Media Hunter

Leading journalist questions traditional media's position

Today's Sydney Morning Herald contains a remarkable story by respected journalist Paul Sheehan highlighting the battle traditional media faces to remain relevant in the Internet age.

Titled Floundering in a sea of change and using the Sarah Palin (US Republican Vice Presidential hopeful) story as an example, Sheehan notes how he immediately referred to YouTube for news on the nominee rather than traditional media sources. He points out that by the time he started researching Palin, 6 hours after the announcement, the Internet was in it's fourth phase of the news cycle.

Online passes $1.5bn

Source: Mark Chenery, Adnews.com.au

Advertisers spent $1.524 billion on online advertising in the 12 months to June 2008, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) latest Online Advertising Expenditure Report.

The report shows strong growth across all categories of online spend during the 2007 to 2008 financial year. In the 12 months to June 2008, search and directories advertising remained the fastest growing category of online spend - up 34% to $706 million.

General display advertising was up 23% over the 12 month period to $411 million, while online classifieds grew 21% to $407 million.

Who knows what's next for television?

Source: David Dale, Sydney Morning Herald

LAST week marked the end of Australia's second age of television and the start of the third age. On Monday, Channel Ten farewelled Big Brother, and with it the notion that broadcast TV can save its own life by targeting viewers aged 16 to 39. On Wednesday, the ABC welcomed iView, and with it the notion that people who own computers need never use their TV sets again. Both hastened the doom of the networks as we know them.

The first age of television lasted from the mid-'50s to the mid-'80s, a period when the networks made and bought TV shows designed to appeal to everyone. The second age began when Channel Ten limited its audience to viewers aged 16 to 39, recognising that it could not compete with Nine and Seven for the mass market. The launch of Big Brother in 2001 was the pinnacle of this niche marketing.

Wheatley banks on Stripes

Source: Bernard Zuel, Sydney Morning Herald

He brought FM to Australia. Now the music industry veteran plans to bombard listeners with radio opportunities.

Glenn Wheatley knows we are not exactly short of radio options in Sydney. You can listen to more than two dozen stations, half of them claiming to be music stations, though their bombardment of commercials, inane announcers, severely restricted playlists and risk aversion suggest music is anything but their focus.

It sounds more than enough, but Wheatley is banking on your wanting 30, 40 or even 100 more - and being happy to pay for it.

Man vs Banner Ads

Just came across this laugh out loud video from Current TV, titled "Man vs Banner ads. It's more serious problem than I originally thought.

Discover the future of media

Hot on the heels of last month's PubCamp events in Sydney and Melbourne comes the third annual Future of Media Summit. The summit is two simultaeneous events held in Silicon Valley USA and Sydney Australia merging seamlessly by video, online discussion and cross-continental panel and conversations.

Holding Page Blues

How many times have you been to a site and seen the old message "Under Construction" or "Coming soon". Obviously all sites must undertake a refresh from time to time, but what stuns me is that many businesses that should be profiting from a strong web presence are willing to leave lame holding pages up for long periods of time.

One radio station in my market appears to have had a holding page, or at least a very basic interim site, up for close to six months. In some ways I hope that's their interim site, because if they aren't feverishly working away on an amazing site as we speak, then they have absolutely no appreciation for how they should be marketing themselves and interacting with their audience in 2008.

(Shameless self promotion time).

Sticky Advertising is just days away from launching a totally new web presence. It's been carefully planned  and developed for several months...not just the site, but the lead up announcements, the release and launch strategy....even the holding page.

Rather than just stick up a lame holding page, we felt it necessary to leave something entertaining, dynamic and indicative of the agency's attitude. This holding page is really a chapter in our evolving story. And in my own humble opinion it is more interesting than many full sites (ok, I am very biased, but check it out and judge for yourself).

My question is...why don't more businesses dedicate a little more thought to their "transition sites"? Surely they realise that potential customers might visit and get a poor impression of the business. Any thoughts?

In the meantime, Sticky's holding page is up for only a few more days. We launch the new site next week.

Dalton calls for web TV controls

Source: Simon Canning, The Australian

ABC television chief Kim Dalton has called on the federal Government to extend Australia's TV content standards to web-based video, a move that would greatly increase government regulation of the internet.

But Mr Dalton will argue in a speech at the CCI International Conference in Brisbane today that with more TV being delivered through broadband internet services there is a risk of our culture being lost under a tide of cheap-to-access overseas programming.

He warns that unless urgent moves are taken, Australian content could be wiped from the new broadcasting landscape in as little as five or 10 years.

"Consumers are demanding more extensive online, video-based entertainment," he says in the speech. "The business model here favours cheap, foreign video content and ... online content is putting pressure on established business models.

"It is likely that existing regulatory arrangements to deliver local drama, documentaries, comedy, children's, news, current affairs and other programming may have diminishing effects on the market as the existing business models of broadcasters are challenged and the content offered becomes, increasingly, foreign.

Nine Network first to stream news bulletins live

Source: Amanda Meade, The Australian

NATIONAL Nine News has made a historic shift into the digital age, becoming the first Australian news service to make its 6pm bulletin available live online.

The Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane bulletins are being streamed live from tonight and can be watched from anywhere in the country or internationally on Ninemsn.

Ninemsn editor-in-chief Max Uechtritz said today video was a key component of a rapidly converging industry and that the integration of the Ninemsn website and the Nine newsrooms was inevitable.

He said there was no danger of eroding the television ratings, measured by OzTAM, as all the international research showed that online streaming enhanced rather than diminished the television ratings.

“There’s two different audiences you want to catch so it’s adding not subtracting,” Uechtritz told The Australian. "

Top 50 Australian Marketing Pioneer Blogs

It had to happen, and thanks to Julian Cole it finally has. A comprehensive Australian ranking list of marketing blogs.

Julian decided to make this list in order to shed light on the Australian Marketing Blogosphere and hopefully connect you with some great Australian Marketing thinkers.

The ranking system is very similar to the AdAge Power 150 methodology. Julian used the same variable to rank the blogs (Google Page Ranks (10), Technorati Authority (10), Technoati Blog Reactions (10), Alexa Page Ranking (10), Bloglines (10).

He also added a Pioneer score (10), this is a subjective score which is scored in terms of the blogs ability to have pioneering thoughts about Marketing. Julian believes it is our role as Marketing bloggers to discover and inform the rest of the industry about the changing Marketing landscape.

Media Hunter is proud to be an inaugural member of the list along with partner in crime, The Marketer and our agency local media and advertising blog The Sticky Report.

Please note who is ranked at No.2 on the list. This guy may be responsible for encouraging the blogging habits of more people on this list than anyone in Australia.