com continued on with a much smaller staff. And in an interesting twist, KYPost.com moved into WCPO-TV’s newsroom, as both are owned by Scripps. Reports Broadcasting & Cable’s Michael Malone: “With the newspaper industry across America under siege, some believe partnerships such as KYPost.com/WCPO could become a common model as media companies contemplate pulling the plug on their papers. Even failing papers still have readers, says Gordon Borrell, CEO of media research firm Borrell Associates, so ‘why not cut out costs, such as ink and delivery, and transfer [content] online? Maybe it can work in other markets, and 2 + 2 can add up to more than 4.’” Interesting, eh?
KYPost.com on the left. The higher-trafficked WCPO.com on the right.
2 comments February 24th, 2008
- Clear Channel settles with Providence in TV station deal (WSJ link)
- Electronic Arts offers $2 billion for Grand Theft Auto maker
- Comcast vs. BitTorrent to be focus of FCC hearing
- Director of Google’s TV ad program to speak at TVB
Add comment February 24th, 2008
ABC and Cox’s cable systems are rolling out a new video on demand service with free shows like Lost and Grey’s Anatomy. The shows will have shorter commercial breaks with local avails for ABC affiliates. But… it disables the fast-forward button during the commercial breaks. “This does counter the DVR,” said Anne Sweeney, the president of the Disney-ABC television group. “You don’t need TiVo if you have fast-forward-disabled video on demand. It gives you the same opportunity to catch up to your favorite shows.”
While I agree that a faster rollout of free VOD could’ve slowed but not stopped DVR growth, I have to say that the cat’s out of the bag. Sure, I would watch a fast-forward-disabled show on VOD if I wanted to A) sample it or B) my DVR screwed up the original recording. But to think this will “counter the DVR,” in my opinion, is not going to happen.
Update: Here are some details on how the ABC affiliates will participate
3 comments February 24th, 2008
After Saturday Night Live’s four-month absence - I wanted to share a couple of clips from last night’s Tina Fey-hosted show. So naturally I dialed up hulu - the NBC/News Corp. joint venture to plop down clips on a few MySpace pages. Except… last night’s show still isn’t available. Obviously Saturday Night Live is… um… live — and in the middle of a weekend - but that shouldn’t be an excuse 18+ hours after the show aired. And guess what - there are clips of last night’s show on YouTube.
2 comments February 24th, 2008
Publishing company Reed Elsevier is putting Reed Business Information, a collection of 400 trade publications, up for sale in an effort to reduce its exposure “to advertising markets and cyclicality.” Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News and Variety are among the publications. PaidContent, which has redefined the trade publication model online, quotes a “top contender” in a possible bid for the Reed Business as saying, “they are a year late selling, in my opinion.” Much of Reed Business’ revenue originates from recruitment advertising, which as you know, has migrated online.
Add comment February 24th, 2008
The FCC was planning to require broadcasters to air a rigid, frequent schedule of PSAs promoting the upcoming shift to digital television (which happens February 17th of next year). But fortunately for broadcasters, the FCC is moving to a more flexible proposal that’s backed by the NAB. (By the way, have you seen the FCC’s DTV site? It looks like it was built back in 1997.)
Adds Safran in comments: “The switchover is an absolute disaster in the making. When I mention it to relatives, they have NO IDEA it is coming. They think I’m kidding. They can’t believe their TVs won’t work. Meantime, the PSAs smack more of ass-covering than they do of education, the FCC’s DTV site, as Cory points out, is an amateurish joke and the locals are going to get absolutely flooded with calls on changeover day.”
8 comments February 23rd, 2008
I have to admit I’ve been spending a little too much time reading AngryJournalist.com. It’s sad, really, because in a way it’s a running diary of an industry in the throes of painful change. “I’m angry because our newspaper is dying and our leaders are more concerned with rules that say we can’t wear jeans to work, eat at our desks or tape anything on the file cabinets,” writes one. “I am angry that when I go home at night and turn on the television and look up news online it doesn’t look like I’ve done my job to provide a service to this country,” writes another. “I’m angry because we all talk about our industry tanking and the things we could do, but we don’t actually DO any of them,” says a third. After reading a hundred of these, I feel like a drink.
But I’m finding wisdom between the rants. A few newspaper journalists focus on the lack of leadership to invest in the internet and adapt to changing times. TV journalists lament the lack of quality. And nearly everyone rants about management’s lack of communication and receptiveness to new ideas.
All of this makes me wonder what online journalists are angry about, because if we take a constructive approach, perhaps we can learn a few things. So I’m resurrecting “The Circuit,” Lost Remote’s forum, with a thread that asks if you’re an angry web producer. If you are, tell us why, but also suggest how it can be fixed. This is probably the wrong way to jump-start a forum, but I think it’s time we start talking honestly from an online perspective about the very real challenges facing journalism… before it’s too late.
5 comments February 22nd, 2008
Over the years, Steve Safran used to joke that Lost Remote should change our online business model to the most successful of them all: porn. (Well, I guess it would the second most successful, behind Google.) We resisted the urge, but today there’s more proof that there’s nothing like barely-dressed models to attract massive audiences. Since debuting its annual swimsuit edition on Feb 12th, SI.com has racked up (sorry) 228 million page views — an average of 42 pages per unique user. That’s up 41 percent over last year.
This screen shot is our meager little attempt to sex up the site.
7 comments February 22nd, 2008
We mentioned before that Young Broadcasting is planning some deep cost cuts across the group, and now there are some specifics behind the plan. Lost Remote readers will find it interesting that one of the cost-cutting moves is to increase the use of videojournalists at its stations.
4 comments February 22nd, 2008
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