AR&D Reinventing Local Media

Editors told, “We’re losing touch with real people.”
That’s the message given by former New York Times Managing Editor Gerald Boyd, who resigned earlier this year amid the fallout from the Jayson Blair scandal. Boyd spoke at a discussion of newspaper credibility at the Associated Press Managing Editors national conference in Phoenix. He said many newspaper employees are better educated and make more money than their readers, which can cause a disconnect with everyday people. The editors were also told that they need to report more positive news and deal better with inaccuracies. The issue of media credibility is one we’ve discussed many times here. I think it’s admirable that the newspaper industry is discussing the matter at this level, but the truth is the press isn’t “losing” touch with real people. That happened a long time ago.

A shock. The media is “disconnected.”
The media in California missed the voter anger that helped oust Gov. Gray Davis, according to the executive editor of the San Jose Mercury News. “We — the media — are increasingly disconnected from what people are talking about,” Susan Goldberg told journalists Wednesday at the Associated Press Managing Editors association’s annual conference. “I’m not sure exactly what to do to solve it.” Goldberg’s refreshing admission is reported in a story in today’s sfgate.com. She told the group her paper did everything they could think of to connect with their readers, but, “I think somehow we have ended up over there with the status quo,” Journalists will have to find a new way to cover politics or they’ll lose readers, she said.

TV losing ground to the Web in voter info
A study by Los Angeles researchers, Initiative Media, prior to the California recall election and reported in MediaPost reveals that voters are turning to the Internet and away from television for voter information. The 3 week study shows the Web is becoming more and more a part of American political life and has profound implications for the coming 2004 elections. One important finding for TV stations with Websites is that 45 percent of those surveyed said they turn to the Internet for more data after watching TV.

MSN Video to be advertiser, not subscriber, supported
When MSN launches its beta MSN Video early next year, the service will be advertiser supported, according to a report today in MediaPost. The decision was made at the urging of Starcom Media (SMG), the ad agency that is taking the lead in broadband TV advertising. Previous broadband video ventures, including those by Yahoo and AOL, have all been subscriber-supported. Content will initially be limited to programming from NBC and MSNBC.com, though additional suppliers will be added when the service formally debuts in early 2004. Among the featured NBC programs will be The Today Show, NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, Dateline and Meet the Press. “It’s the next generation of advertising,” claimed MSN product manager Karen Redetzki. “TV is still a great place for advertisers to be for branding campaigns, but we’re adding interactivity to that.” She also touted the demographic desirability of the broadband audience: “Younger adults and tech-savvy older adults are the heaviest users of streaming media, and they’re the higher-income earners that advertisers are looking for.”

Gore’s challenge? Reaching the young.
Young people have information needs, just as older people do, but the inability of news organizations to connect with those needs is a growing concern in an ever-fragmenting market. Al Gore says he’s going to try, but exactly how remains to be seen. An article in AdAge notes that he’ll have to find unique personalities and quotes Aaron Cohen, executive vice president and director of broadcast at Horizon Media. “The question is whether TV is the way young people will get their news or whether it will come to them over the Internet, on some form of PDA with just headlines, scores, stock market and breaking news. If you want to talk to young people, that’s where you go. They haven’t grown up to be news viewers yet.” In order to attract the right kind of audience, Mr. Cohen said Gore’s new network would “have to have some truly unique personalities, a unique skew on the news, lifestyle stuff.”

Nielsen on audience loss: It’s not our problem
Network executives are nervously stratching their heads over steep declines in new season viewership among the 18-34 age group. The drop-off is especially acute among young men, according to a report in Media Life Magazine.com. The velocity of market fragmentation is apparently beyond TV executives’ ability to comprehend, because they initially complained to Nielsen that something must be wrong with the measurement. The only thing wrong is an unwillingness to address the reality of the changing marketplace.

AOL continues its slide
Pardon me if I beat up on a business when it’s down, but AOL deserves a little slap. Time Warner dumped it from the corporate name, and now they’re cutting prices in what observers are saying is a very dark sign. Wired reports that AOL will begin offering a $10 monthly service under its Netscape Brand for those “who want only bare-bones Internet access.” Well, hi, how do you do! By controlling everything about a user’s experience, AOL set itself up for failure on two fronts. One, it ignored a basic tenet of Postmodernism, that the freedom to experience is higher on the food chain than packaged information, regardless of the quality of the package. Two, it relied on dail-up modems to provide the conduit for that control. I’ve always felt AOL was training wheels for the Internet anyway, and I especially loathed the software’s seizure of everything on my hard drive. And perhaps now we’ll be relieved of those ubiquitous “free” CDs.

Here come those broadband TV Ads
Media agency Starcom Media­Vest Group (SMG) has launched phase one of upfront advertising buys on broadband video outlets such as Yahoo, MSN and Feedroom. The agency spent four months researching the concept and admits that there is much to learn about television advertising via the Internet. In an article in Television Week, Starcom CEO, Rishad Tobaccowala, admits that the effort - while similar in design to typical television upfronts - is a research project as well. “The idea,” says Mr. Tobaccowala, “is for all of us, our team, our clients and our partners, to learn what works and what does not work in a digital broadband advertising environment.” While it is a certainty that some people will sit through TV commercials while viewing online video, the whole concept of interrupted content flies in the face of the medium and the habits of its users. Therefore, I think these efforts might have some short term benefits, but I don’t believe this is the ultimate Internet advertising model, even in a video environment.

When your net gets too small, build another one
Media giant Gannett, who recently launched a company-wide effort to redefine itself and make its newspapers more relevant to readers, is also launching a series of weekly alternative papers for a younger audience. The initial markets are Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville and Palm Springs. Young people are generally not readers of traditional newspapers, so this is seen as a crap shoot by some observers. I think it’s brilliant and similar to online efforts in Arizona and Kansas, where newspapers are building separate brands in an effort to target young people. In the lake of available consumers, media outlets must learn that the single net that used to serve them well simply isn’t big enough to maintain market share anymore. The fish have spread out across the lake, and it takes more than one net these days. If only TV stations would wake up and recognize this truth.

Magid: On-demand advertising works
The new Frank N. Magid Associates study looked at Cox Cable’s Video On Demand (VOD) ad experiment, FreeZone, in San Diego. The major finding is that people actually watch ads created for an environment where people are seeking information about products and services. Half of the digital audience in San Diego has viewed FreeZone during the past year. Viewers average 3.76 videos per week. Each unique viewer spent approximately 25.5 minutes per week viewing advertiser content. Those are impressive numbers for an industry that doesn’t really even exist yet, and the results for the advertisers are even more noteworthy. Jodi Gusek, PhD., Executive Director Emerging Media Research, Frank N. Magid Associates said, “This long form advertising on demand content has the potential to be more involving than standard spot advertising. Our research shows that viewers of FreeZone advertising have higher brand recall than non-viewers. In many cases, viewers also report more positive brand attributes to FreeZone advertised brands.”

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