We get the paper on the weekends in my house.
Actually my wife gets it.
In our city the paper makes you buy a weekend subscription which includes Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
My wife takes a couple of sections out of the Sunday paper, the rest goes straight to the recycling bin.
Here's why:
Online News Surpasses Newspapers
The inevitable shift finally came in 2010, as more Americans got their daily news from online sources other than print, according to the Biannual News Consumption Survey from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. The findings were released this week as part of Pew's annual overview of the news media.
Specifically, Pew found that the proportion of U.S. adults who said they got their news online the day before increased from 29% in 2008 to 34% in 2010. The proportion that cited print newspapers as the source of their recent news fell from 34% in 2008 to 31% in 2010.
The Internet came out ahead of print in terms of time spent with news sources, with an average 13 minutes per day, according to Pew. That stat beats print newspapers at 10 minutes, but trails TV at 19 minutes and radio at 15 minutes.
This good news for broadcast and cable TV was tempered somewhat by a more pronounced shift in news consumption habits among younger adults. Pew found that the Internet is now the No. 1 news source for the 18-29 cohort, with 65% saying they get most of their news online, compared to 52% for TV and just 21% for newspapers.
By contrast, TV still dominated in the 30-49 cohort, with 63% citing TV news as their top news source compared to 48% for the Internet.
It's worth noting that online news consumption is still dominated by traditional news sources -- including Web sites maintained by newspapers, which many publishers see as the key to future success.
Conversely, Pew noted that online advertising has not proved nearly as lucrative as print for newspaper publishers, raising questions about their ability to maintain both profitability and large news-gathering organizations.
Pew also noted the rise of online-only news operations, such as The Huffington Post, which now hold seven of the top 25 spots for online news consumption. However, five of these seven generate most of their traffic by aggregating traditional media.
(Source: Media Daily News, 03/15/11)
Saturday, March 19, 2011
What Happened to the Newspaper?
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Do we Need the Newspaper Business?
This morning a few folks are gathered around the coffee shop reading the Sunday paper. There's the folks that are reading the local Journal-Gazette, and sorting through the ads to find the specials and coupons, someone is checking the sports scores, someone else is reading the classifieds for a job.
Then there are two folks who will bring in the New York Times and read whatever strikes their fancy. (I don't read the print edition, only some of the online stuff).
There are actually more folks using their laptops and mobile phones to read stuff on line, than reading the printed newsprint.
So let's take an objective look at what we get from the newspaper from a consumers point of view, instead of simply as an advertising media.
This is from Seth Godin:
When newspapers are gone, what will you miss?
Years and years after some pundits began predicting the end of newspapers, the newspapers themselves are finally realizing that it's over. Huge debt, high costs, declining subscription rates, plummeting ad base--will the last one out please turn off the lights.
On their way out, though, we're hearing a lot of, "you'll miss us when we're gone..." laments. I got to thinking about this. It's never good to watch people lose their livelihoods or have to move on to something new, even if it might be better. I respect and honor the hard work that so many people have put into newspapers along the way. If we make a list of newspaper attributes and features, which ones would you miss?
Woodpulp, printing presses, typesetting machines, delivery trucks, those stands on the street and the newsstand... I think we're okay without them.
The sports section? No, that's better online, and in no danger of going away, in fact, overwritten commentary by the masses is burgeoning.
The weather? Ditto. Comics are even better online, and I don't think we'll run out of those.
Book and theater and restaurant reviews? In fact, there are more of these online, often better, definitely more personal and relevant, and also in no danger of going away.
The full page ads for local department stores? The free standing inserts on Sunday? The supermarket coupons? Easily replaced.
How about the editorials and op eds? Again, I think we're not going to see opinion go away, in fact, the web amplifies the good stuff.
What's left is local news, investigative journalism and intelligent coverage of national news. Perhaps 2% of the cost of a typical paper. I worry about the quality of a democracy when the the state government or the local government can do what it wants without intelligent coverage. I worry about the abuse of power when the only thing a corrupt official needs to worry about is the TV news. I worry about the quality of legislation when there isn't a passionate, unbiased reporter there to explain it to us.
But then I see the in depth stories about the gowns to be worn to the inauguration or the selection of the White House dog and I wonder if newspapers are the most efficient way to do this anyway.
The web has excelled at breaking the world into the tiniest independent parts. We don't use this to support that online. Things support themselves. The food blog isn't a loss leader for the gardening blog. They're separate, usually run by separate people or organizations.
Punchline: if we really care about the investigation and the analysis, we'll pay for it one way or another. Maybe it's a public good, a non profit function. Maybe a philanthropist puts up money for prizes. Maybe the Woodward and Bernstein of 2017 make so much money from breaking a story that it leads to a whole new generation of journalists.
The reality is that this sort of journalism is relatively cheap (compared to everything else the newspaper had to do in order to bring it to us.) Newspapers took two cents of journalism and wrapped in ninety-eight cents of overhead and distraction. The magic of the web, the reason you should care about this even if you don't care about the news, is that when the marginal cost of something is free and when the time to deliver it is zero, the economics become magical. It's like 6 divided by zero. Infinity.
I'm not worried about how muckrakers will make a living. Tree farmers, on the other hand, need to find a new use for newsprint.
Sphere: Related ContentThursday, August 28, 2008
Media, Money and Advertising
I really wish that that more people would subscribe to their hometown newspaper.
I also really wish that more people would use the phone book.
I wish that the Top 40 radio stations that I grew up with and once worked at were still around.
But like the former high school jock that reminiscences about the good old days of 20 or 30 years ago, you can't be stuck in the past and simply wish things were different.
Instead you need to understand why things are different and to take advantage of the changes.
And Money is the key.
Money is what determines if any business stays in business, including all of the advertising and media options I mentioned.
Why are some struggling? The quick and easy answer may be the Internet. But let's dig deeper and take a look at the root cause.
That root cause again is money.
What made the internet popular is the cost to the end user, (consumer) is either low or perceived as low. The cost of a computer has dropped while the computer hardware and software have become better and more reliable.
And the content that is available at no charge to the consumer via the internet has replaced the content that we used to pay for with a newspaper subscription.
Due to the structure of traditional news media and these changes, they are hurting. It reminds me of the energy crisis, a combination of solutions need to be implemented and the sooner the better.
The solutions are simple: Restructure the business so that the books balance and provide local content to justify your existence to your readers/audience so they will come to you and you can sell advertising.
Implementing these solutions requires new thinking and can be very hard.
Here's the latest bad news for the paper business from Mediapost:
| Summer Blues: Newspapers Plunge As Online Stalls |
| by Erik Sass, Wednesday, Aug 27, 2008 8:32 AM ET |
 The print story in July should be familiar by now, with double-digit losses across the board at New York Times Company, McClatchy, Gannett and Media General. But the new bad news in these companies' results for the first month of the third quarter is the drastic slowdown in online revenue growth, which has basically flat-lined at three of the four (McClatchy is the exception). At NYTCO, total ad revenues tumbled 16.2% to $129.4 million in comparison to July 2007, while the year-to-date figure is down 10.8% to $1.04 billion. As in previous months, the New England Media Group contributed significantly to the decline, with regional revenues down 24.5%. This makes July the tenth straight month that NYTCO has seen total ad revenues decline, since the trend turned negative in October of last year. This bad news only got worse with anemic online revenue growth--just 0.9% in July. Like other newspaper publishers over the last few years, NYTCO relied heavily on upsells from print classifieds to power online revenue growth in the 20% to 30% range. But as print classifieds dwindle (down 30.1% in July), there are fewer opportunities for upsells to online listings. Online display advertising, while continuing to show strong growth, remains a small part of newspaper revenues. Indeed, the same basic dynamic could be seen at other big newspaper publishers. Gannett's total publishing ad revenues were down 16.7%, due in large part to a 25.4% drop in classifieds. The company does not release separate online revenue figures in its monthly reports, but it seems likely that the results were in line with the second quarter, when online publishing revenues grew just 3% and total operating revenues 10%. Media General's interactive division saw revenues grow just 5.7% in July as total revenues fell 13.8%. Again, the drop is due mostly to losses in print and online classifieds. McClatchy posted relatively good results for online, which grew 12.8% in July, thanks to display advertising. Chief Financial Officer Pat Talamantes noted that online advertising is "up in all categories except employment advertising. In fact, when employment advertising, which has declined nationally both in print and online, is excluded our online advertising was up 58.5% in July." |
Monday, August 25, 2008
News about the News
From MarketingCharts.com (click on the charts to make them BIGGER):
Internet Plays Larger News Role, but TV Still Dominates
Though print newspaper readership continues to fall and reliance on online news is rising, TV still remains the dominant source of news in America, according to the 2008 biennial news consumption survey (PDF) by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
At the same time, news consumption patterns are changing. A growing, relatively younger, educated, engaged and affluent portion of the US news audience now turns to a blend of traditional and online sources for different types of information during the day.
Survey findings led Pew to divide the American public into four distinct segments based upon how they receive news:
- Integrators - who turn to a blend of traditional and internet sources for news (23% of the US public)
- Net-Newsers - who get news primarily from the internet (13%) during the day
- Traditionalists - who favor television over all other media (46%)
- Disengaged - who have low overall levels of interest in the news and news consumption (14%)
Integrators:
- Are affluent, highly educated and older than those who consider the internet their main source of news.
- Spend more time with and enjoy the news more on a typical day than those who rely more on either traditional or internet sources.
- Are heavier consumers of national news - especially news about politics and Washington - and avid sports news consumers.
- Turn to TV as their main news source, but more than a third cite the internet as their main news source during the day, primarily because they log onto the internet from work (45%).
Net-Newsers:
- Have a median age of 35, and are the youngest news user segment
- Are affluent and better educated than Integrators. More than eight-in-ten have at least attended college.
- Primarily rely on the internet for news, and are early adopters of new web features and technologies.
- Watch news clips on the internet at nearly twice the rate as they watch nightly network news broadcasts (30% vs. 18%).
- Fewer than half (47%) watch television news on a typical day.
- Read an online newspaper at twice the rate than a printed newspaper on a typical day (17% vs. 8%). 10% read both.
- Get news during the course of the day (82%), and go online for it (92%).
- Still use traditional sources at other times of the day; nearly two-thirds get news late in the evening and of these, more rely on television news than the internet.
Traditionalists:
- Are the oldest (median age 52) and largest segment of the overall news audience.
- Are downscale economically, when compared with Integrators and Net-Newsers. Some 43% are not employed and 60% have no more than a high school education.
- Overwhelmingly cite television as their main source of news.
Disengaged:
- Are less educated than other groups and exhibit extremely low interest in - and knowledge of - current events.
- Only 55% get any news on a typical day
- Just 20% know that the Democrats have a majority in the US House of Representatives.
Traditional News Sources in Decline
Since the early 1990s, the proportion of Americans who say they read a newspaper on a typical day has declined by about 40%, with most of the loss coming from the print version of the newspaper, according to Pew.
Though the proportion of Americans regularly nightly network news has fallen by half since the early 1990s, it has remained stable since 2006, and the proportion regularly watching cable news has increased (from 34% to 39%). A majority of Integrators (56%) get news online on a typical day while an even larger share (66%) got news from television.
Cable news draws substantial numbers of viewers among Integrators and Net-Newsers. More than four-in-ten Net-Newsers (43%) regularly watch cable news, far more than the proportion that regularly watches network or local news. A majority of Integrators also regularly watches cable news (53%), while just 37% say they regularly watch one of the nightly network news broadcasts.
Nearly half (46%) of Integrators listen to radio news during a typical day. While the internet is the main news source for Integrators during the course of the day, about as many in this segment rely on radio news as TV news during the day (32% radio vs. 36% TV news).
Online News Still Growing
Since 2006, the proportion of Americans who say they get news online at least three days a week has increased from 31% to 37%. About as many people now say they go online for news regularly (at least three days a week) as say they regularly watch cable news (39%). More people also regularly get news online than watch one of the nightly network news broadcasts (37% vs. 29%).
Daily online news use has increased by about a third since 2006, from 18% to 25%. However, as the online news audience grows, the educational divide in online news use also is increasing. Some 44% of college graduates say they get news online every day, compared with just 11% of those with a high school education or less.
Net-Newsers and Integrators rely on news and political blogs for news. Roughly a quarter of Net-Newsers (26%) and somewhat fewer Integrators (19%) say they regularly read blogs on politics or current events. Only 10% of the public regularly reads political and news blogs.
Additional Findings
- The proportion of young people getting no news has increased substantially over the past decade. About a third of those younger than 25 (34%) say they get no news on a typical day, up from 25% in 1998.
- A slim majority of Americans (51%) consider themselves “news grazers,” and say they check in on the news from time to time during the day, rather than get the news at regular times.
- Social networking sites, though popular with young people, have not become a major source of news. Just 10% of those with social networking profiles say they regularly get news from these sites.
- Audiences for specific cable news outlets remain divided along political lines. Currently 51% of regular CNN viewers are Democrats, up from 45% two years ago. Nearly four-in-ten regular Fox News viewers are Republicans (39%), about the same as in 2006.
- Regular readers of magazines such as The New Yorker, The Atlantic and Harper’s Magazine stand out for their high level of political knowledge. Nearly half (47%) answered three political-knowledge questions correctly - the highest percentage of any news audience.
- 15% of Americans say they have a smart phone, such as an iPhone or a Blackberry. More than a third of smart phone owners (37%) say they get news from these devices.
- Believability ratings for national news organizations remain very low. Ratings for major online news outlets - including news aggregators such as Google News and AOL News - are lower than for major print, cable and broadcast outlets.
- Though the audience for nightly network news broadcasts are smaller than they were a decade ago, regular viewers of these broadcasts are loyal. Nearly seven-in-ten (69%) say they would miss these broadcasts a lot if they were no longer available.
About the survey: The telephone survey - which included landline and cell-phone users - was conducted by Princeton Survey Research associates from April 30 to June 1 among 3,612 adults nationwide.
Sphere: Related ContentMonday, August 18, 2008
Where Do You Get Your News?
Two stories caught my attention on this subject:
Is Jon Stewart the Most Trusted Man in America?
Jon Stewart, on the set of “The Daily Show,” tied Tom Brokaw, Brian Williams, Dan Rather and Anderson Cooper among admired journalists. And that was last year.
IT’S been more than eight years since “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” made its first foray into presidential politics with the presciently named Indecision 2000, and the difference in the show’s approach to its coverage then and now provides a tongue-in-cheek measure of the show’s striking evolution.
In 1999, the “Daily Show” correspondent Steve Carell struggled to talk his way off Senator John McCain’s overflow press bus — “a repository for outcasts, misfits and journalistic bottom-feeders” — and onto the actual Straight Talk Express, while at the 2000 Republican Convention Mr. Stewart self-deprecatingly promised exclusive coverage of “all the day’s events — at least the ones we’re allowed into.” In this year’s promotional spot for “The Daily Show’s” convention coverage, the news newbies have been transformed into a swaggering A Team — “the best campaign team in the universe ever,” working out of “ ‘The Daily Show’ news-scraper: 117 stories, 73 situation rooms, 26 news tickers,” and promising to bring “you all the news stories — first ... before it’s even true.”
Though this spot is the program’s mocking sendup of itself and the news media’s mania for self-promotion, it inadvertently gets at one very real truth: the emergence of “The Daily Show” as a genuine cultural and political force. When Americans were asked in a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to name the journalist they most admired, Mr. Stewart, the fake news anchor, came in at No. 4, tied with the real news anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS and Anderson Cooper of CNN. And a study this year from the center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded that “ ‘The Daily Show’ is clearly impacting American dialogue” and “getting people to think critically about the public square.”
While the show scrambled in its early years to book high-profile politicians, it has since become what Newsweek calls “the coolest pit stop on television,” with presidential candidates, former presidents, world leaders and administration officials signing on as guests. One of the program’s signature techniques — using video montages to show politicians contradicting themselves — has been widely imitated by “real” news shows, while Mr. Stewart’s interviews with serious authors like Thomas Ricks, George Packer, Seymour Hersh, Michael Beschloss and Reza Aslan have helped them and their books win a far wider audience than they otherwise might have had.
Most important, at a time when Fox, MSNBC and CNN routinely mix news and entertainment, larding their 24-hour schedules with bloviation fests and marathon coverage of sexual predators and dead celebrities, it’s been “The Daily Show” that has tenaciously tracked big, “super depressing” issues like the cherry-picking of prewar intelligence, the politicization of the Department of Justice and the efforts of the Bush White House to augment its executive power.
For that matter, the Comedy Central program — which is not above using silly sight gags and sophomoric sex jokes to get a laugh — has earned a devoted following that regards the broadcast as both the smartest, funniest show on television and a provocative and substantive source of news. “The Daily Show” resonates not only because it is wickedly funny but also because its keen sense of the absurd is perfectly attuned to an era in which cognitive dissonance has become a national epidemic. Indeed, Mr. Stewart’s frequent exclamation “Are you insane?!” seems a fitting refrain for a post-M*A*S*H, post-“Catch-22” reality, where the surreal and outrageous have become commonplace — an era kicked off by the wacko 2000 election standoff in Florida, rocked by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and haunted by the fallout of a costly war waged on the premise of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist.
MR. STEWART describes his job as “throwing spitballs” from the back of the room and points out that “The Daily Show” mandate is to entertain, not inform. Still, he and his writers have energetically tackled the big issues of the day — “the stuff we find most interesting,” as he said in an interview at the show’s Midtown Manhattan offices, the stuff that gives them the most “agita,” the sometimes somber stories he refers to as his “morning cup of sadness.” And they’ve done so in ways that straight news programs cannot: speaking truth to power in blunt, sometimes profane language, while using satire and playful looniness to ensure that their political analysis never becomes solemn or pretentious.
“Hopefully the process is to spot things that would be grist for the funny mill,” Mr. Stewart, 45, said. “In some respects, the heavier subjects are the ones that are most loaded with opportunity because they have the most — you know, the difference between potential and kinetic energy? — they have the most potential energy, so to delve into that gives you the largest combustion, the most interest. I don’t mean for the audience. I mean for us. Everyone here is working too hard to do stuff we don’t care about.”
Offices for “The Daily Show” occupy a sprawling loftlike space that combines the energy of a newsroom with the laid-back vibe of an Internet start-up: many staff members wear jeans and flip-flops, and two amiable dogs wander the hallways. The day begins with a morning meeting where material harvested from 15 TiVos and even more newspapers, magazines and Web sites is reviewed. That meeting, Mr. Stewart said, “would be very unpleasant for most people to watch: it’s really a gathering of curmudgeons expressing frustration and upset, and the rest of the day is spent trying to mask or repress that through whatever creative devices we can find.”
The writers work throughout the morning on deadline pieces spawned by breaking news, as well as longer-term projects, trying to find, as Josh Lieb, a co-executive producer of the show, put it, stories that “make us angry in a whole new way.” By lunchtime, Mr. Stewart (who functions as the show’s managing editor and says he thinks of hosting as almost an afterthought) has begun reviewing headline jokes. By 3 p.m. a script is in; at 4:15, Mr. Stewart and the crew rehearse that script, along with assembled graphics, sound bites and montages. There is an hour or so for rewrites — which can be intense, newspaper-deadlinelike affairs — before a 6 o’clock taping with a live studio audience.
What the staff is always looking for, Mr. Stewart said, are “those types of stories that can, almost like the guy in ‘The Green Mile’ ” — the Stephen King story and film in which a character has the apparent ability to heal others by drawing out their ailments and pain — “suck in all the toxins and allow you to do something with it that is palatable.”
To make the more alarming subject matter digestible, the writers search for ways to frame the story, using an arsenal of techniques ranging from wordplay (“Mess O’Potamia,” “BAD vertising”) to exercises in pure logic (deconstructing the administration’s talking points on the surge) to demented fantasy sequences (imagining Vice President Dick Cheney sending an army of orcs to attack Iran when he assumed the presidency briefly last year during President Bush’s colonoscopy).
Gitmo, the Elmo puppet from Guantánamo Bay, became a vehicle for expressing the writers’ “most agitated feelings about torture in a way that is — not to be too cute — that is not torture to listen to, and that is not purely strident,” Mr. Stewart said. And the cartoon strip “The Decider,” featuring Mr. Bush as a superhero who makes decisions “without fear of repercussion, consequence or correctness,” became a way to satirize the president’s penchant for making gut calls that sidestep the traditional policy-making process.
As the co-executive producer Rory Albanese noted, juxtapositions of video clips and sound bites are one of the show’s favorite strategies. It might be the juxtaposition of Senator Barack Obama speaking to a crowd of 200,000 in Berlin while Mr. McCain campaigns in a Pennsylvania grocery store. Or it could be a juxtaposition of a politician taking two sides of the same argument. One famous segment featured Mr. Stewart as the moderator of a debate between then-Governor Bush of Texas in 2000, who warned that the United States would end up “being viewed as the ugly American” if it went around the world “saying we do it this way — so should you,” and President Bush of 2003, who extolled the importance of exporting democracy to Iraq.
Often a video clip or news event is so absurd that Mr. Stewart says nothing, simply rubs his eyes, does a Carsonesque double take or crinkles his face into an expression of dismay. “When in doubt, I can stare blankly,” he said. “The rubber face. There’s only so many ways you can stare incredulously at the camera and tilt an eyebrow, but that’s your old standby: What would Buster Keaton do?”
Given a daily reality in which “over-the-top parodies come to fruition,” Mr. Stewart said, satire like “Dr. Strangelove” becomes “very difficult to make.” “The absurdity of what you imagine to be the dark heart of conspiracy theorists’ wet dreams far too frequently turns out to be true,” he observed. “You go: I know what I’ll do, I’ll create a character who, when hiring people to rebuild the nation we invaded, says the only question I’ll ask is, ‘What do you think of ‘Roe v. Wade?’ It’ll be hilarious. Then you read that book about the Green Zone in Iraq” — “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran — “and you go, ‘Oh, they did that.’ I mean, how do you take things to the next level?”
Mr. Stewart has said he is looking forward to the end of the Bush administration “as a comedian, as a person, as a citizen, as a mammal.” Though he has mocked both Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama for lapses from their high-minded promises of postpartisanship, he said he didn’t think their current skirmishes were “being conducted on the scale that Bush conducted things, or even the Clintons; I don’t think it has the same true viciousness and contempt.”
SOON after Mr. Stewart joined “The Daily Show” in 1999, in the waning years of the Clinton administration, he and his staff began to move the program away from the show-business-heavy agenda it had under his predecessor, Craig Kilborn. New technology providing access to more video material gave them growing control over the show’s content; the staff, the co-executive producer Kahane Corn said, also worked to choose targets “who deserved to be targets” instead of random, easy-to-mock subjects.
Following 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, the show focused more closely not just on politics, but also on the machinery of policy making and the White House’s efforts to manage the news media. Mr. Stewart’s comedic gifts — his high-frequency radar for hypocrisy, his talent for excavating ur-narratives from mountains of information, his ability, in Ms. Corn’s words, “to name things that don’t seem to have a name” — proved to be perfect tools for explicating and parsing the foibles of an administration known for its secrecy, ideological certainty and impatience with dissenting viewpoints.
Over time, the show’s deconstructions grew increasingly sophisticated. Its fascination with language, for instance, evolved from chuckles over the president’s verbal gaffes (“Is our children learning?” “Subliminable”) to ferocious exposés of the administration’s Orwellian manipulations: from its efforts to redefine the meaning of the word “torture” to its talk about troop withdrawals from Iraq based on “time horizons” (a strategy, Mr. Stewart noted, “named after something that no matter how long you head towards it, you never quite reach it”).
For all its eviscerations of the administration, “The Daily Show” is animated not by partisanship but by a deep mistrust of all ideology. A sane voice in a noisy red-blue echo chamber, Mr. Stewart displays an impatience with the platitudes of both the right and the left and a disdain for commentators who, as he made clear in a famous 2004 appearance on CNN’s “Crossfire,” parrot party-line talking points and engage in knee-jerk shouting matches. He has characterized Democrats as “at best Ewoks,” mocked Mr. Obama for acting as though he were posing for “a coin” and hailed MoveOn.org sardonically for “10 years of making even people who agree with you cringe.”
TO the former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw, Mr. Stewart serves as “the citizens’ surrogate,” penetrating “the insiders’ cult of American presidential politics.” He’s the Jersey Boy and ardent Mets fan as Mr. Common Sense, pointing to the disconnect between reality and what politicians and the news media describe as reality, channeling the audience’s id and articulating its bewilderment and indignation. He’s the guy willing to say the emperor has no clothes, to wonder why in Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s “It’s 3 a.m.” ad no one picks up the phone in the White House before six rings, to ask why a preinvasion meeting in March 2003 between President Bush and his allies took all of an hour — the “time it takes LensCrafters to make you a pair of bifocals” to discuss “a war that could destroy the global order.”
“The Daily Show” boasts a deep bench when it comes to its writing, research and production and has provided a showcase for a host of gifted comedians who have gone on to other careers — most notably, Stephen Colbert of “The Colbert Report,” as well as Mr. Carell, Rob Corddry and Ed Helms. But while the show is a collaborative effort, as one producer noted, it is “ultimately Jon’s vision and voice.”
Mr. Stewart described his anchorman character as “a sort of more adolescent version” of himself, and Ms. Corn noted that while things “may be exaggerated on the show, it’s grounded in the way Jon really feels.”
“He really does care,” she added. “He’s a guy who says what he means.”
Unlike many comics today, Mr. Stewart does not trade in trendy hipsterism or high-decibel narcissism. While he possesses Johnny Carson’s talent for listening and George Carlin’s gift for observation, his comedy remains rooted in his informed reactions to what Tom Wolfe once called “the irresistibly lurid carnival of American life,” the weird happenings in “this wild, bizarre, unpredictable, hog-stomping Baroque” country.
“Jon’s ability to consume and process information is invaluable,” said Mr. Colbert. He added that Mr. Stewart is “such a clear thinker” that he’s able to take “all these data points of spin and transparent falsehoods dished out in the form of political discourse” and “fish from that what is the true meaning, what are red herrings, false leads,” even as he performs the ambidextrous feat of “making jokes about it” at the same time.
“We often discuss satire — the sort of thing he does and to a certain extent I do — as distillery,” Mr. Colbert continued. “You have an enormous amount of material, and you have to distill it to a syrup by the end of the day. So much of it is a hewing process, chipping away at things that aren’t the point or aren’t the story or aren’t the intention. Really it’s that last couple of drops you’re distilling that makes all the difference. It isn’t that hard to get a ton of corn into a gallon of sour mash, but to get that gallon of sour mash down to that one shot of pure whiskey takes patience” as well as “discipline and focus.”
Mr. Stewart can be scathing in his dismantling of politicians’ spin — he took apart former Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith’s rationalizations about the Iraq war with Aesopian logic and fury — but there is nothing sensation-seeking or mean-spirited about his exchanges. Nor does he shy away from heartfelt expressions of sadness and pain. The day after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, he spoke somberly of the tragic situation there and asked his guest, Ali Allawi, a former Iraqi minister of defense, how his country handled “that sort of carnage on a daily basis” and if there were “a way to grieve.”
Most memorably, on Sept. 20, 2001, the day the show returned after the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Stewart began the program with a raw, emotional address. Choking up, he apologized for subjecting viewers to “an overwrought speech of a shaken host” but said that he and the show’s staff needed it “for ourselves, so that we can drain whatever abscess there is in our hearts so we can move on to the business of making you laugh.”
He talked about hearing, as a boy of 5, of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He talked about feeling privileged to live where you can “sit in the back of the country and make wisecracks.” And he talked about “why I grieve but why I don’t despair.”
Mr. Stewart now says he does not want to listen to that show again: “The process of the show is to bury those feelings as subtext, and that was a real moment of text. It’s laying bare the type of thing that is there hopefully to inform the show, but the show is usually an exercise in hiding that.”
In fact, Mr. Stewart regards comedy as a kind of catharsis machine, a therapeutic filter for grappling with upsetting issues. “What’s nice to us about the relentlessness of the show,” he said, “is you know you’re going to get that release no matter what, every night, Monday through Thursday. Like pizza, it may not be the best pizza you’ve ever had, but it’s still pizza, man, and you get to have it every night. It’s a wonderful feeling to have this toxin in your body in the morning, that little cup of sadness, and feel by 7 or 7:30 that night, you’ve released it in sweat equity and can move on to the next day.”
The other item:
TV Remains Top Source of News
Associated Press
- Read the whole story... Sphere: Related Content
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
Wednesday Wrap Up
Clickable Headlines and Stories from my sources today:
Chicago Tribune to Cut 80 Newsroom Positions
The Chicago Tribune began informing staff Tuesday it will eliminate around 80 of its current 578 newsroom positions by the end of August and reduce the number of pages it publishes by 13 percent to 14 percent each week. There also will be a reduction of jobs in other Chicago Tribune departments, but that number was not immediately available. A paper spokesman declined comment. Phil Rosenthal of the Chicago Tribune reports. more »
Yang: Microsoft Squashing Us On Purpose
The Wall Street Journal
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang says that "to trust (Carl) Icahn and his board is really a bad choice," adding that Microsoft is trying to squash the company's share price without any real desire to complete a deal. Yang of course is responding to yesterday's news that Microsoft would be open to restarting acquisition talks with Yahoo if Icahn, the billionaire corporate raider, is able to wrest control of the company in a proxy fight next month. Icahn has said he would replace Yang if he succeeds.
Yang's position is that Yahoo is ready to strike a deal now, so why does Microsoft need to wait for a new board and CEO before reopening talks? He described Microsoft's unwillingness to negotiate "baffling". Microsoft, in response to Yang's claims, pointed to a statement the company issued on Monday: "We have concluded that we cannot reach an agreement with them. We confirm, however, that after the shareholder election, Microsoft would be interested in discussing with a new board a major transaction with Yahoo."
Yang, meanwhile, now has to convince shareholders that he and the board should remain even if Microsoft is unwilling to work with them. "I think that I can bring stability back to Yahoo, and I want to get on with building company," Yang said. "I think that the destabilizing by Microsoft has become more and more intentional. I am not happy about it." - Read the whole story...
Google's 'Me Too' Virtual World
GigaOm
After 18 months of persistent rumors, Google finally launched its Second Life rival, unveiling a virtual world known as Lively on Tuesday. Sort of. GigaOm's Wagner James Au says Lively is more like "a series of virtual world chatrooms" than a "contiguous, immersive, fully user-created metaverse" like Second Life. Either way, he says, "Lively seems too similar to several existing (and very large) MMOs, making it an also-ran without a key market distinguisher to be truly compelling (besides being from Google)."
That said, you can do some cool things with these chatrooms, like embed them on your Web site, but ultimately, the cutesy, cartoonish avatars and classic virtual world feel amount to little that's original, Au says. "Without some special magic that I'm not seeing as yet, it could easily wind up being a virtual world version of Google Video, easily eclipsed by the YouTube-level dominance of Habbo Hotel/Club Penguin/Gaia Online/etc."
Then there's the 64 million dollar question: Why is Google, the Web's leading search provider, getting into virtual worlds in the first place? How does this fit in their world domination plan to organize all the world's information? - Read the whole story...
Report: Online Ad Growth To Slow On Weak Economy
Adweek
A new survey claims that America's slumping economy is having an effect on online ad growth. Conducted by William Blair & Co, the new survey forecasts that the gloomy economic outlook will contribute to slowing growth. The investment bank queried 150 Chicago-area interactive marketing companies about their budgets, and two thirds of respondents said economic conditions would affect spending.
According the results, the respondents expect Internet advertising to grow slightly more than 16% in the next year, less than the 19% William Blair tracked in previous surveys. Respondents pegged paid search and ROI-based direct response ads as the sectors most likely to thrive.
"Online's healthy, but the economy is definitely having an impact," Sean Riegsecker, CEO of Centro, a Chicago ad service for newspaper sites, told Adweek. "In a weak economy, people are going to move more towards direct response. We're seeing brand advertising take a much bigger hit this year." - Read the whole story...
Google Shows User Tracking Has Its Benefits
The New York Times
Most people who follow Google know that the company records the unique Internet Protocol addresses of every computer that connects to its products and services. For example, everything you've every searched for is retained by the search, although per a European Union mandate last year, the company now severs the link between IP addresses and search logs after 18 to 24 months. Privacy watchers and industry critics often wonder whether the potential privacy costs are worth it for consumers.
However, The New York Times' Saul Hansell says Google's user tracking has its benefits, too. Earlier this week, the company announced that Gmail users would soon have the option of seeing which computers are logged into their accounts and can read their mail. Like other Web mail programs, Gmail allows users to keep a given computer signed into their account so they don't have to keep retyping their user name and password. Of course, this means that if you check your mail on someone else's computer and forget to log off, the next person could read your mail. Google's will now give users a link that shows all machines currently logged into their account. It displays the type of machine (PC, mobile phone), the IP address, and how long the machine has been logged in, giving users the option to log out of any machine they don't want reading their mail.
OK, so this may not put to rest the argument about whether Google should be storing all that user information, but it is a handy feature that wouldn't be possible without user tracking. - Read the whole story...
YouTube Falls Short Of Expectations
The Wall Street Journal
YouTube will fall short of revenue expectations, generating about $200 million for Google this year, The Wall Street Journal reports in a revealing article about the state of the video-sharing giant. Earlier in the year, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said the company was working on new and innovative ad formats for YouTube, but according to the report, Google is merely planning to start accepting pre and post-roll ads, a format long shunned by the search giant because consumers don't like them. In fact, the Silicon Alley Insider reports that Google recently found that 80% to 90% of video watchers flee instantly the minute they see a pre-roll ad.
Meanwhile, most pages on YouTube are advertising-free. So why, you ask, doesn't Google start pasting AdSense ads all around the site? That's because, as The Journal reports, Google is actually scared to sell ads on 96% of its inventory. "Fearful of fueling allegations that it is profiting from copyright infringement, Google will only sell ads against YouTube clips that have been posted or approved by media companies and other partners -- roughly 4% of the total, says one person familiar with the matter."
The report claims that Google's fears stem from the billion-dollar Viacom suit, which alleges that Google profits from the dissemination of advertising on copyrighted material. According to SAI, this means that "either Google's going to need a legal ruling that gives it the go-ahead to make money on its copyright-violating inventory -- or it's going to have live with diminished expectations for its $1.65 billion business." - Read the whole story...
Out-Of-Home Alcohol Consumption Taking A Dive
by Karlene Lukovitz
[Food and Beverage] Although Americans traditionally drink as much--if not more--alcohol when economic times are tough, new data suggests that out-of-home alcohol consumption is dropping right alongside the economy. The hardest hit? Bars and restaurants on either coast, and wine, which is most often consumed in restaurants. - Read the whole story...
Kmart Strikes Deal To Become Dark Knight Headquarters
by Karl Greenberg
[Retail] Kmart is getting in on the promotion of the upcoming "Dark Knight" installment of the Batman franchise via a new licensing deal with Warner Brothers and DC Comics. The deal, which will render KMart "Batman Headquarters," includes exclusive merchandise and branded boutiques. - Read the whole story...
CMT, Wal-Mart And Others Gear Up For Elvis Week
by Sarah Mahoney
[Retail] Elvis Presley passed away on August 16, 1977, and every year the week of his death is commemorated by millions in their own way. For Wal-Mart that means being the only retailer to offer a new Presley-themed film, Elvis: Viva Las Vegas. CMT, meanwhile, will air the movie on August 11. Today, Elvis would be 72. - Read the whole story...
Harley-Davidson Reaches Out To Women
by Karl Greenberg
[Automotive] Any number of barriers prevent women from buying a Harley, and the legendary motorcycle brand will address as many as it can in the coming months as it kicks off an all-out push to woo more female riders. - Read the whole story...
Sony Ericsson Goes All Out On Purple Push
by Laurie Sullivan
[Telecom] Sony Ericsson is offering its Z750a cellular phone in a new color, purple, and is asking consumers to help spread the word by taking pictures or shooting videos of what purple means to them. - Read the whole story...
Avis Offers Digital Books And Tunes In Rental Cars
Chevy Launches New Compact, Cruze
Denny's Kicks Off Next Leg Of Casual Dining Push
Ted's back
Just a quick media note, while listening to my local NPR station I heard a familiar voice.
For the details, read this from my email from Tom Taylor:
Ted Koppel signed a deal with National Public Radio a while back to be a Senior News Analyst, and they’re calling him off the bench this afternoon to host “Talk of the Nation.” Two topics scheduled for the former ABC “Nightline” host: China/U.S. relations, and living with cancer. His guests on the latter topic are NPR.org “My Cancer” blogger Leroy Sievers (who worked on Nightline for 14 years) and Elizabeth Edwards. Her breast cancer re-surfaced during husband John Edwards’ recent presidential campaign.
Monday, July 07, 2008
Do We Need the News Media?
What if there were no more jobs for journalists, reporters, and traditional media news people?
There is a revenue problem that is hitting the newspaper industry pretty hard. If there was a way to convert the advertising dollars to the papers websites, for that matter, any media's website, we can survive.
For those of you that have no idea why money is important to this industry, click here.
From Mediapost today:
by Erik Sass Wednesday, July 02, 2008
Cable News Numbers
I believe that Ted Turner's CNN was the one that initiated the 24 hour news reports, which set the stage for news junkies to get updates ALL the time and forget about sleeping.
Heck, I remember when local channels signed off at night, and I'm not that old.
Here's how they stack up today:
CNN Closes In On Fox The New York Times After being the dominant cable news channel for nearly a decade, Fox is watching both CNN and MSNBC add viewers at dramatic rates. In the first half of 2004, during the last presidential election, Fox's prime-time audience of 25-to-54-year olds was more than double that of CNN. The first half of this election year, CNN has nearly as many viewers as Fox in that demo. CNN has added 170,000 viewers a night, on average, compared with the last presidential year, while Fox has shed about 90,000, per Nielsen. Fox hasn't slipped, says Republican strategist Scott Reed. "I just think MSNBC and CNN have risen to the occasion in a far more creative way, with better guests, cooler maps and more interactive shows." Fox News still remains the most-watched cable news channel, with nearly 2 million viewers each weeknight this year, compared to 1.3 million for CNN and 805,000 for MSNBC. - Read the whole story...
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Starbucks Hush Money and Exit Plan
It's been awhile since I've shared anything regarding Starbucks, Starbucks advertising, or Starbucks history so I thought I'd bring you up to date on recent Starbucks news story.
Lately the Democratic presidential candidates have been talking about executive compensation packages. Actually some of my friends at a local (not Starbucks), coffee shop were talking about this subject too the other day.
So when Howard Schultz returned to be the head honcho at the Mermaid Coffee House (Yeah, SB), what did Jim Donald, get in his golden parachute?
"...In return for signing the noncompetition and confidentiality agreements, Donald will receive $1.25 million this year, an amount that Starbucks made public in January..."
And the details of those agreements?
"...Jim Donald, agreed not to work for McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts as part of a noncompetition agreement...He can work for a grocery chain and other fast-food chains, including Wendy's and Burger King...Donald also agreed not to make derogatory or disparaging comments to the press or anyone about Starbucks, its shareholders and employees. Starbucks' board and principal officers cannot make such remarks about Donald, either..."
For details click here for the story reported in the Seattle Times.
Tuesday, May 06, 2008
The New Newspaper
In many cities, there is at least one free paper. We have at least two, one is a weekly, the other is a bi-weekly.
When I was in Chicago and Indianapolis last month, I noticed several available for the taking. These papers rely on advertising as the source of revenue, much like the traditional radio business that I work in.
This business model may be the only salvation for traditional newspapers. 
Take a look at this story:
By Kate Holton
Newspapers seeking to compete with the Internet are likely to become free and place greater emphasis on comment and opinion in the future, a survey of the world's editors showed on Tuesday.
The report, conducted by Zogby International for the World Editors Forum and Reuters, revealed that newspaper editors were still optimistic about the future of their publications but believed they would have to adapt further for the digital age.
Some 86 percent of respondents believed newsrooms should become more integrated with digital services as two in three believe the most common form of news consumption will be via electronic media such as online or mobiles within a decade.
"For these editors the future is self-evident and our survey shows that they see the writing on the newsroom wall," said pollster John Zogby.
"The evolution of the 4th Estate is no longer questions of if, when or how. Editors now know the solution: Innovate. Integrate. Or perish."
According to the survey, 56 percent of respondents believed that the majority of news, be it via print or online, would be free in the future.
That was up from 48 percent who answered yes a year ago.
Those leaning towards the free model mostly came from 'emerging' newspaper markets in areas such as South America, Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East and Asia where 61 percent of respondents believed news would be free.
Respondents in Western Europe were less likely to believe in news becoming free, with 48 percent of news executives thinking it likely, while North American editors were on par with the average.
The newspaper industry has been hit in recent years by the push to move content online and executives still saw many problems ahead.
According to 704 senior news executives surveyed, the greatest threat to the industry was the declining number of young people who read newspapers while the increasing emphasis on speed meant only 45 percent of editors thought the quality of journalism would improve over the next 10 years.
More than a quarter thought it would become worse.
To meet the many challenges, more than 30 percent of respondents wanted to be able to recruit more journalists while 35 percent would like to train the journalists they have in new media.
Nearly two-thirds also believe that some traditional editorial functions will be outsourced in the future.
(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Jason Neely) Copyright © 2008 Reuters Limited.
Sphere: Related ContentFriday, April 18, 2008
Anyone can have a voice
In this social media world we have the mobile web which you can view on your I-phone; we have MySpace; FaceBook; RSS Feeds; Twitter; and the list will continue to grow.
The fact is, newspapers and bloated traditional news outlets are going to suffer declines in viewers/listeners/readers simply because there are other ways to get information and entertainment. You can have a voice on the internet, and be equal to the 15 year news reporter in readership on the internet.
I prefer the Blog world which often allows two way comunication between the author and the readers. It's also easy to link to other sites and build some virtual networking along with local networking.
I recently wrote about the local blogging scene, click here to see how you can connect with other local bloggers.
Research was done on who are these bloggers? Who are these people who are compelled to share their voices with the world? Here's the stats:
Friday, April 18, 2008
What's A Blogger?
Bloggers are younger and higher percentages are Hispanic & African American than the general population. A higher percentage of Democrats than of Republicans are blogging.
Now that Blogging might better be called a market segment rather than a market niche, it's useful with regard to positioning the marketing message to understand what a Blogger looks like, as distinguished from the rest of the population. According to the BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Survey, 26% of all adults say they regularly or occasionally blog. Of those:
- 53.7% are male
- 44.7% are married
- 28.4% hold a professional or managerial position
- 10.4% are students.
Bloggers tend to be younger, averaging 37.6 years old, compared to 44.8 for adults 18+ (the "general population"). Ethnically:
- 69.7% of Bloggers are White/Caucasian (vs. 76.1%)
- 12.2% are African American/Black (vs. 11.4%)
- 3.7% are Asian (vs. 2.0%)
- 20% of Bloggers are Hispanic, compared to 14.8% of adults 18+
In addition, Bloggers report a lower income ($55,819 vs. $56,811) and are better educated (14.3 years of education vs. 14.2).
Political blogs are becoming increasingly common, especially in this election year, where 24.6% of registered voters say they regularly or occasionally blog. Political affiliation of regular/occasional Bloggers look like this in 2008:
- 37.6% of Libertarians regularly/occasionally blog
- 26.9% of Democrats
- 25.7% of Independents
- 22.9% Republicans
Analysis of Bloggers shows that they are using most forms of new media significantly more than the average market.
| Regular/Occasional New Media Usage (Top 5) | ||
|
| % of Regular/Occasional Bloggers | % of Adults 18+ |
| Cell Phone | 93.0% | 87.5% |
| Instant Messaging | 75.3% | 49.3% |
| Download/Access Video/TV Content | 72.2% | 45.0% |
| Video Gaming | 66.9% | 47.5% |
| Text Messaging | 65.5% | 45.2% |
| Source: BIGresearch, January 2008, N=15,727 | ||
Although Bloggers are more likely to use new media, the analysis finds that more conventional forms of media trigger their Internet searches. Magazines, at 51.6%, rank highest, followed by:
- 48.8% reading an article
- 46.1% broadcast TV
- 44.5% cable TV
- 42.5% face-to-face communication
- 39.7% newspaper
Gary Drenik, President of BIGresearch, concludes "Bloggers are a diverse group and not who you would expect..."
For more information, please visit BIGresearch here.
Sphere: Related ContentFriday, April 04, 2008
Who's Reading the News?
My wife has a basket in our living room of magazines that she is saving for one reason or another.
I have a stack of business papers and magazines in my office. Will either of us ever read our magazine collections cover to cover? It's doubtful.
Recently I wrote about the future of the magazine business and other advertising mediums. You can click here to read it if you missed it.
The Wall Street Journal's Rebecca Dana has a story about the evolution of news magazines:
What's Next for Newsmagazines?
The weekly newsmagazines have been declared dinosaurs as far back as the late 1980s. But now that 111 employees at Washington Post Co.'s Newsweek have taken buyouts, including many longtime editors, it's clear that their cultures are finally being blown up and reinvented. And some say that's not such a bad thing. more »
Friday, March 28, 2008
News in the News
As the options for getting information such as news increase, so does the consumers appetite for fast coverage.
Yesterday at 12noon, during the AdFed meeting I was attending, the news director from WANE-TV, did a live recap of the latest headlines. Included was the announcement that Hillary Clinton was going to be making a campaign stop sometime Friday in our town, but details were not yet available as to when or where.
45 minutes later, the news director was able to give us an update, due to a message he received on his Blackberry.
Newspapers that are published daily are often filled with incomplete or outdated information on breaking stories. Perhaps they need to return to (or start if they never did) investigative reporting that digs deeper than publishing press releases and police blotter reports.
Where does an advertiser go to reach the masses who want news and information? Take a look at this report from my email today:
The Troubled News Media
This fifth edition of the annual report "The State of the News Media 2008,"tracing the revolution of news by the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, can certainly not be summarized in a "Research Brief." However, the content is so encompassing, and the analysis so probing, that it begs excerpting to compel interested readers to pursue the complete study through the link provided.
The recently released study opens by saying "The state of the American news media in 2008 is more troubled than a year ago. And the problems, increasingly, appear to be different than many experts have predicted."
Concluding this brief summary, the report says that an analysis of more than 70,000 stories from 48 separate news outlets in five media sectors in 2007 offers an empirical look at the content of the American media. Among the findings overall:
- The agenda of the American news media is quite narrow
- Rather than cover the world, only two countries in 2007 received notable coverage, both closely related to the war - Iran and Pakistan
- Geopolitical events in the rest of the world made up less than 6% of coverage studied that includes Afghanistan, Korea, China, Russia, Israel and everywhere else combined
- The media and the public often disagreed about which stories were important in 2007. Citizens wanted more coverage of bread and butter issues, such as rising gas prices, toy recalls, and the legislative battle over children's health insurance, and less coverage of the crisis in Pakistan, certain aspects of the Iraq debate, and of other distant places in the world.
- The media also showed a marked short attention span in 2007
Each news medium is examined in more detail, and the complete study may be freely accessed here.
Sphere: Related Content
