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Ratings service settles lawsuits
sue me, sue you blues
US audience ratings service Arbitron and the Attorneys General of the States of New York and New Jersey settled lawsuits brought by the States over various issues involving the rollout of Arbitron's PPM electronic measurement. Arbitron will pay about US$ 400,000 and the lawyers, fees in hand, go away. (Read Arbitron statement here)
Arbitron has spent millions over more than a decade trying to bring the PPM system on-line in the US. As PPM measurement finally began rolling out US broadcasters were clearly divided, Arbitron's near monopoly being a simmering issue. Last year Nielsen announced it would begin offering radio audience figures in smaller US markets with diary-based data collection and sampling similar to that the company uses for TV measurement. (JMH)
Don’t Look To Google To Financially Rescue Newspapers
Google CEO Eric Schmidt has told Fortune Magazine that he’s not about to pour good money after bad by investing in the newspaper industry. “We’re careful at Google with our money,” he said. “We write large checks when we have a great strategy. And we don’t yet have that strategy.”
His preferred way forward working with newspapers is to “‘merge without merging.’ The web allows you to do that, where you can get the web systems of both organizations fairly well integrated and you don’t have to do it on an exclusive basis,” he said.
If It’s Good Enough For The New York Times …
The Boston Globe, owned by the New York Times Company, does not sell display ads on the front page. The New York Times on Monday printed its first display ad on its front page. So what is The Globe to do? Obviously, it’s going to start selling display ads for page 1.
Globe spokesman Bob Powers said Wednesday that the newspaper will start publishing front-page ads during the first quarter of this year, but is still working out the details, such as price, size, and location on the page.
Wonder what/who persuaded The Globe’s publisher to change policy?
They’re Lining Up To Take AP’s Place
With US newspapers canceling their AP service in ever growing numbers other vendors are seeing an opportunity to move in. Thus part of a PR release Wednesday from The Sports Network:
“The Sports Network (TSN), in the midst of a growing exodus from AP by newspapers in North America, has responded with a replacement content source in the area of sports. ‘We see this as just the beginning of the inevitable,’ stated Ken Zajac, Director of Sales for TSN, ‘given the economy and growing reluctance by AP to entertain necessary cost-cutting measures in an effort to help many newspapers survive. We, obviously, offer more accommodation, all the content that publications from a 13,000 to a two million circulation base require and, at the same time, we are more than willing to enhance our package for them with branding of their Internet sites.’”
And to put the knife firmly in Zajac later added, “Make no mistake about it, we have done our homework. We are aware, for the most part, of the cost to the newspapers for AP, inclusive of what they are providing in the area of sports. And, we know that each organization must have multiple content sources to replace AP. Costs must be cut and we must leave enough room, more than enough, for each to enter into dialogue with other providers. We understand that. The publication must receive as much content as they are giving up. We understand that as well."
Beware the Boasting of Billionaires
And the braying of buffoons
Financial and media journalists are so hot for anything that might look like good news – that being deals – caution is thrown to the wind.
Theodore Kyriakou – son of Minos Kyriakou, a real Greek billionaire – is ready to spend billions on UK media, quite possibly ITV, said the complete list of normally credible sources. Two billion was mentioned; pounds, euros, it doesn’t matter.
Antenna Group, owned by the elder Mr. Kyriakou, collected a bundle of cash last year selling Bulgarian television channel Nova TV to Modern Times Group (MTG). More recently Antenna Group hired recently unemployed ProSiebenSat1 CEO Guillaume de Posch as a part-time M&A scout. Mr. de Posch told one interviewer he couldn’t wait to get out of Munich and get back to hometown Brussels. Mr. Kyriakou – the younger – said he’d be basing his scouting in London. “It’s the place to be.”
Ah, there was a little something about the need to ‘leverage’ the cash from MTG. That would mean going to the bank. Has anybody talked to a banker lately?
He will be looking for “growth opportunities in the UK and Europe,” reported Hollywood Reporter (January 5) in an article with “ITV an unconfirmed possible takeover target” as second-lead. Talk about putting words in the poor guys’ mouth…er, rich guy. Thomson Merger News (ThomsonReuters) allocated all the money, included the ‘leveraged’ amount, to UK deals.
All the twittering was based on Ben Fenton’s interview with the younger Mr. Kyriakou for the Financial Times (January 4). Even a cursory look at the brief FT article shows far more boasting about borrowing than real time reality. Some of this second-hand reporting demonstrates the same irrational exuberance that gave us GCap, Mecom, Enron, Worldcom… and Bernie Madoff. (JMH)
Slate coming to France
Head to the Web
A French version of the American Web publication Slate may appear by the end of January, reported Les Echos (January 2). Fronted by former Le Monde journalists Eric Leser, Jean-Marie Colombani and Eric Le Boucher Le Slate à la française will pursue the successful business model of its American cousin. The aim is “to promote analysis at a time when the need arises to compete with instant information,” said Le Boucher.
Journalist and columnist Michael Kinsley founded Slate in 1996 with the help of Microsoft money. Eight years later it was acquired by the Washington Post and became the cornerstone of the WP’s Web business. At roughly five million unique monthly visitors Slate is well into the advertising money. Slate content is shared among the WP’s other Web publications and is sold to others. Slate content has appeared in French translation in 20minutes.com and Rue89. Those deals will end when the new publication launches.
While the ex-journalist founders hold majority ownership, The Washington Post has a financial interest in French Slate as does Lagardère. (JMH)
2008 – The Journalist Killing Fields Continued And Again Already In 2009
The International News Safety Institute (INSI) reports that 109 news personnel in 36 countries were killed covering the news in 2008, most murdered apparently because of their work, with another four deaths still under investigation.
And 2009 has got off to a grim start with three deaths in the first four days, two in a suicide bombing in Pakistan and one gunned down in Somalia.
At least 1,375 news personnel now have died trying to gather the news in the 12 years since 1996, the start date for INSI's "Killing The Messenger" tracker for global media casualties.
The only good news in the 2008 figures is that they are significantly down from the 172 counted in 2007, a record year, due mainly to a big fall in deaths in Iraq, from 65 to 16. A total of 252 news personnel, most of them Iraqi, have now died covering that conflict since the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.
The deadliest countries after Iraq were India and Mexico, with 10 each, Thailand (9), the Philippines (8) and Pakistan (7). Five of the Thais were killed in a tragic car crash on their way to the funeral of a colleague murdered by a terrorist bomber. Accidents claimed 25 lives around the world in the course of the year.
INSI recorded at least 38 kidnappings in 2008, the worst places being Iraq (8), Pakistan (6), Somalia (5) and Afghanistan (4). Eight journalists died in captivity -- six in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
Dutch Newspaper Circulation Down, But De Telegraaf Is Up
Dutch newspaper sales fell 2% in the 3rd quarter of 2008 over Q2, but there were winners and losers. Big winner was De Telegraaf, the country’s largest by far newspaper, that actually went up to 631,000 from Q2’s 623,000.
Other newspapers didn’t fare so well, according to the HOI media auditing institute. NRC Handelsblad was the biggest loser for the PCM group with circulation dropping to below 190,000 from 199,000 in Q2. De Volkskrant stayed at around 230,000, Algemeen Dagblad dropped by 2,000 to 407,000 and Trouw fell from 91,000 to 89,000.
There’s Something Missing On French TV
It used to be that prime time programming for France’s main terrestrial TV channels started at 2050 after the news. But Nicolas Sarkozy has put an end to that! (Read more about Sarkovision here)
Starting Monday night the two main French public broadcasters – France 2 and France 3 -- could no longer transmit commercials from 8 p.m. until 6 a.m. By 2011 all advertising on the public stations will be banned.
So now prime time for the two public broadcasters starts at 8:35 since 15 minutes of ads will be gone while ratings leader TF1 continues to broadcast its top-rated news with commercials from 2000 - 2050. Sarkozy has now imposed a new tax levy on TV commercials to help replace the revenue loss for the public broadcasters.
Will viewers stay with the longer news – ads and all – or switch over to public broadcasting 15 minutes before TF1’s news ends? Enquiring minds will want to know.
Israel’s Sophisticated Use of New Media For Its Gaza Message
One of our main features today describes how the cable news networks have been covering the Gaza airstrikes and land assault, but the Israeli Defense Forces have been pretty sophisticated in getting the word out themselves via new media.
They started a YouTube site carrying aerial video showing what they called the bombing of Hamas weapon sites, and it showed pictures of what it claimed were Hamas personnel loading rockets into pick-up trucks. Some of this footage was picked up by the international news organizations.
And the Israeli Consulate in New York has a Twitter dialogue ongoing. David Saranga, a spokesman for the consulate explained, “We wanted to outreach to the young generation who does not read the conventional media, but is still interested in events in the Middle East, so we thought this is a good way to be an official voice for the questions people are asking.”
Opportunity in the global crisis
The whole world is watching... and waiting
In every dark cloud there is a silver lining, yes? With the traditional big ad spending sectors in remission media outlets may find growing revenue opportunity from governments.
The Hungarian government is spending €1.3 million in a media campaign to tell people about the effects of the global crisis, said spokesperson Bernadett Budai, reported Magyar Nemzet (December 29). Bids from national and local media can be submitted until January 31st.
National and local governments regularly promote services (i.e. public transport) and post information (i.e. get out and vote) through media campaigns. Media watchers have questioned whether or not some of this spending goes disproportionately to politically favorable media. With fears that commercial ad spending will sink to new lows media outlets will be watching carefully.
The Hungarian media regulator ORTT launched (December 27) a TV campaign to warn parents of the dangers of children watching too much TV unsupervised, reported privatbankr.hu. A similar campaign ran in Romania in 2007 sponsored by the European Commission’s Phare program. (JMH)
Government shutters foreign broadcasters
Happy New Year… now go away
Azerbaijan’s media regulator – National TV-Radio Broadcasting Council (NTRBC) - declined to reprieve its decision to suspend foreign broadcasting in its midst. After a meeting the regulator held a press conference (December 31) to say rules in place will stand and the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Azadliq and the BBC will no longer be allowed to broadcast on FM frequencies. In the week running up to the New Years Day deadline the regulator dismissed appeals by the broadcasters, media watchers and the European Uniion. (See RFE/RL statement here, the OSCE statement here and the EU statement here)
The fate of commercial broadcaster Europa Plus, the Russian-language network channel owned by French broadcaster Lagardère (Lagardére Active Radio International – LARI), is also in doubt. NTRBC Chairman Nushiravan Maharramli indicated Europa Plus would also lose its license, granted two years earlier, because “95% of the radio’s programs were in the foreign language, therefore the council passed a decision to halt its broadcast,” reported the APA news agency (December 30).
Azerbaijan is not the first nor will be the last to shut down foreign broadcasting on local frequencies. Generally, there are three reasons: elections are coming, revived nationalism and money. (Read more about this trend here)
In 2006 VOA and Radio Azadliq, the Azeri service of the US sponsored RFE/RL, were granted FM license extensions. The BBC’s license was renewed for a six year term. Since then Russian and Turkish television channels have been bumped from local frequencies. The independently owned radio and television operator ANS was also forced from the airwaves.
The NTRBC announced in early November the termination of authorization for the foreign international broadcasters to use FM frequencies pending “inter-state agreements.” The broadcasters, said the regulator, could use cable, satellite or the internet. In December the regulator said Russian language films on television would be banned. (JMH)
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