Media Hunter

CNN using social media during broadcasts

Still a social media sceptic? Still think micro-blogging is frivolous time wasting?

Read this.

Tech blogger Robert Scoble just notified me (via Twitter) of this great post by Steve Rubel about CNN in America:

If you haven't been watching CNN on the weekends you've been missing out. CNN anchor Rick Sanchez has been increasingly using Twitter to engage viewers in conversation while on the air. He was particularly active during the lead up to the conventions and Hurricane Gustav. Now Sanchez is now taking his Twitter love to the next level with a brand new show called Rick Sanchez Direct, which debuts today at 3 pm EST.

Craig Stoltz has the deets on the new show. Sanchez is using Twitter to create a level of interaction with viewers that is transparent, authentic and captivating. Hopefully this will raise awareness for Twitter among corporations who will also start to use the platform towards similar outcomes.

Watch for more media to follow CNN in lock step. Newspapers are already jumping in. Newsday, my local paper, was using Twitter to track Tropical Storm Hanna as it hit Long Island on Saturday.

When will Australian media start interacting more with their audiences? Soon, I think.

Ads' 30 seconds of fame under threat

Source: Rachel Browne, Sydney Morning Herald

THE traditional 30-second television advertisement is under threat as viewers use new technology to skip ads and companies increasingly turn to product placement to spruik their brands. Australia is the world's third-largest paid product-placement market after the US and Brazil and advertisers are expected to spend almost $280 million on product placement in Australian television programming this year, custom media research firm PQ Media says. The trend for product placement on TV shows is partly due to the introduction of personal video recorders such as TiVo and Foxtel iQ, which make it easier for viewers to avoid commercial breaks.

Intel, Yahoo beam web widgets straight to TV

Source: Reuters and smh.com.au

After years of false starts aimed at bringing the web to TV sets, Yahoo said it is working with Intel to create web computer channels that run alongside TV shows.

The web company and world's largest chipmaker are working on what they call the "Widget Channel", which will enable TV viewers to interact with and watch a dynamic set of TV widgets - small web-based applications that complement TV shows.

Widgets will appear in the corner of a TV screen and work something like a picture-in-picture window of advanced TV sets.

These small windows let viewers chat with or e-mail friends, watch videos, track stocks or sports teams or keep up with news headlines or weather by using a TV remote control.

Looks aren't everything but.....

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

Although this column's subject matter is popular culture, that doesn't mean it is shallow. When we declare that today's topic is the best-looking people on television, you will understand that our purpose is deep and serious. Physical appearance matters in the media (except on blogs, mercifully). Jobs can be lost with a single wrinkle and saved with a single act of surgery.

In Hollywood they have a term for what they consider the essential quality in a performer or presenter. A forum in the intellectual magazine Salon discussed this recently: "One of the prime qualities a leading movie star must have is f---ability ... Do you honestly think that it's talent alone that puts them into 'leading' category, as opposed to 'character actor'. Falling in love with the hero or heroine of the movie is often what it's all about. If that doesn't happen for you, then the movie won't work for you."

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.

Seven reshuffle as Leckie steps back

Source: Nick Tabakoff, The Australian

THE Seven Network's core media division has unveiled a major management reshuffle that will allow its boss, David Leckie, to step back from some day-to-day duties in the wake of a major health scare less than three months ago.

The moves by Seven Media Group -- the network's media joint venture with private equity firm KKR covering its TV, Pacific Magazines and Yahoo7 online assets -- polish the rising stars of two potential heirs to his mantle: Seven's sales director James Warburton, 38, and 45-year-old finance chief Peter Lewis.

Mr Warburton will take on the newly created role of the group's chief sales and digital officer, giving him huge power by putting him ultimately in charge of almost every cent of revenue for the business from its TV, print and online operations.

Pay TV, networks argue over who has the eyeballs

Source: Amanda Meade, The Australian

FOR the first time, pay television has attracted more viewers between 6am and midnight than any one of the free-to-air networks, according to the industry's figures for the first half of the year.

A report released by the Multi Channel Network, pay TV's main advertising sales group, shows subscription TV's audience share is at a high of 22.2 per cent at the end of June 2008. The Seven Network's share of all viewing across the five capital cities for the same period is 21.6, Nine's is 20.3, Ten's 17.1, the ABC's 12.3 and SBS 3.5 per cent.

MCn is an industry-owned advertising business that represents the advertising interests of 37 channels on the Foxtel and Austar platforms. It covers 80 per cent of all advertising on pay TV.

According to MCn, pay TV is also leading the growth in share this year, compared with the same six months last year, with an increase of 0.7 per cent in share of viewing between 6am and midnight. The ABC is the only other broadcaster to increase its share, by 0.4 per cent. Seven has lost 0.9 per cent, Ten 0.3 per cent and Nine 0.2 per cent.

US: Average TV viewer now aged 50; outside advertisers’ 18-49 target demos

Source: MediaSpy & Variety

The broadcast networks have grown older than ever — if they were a person, they wouldn’t even be a part of TV’s target demo anymore.According to a study released by Magna Global’s Steve Sternberg, the five broadcast nets’ average live median age (in other words, not including delayed DVR viewing) was 50 last season. That’s the oldest ever since Sternberg started analyzing median age more than a decade ago — and the first time the nets’ median age was outside of the vaunted 18-49 demo.

Fueling the graying of the networks: the rapid aging of ABC, NBC and Fox. The three nets continue to grow older, while CBS – the oldest-skewing network — has remained fairly steady.

“The median ages of the broadcast networks keep rising, as traditional television is no longer necessarily the first screen for the younger set,” Sternberg wrote.

For the just-completed 2007-08 TV season, CBS was oldest in live viewing with a median age of 54. ABC clocked in at 50, followed by NBC (49), Fox (44), CW (34) and Univision (34).

When live-plus-7 DVR viewing is factored in, the nets (except CW and Univision) drop by a year — which still reps the oldest median age ever for the nets.

Sternberg notes that Fox and CW maintain median ages that are closer to the actual age of the population. The median age for U.S. households is 38.

Television's generation & gender gaps

Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

If men and women could only unite, Australia might get some stimulating television in the second half of this year. But they can't, so we're stuck with the programming preferred by viewers aged over 55 -- the time of life when, apparently, the sexes are most similar.

Last week this column pointed out that the seniors are the biggest consumers of TV, while the groovers watch the least (37 per cent of prime time viewing is by people over 55, up from 32 per cent in 2003; 28 per cent is by people 16-39, down from 30 per cent in 2003).

So the network that wins the year will be the one with the geriatric appeal. Off the back of a truck has fallen some fascinating research about the age of viewers for each station's most popular shows this year. The median age of Australians is 37, which is to say that half the population is older than 37 and half is younger. But the median age of viewers for most top programs is well above the national figure. Half the people who regularly watch Today Tonight, for example, are over 54. What you're about to read suggests that TV is, to put it politely, a mature medium.

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.