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News coverage in conflict zones has been subject of voluminous study. Sadly, current events provide grim reminders of difficulties faced by news outlets providing real-time reporting as well as the importance of a factual information flow. European commercial television broadcasters presented this week their views on news coverage from Ukraine at the European Parliament. War coverage is always the same and always different.
Oft mentioned by participants representing Sky News, ITV News, NTV/RTL and Nova TV is the expense of on-the-spot television reporting. Being there, of course, is essential all seemed to agree. The Association of Commercial Television in Europe (ACT) organized the presentation as part of an outreach to the European Parliament. (See ACT statement here)
Separately, a survey of Ukrainians for Internews Network Ukraine illustrated the power of television where on-the-spot news coverage means down the street. Nearly 90% of all Ukrainians watch television for news according to interviews conducted between April and June. Just under half (46%) used the Web while less than a third (29%) followed events on radio channels or through newspapers.
People living in the Russian-speaking Donetsk region, the center of the conflict, gave far higher marks for “trust” to TV channels from the Russian Federation (57%) than Ukrainian channels (24%). Ukrainians, as a whole, questioned news coverage from any television channel, website or social media. Russian TV news channels were considered the most “inaccurate.”
Local media can have a distinct advantage, local radio in particular, in reaching the public’s interests and needs. Listeners in the western Ukrainian city Lviv vastly prefer local stations over national channels, according to GfK Ukraine data from April through mid July. Of course, audience measurement in Ukraine has changed.
Lviv Wave Radio, a regional adult contemporary station, posted 50% weekly reach share in Lviv, topping the top five. Lux FM, a local station of the national top 40 network, placed second with 48% weekly reach share. National hit music channel Hit FM was 3rd with 36% weekly reach share followed by regional traditional Ukrainian music station FM Glacia, tied with national general interest channel Nashe Radio at 30% weekly reach share. Lviv Wave Radio broadcasts some programs from the BBC Ukrainian service and Nashe Radio offers programs from Radio Svoboda (RFE/RL).
“We are seeing that local stations have high ratings,” said Independent Association of Broadcasters (NAM) research director Vitaliy Gordozenko, reported by media portal Telekritika (October 8). “We can assume that it is because listeners are looking not only for music, but also news primarily coming from the immediate family circle, city or village then expanding to regional interests, national and so on. These rated local stations are not inferior and in some time periods and target audiences exceed national channels.” (See more about media in Ukraine here)
Lviv is about as far from the Donbass region conflict as physically possible. The city of 750,000 is about 1,200 km from Donetsk and has a negligible ethnic Russian population. Days before former President Viktor Yanukovych fled the country in February the Lviv Oblast declared independence from his national government.
In the national audience estimates of persons 12 to 65 years, Hit FM ranked 1st with 38.85% weekly reach share, followed by Russian Radio, Radio Chanson, Lux FM, retro FM, Avtoradio, Nashe Radio, Kiss FM, Radio ROKS and Radio Melodia. Among the top ten nationally, only Russian Radio was lower in weekly reach share compared with the January-March audience estimates. NAM analysts noted a steady rise in recent surveys of men listening to radio.
The geographical sample for audience estimates in Ukraine – both radio and TV – changed at the first of April. Ukraine listening and viewing estimates no longer include the Crimea, territory seized by Russian Federation troops, “due to technical, logistical and the legal impossibility to conduct qualitative audience measurement,” said Nielsen Ukraine.
Music has always been significant to UK public broadcaster BBC. So as its new music platform – BBC Music – takes form the promo was broadcast this week. (See here via YouTube) It is big.
Assembled for the music video based on the classic Beach Boys tune God Only Knows are a cast of acclaimed and rising stars of international music, from Pharrell and Lorde to Elton, Emeli, Florence and two Brian’s – Queen guitarist Brian May and Brian Wilson of Beach Boys fame. Wilson co-wrote the original with British lyricist Tony Asher. It’s quite a production, two years in the making.
British media watchers were typically unkind, even as sales of the music video benefit charity Children In Need. “Act of showboating,” said somebody writing in the Guardian. “Slick yet charmless,” offered the Independent.
Seeing it does refresh the memory. The great lesson from radio promotion is simple: the promo is more lasting than the program. Oh, but it’s so much work…
A couple of days, now, after big job cuts were announced at Turner Broadcasting (TBS) – about 10% of the workforce will go – speculation about the reasons are still churning through the media sphere. It’s about low US ratings at CNN, owned by TBS. It’s about corporate in-fighting, fear and loathing. It’s about Rupert Murdoch.
It’s about the shareholders and traders. Period. Plans to trim the workforce at TBS and CNN while adjusting to the digital environment have been in the works for some time. While it seems to have been something of a shock to the system when Mr. Murdoch offered to buy Time Warner, parent of TBS et.al., the shareholders and, certainly, stock traders have been looking askance at the two things they hold dear: dividends and stock values. (See more about Time Warner here)
Time Warner’s institutional shareholders are just like institutional shareholders at, say Rio Tinto. And these are times when all shareholders – fueled by the always excitable traders – want their money. Organic growth is never big enough or fast enough. Mr. Murdoch in his new role as corporate raider just scratched the itch. Cutting a few hundred jobs always pleases the stock traders and two-thirds of the announced cuts will be jobs in Atlanta, a place New Yorkers only fly over.
That understood, there is no love lost between New York, home of Time Warner and all the stock traders, and Atlanta, home of TBS and CNN. Time Warner is a quite profitable enterprise, slightly past its prime. Ditching the cable, publishing and music rights companies – not to forget AOL – focused Time Warner on television and film entertainment. The CNN news operation is something of an outlier, except for its huge worldwide profits from carriage fees.
Ideas, as we’ve learned, are easy to come by. Brilliance comes from perfect execution. Radio conferences might offer a new idea or two but the teaming consultants reveal just enough to collect a fee. Where then do program directors in the digital age seek out new ideas and how they’re brought to the airwaves?
For Radio 1 Oslo program director Cecile Svabo it was a tip from a colleague about a new station in Zagreb, Croatia. “I looked it up, downloaded the smartphone app and followed the program and thought – I must visit this station,” she said to Poslovni Dnevnik (September 30). And so, with a crew from Oslo, she called on Enter Zagreb.
Enter Zagreb entered the market last March, replacing Total Zagreb with a new format, new logos and visual design. It’s a hit music station targeting a young, urban dance audience. DJs are also quite young, lively and interact with listeners and fans through all the usual social media. In the opening weeks there were all the normal brand-change games and contests, marketing and live appearances. All of that well-executed, people in Zagreb were talking. (See more about media in Croatia here)
“We just wanted to come here, to hear their story,” said Ms Svabo. “Now we have lots of ideas to take back home…so this was really good.”
Former Kiss FM Berlin general manager Christian Schalt advised Enter Zagreb on its launch before relocation to Silicon Valley.
New laws on media and advertising and the shadow of international sanctions have created a chain of restructurings within Russian media. Big media saleshouse Video International, rebranded a year ago as Vi, will emerge in January as New Vi as it is effectively taken over by the four State-owned or controlled broadcasting companies, reported Vedomosti (October 6). Ownership of Video International has long been subject of speculation, recently leading to Russiya Bank.
Video International once controlled, reportedly, 70% of television ad sales in Russia and FSU States but amendments to federal advertising law, first, prohibited broadcasters outsourcing ad sales to a third-party with greater than 35% market share and, second, banned advertising from non-terrestrial television channels. Most of the big Russian television broadcasters set-up internal saleshouses for spot buying but continued to retain Video International as a software supplier. Each of the four Russian broadcasters will have equal 20% stakes in New Vi - State broadcaster All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company (VGTRK), mostly government-owned Channel One, Gazprom Media (directly owned by Gazprom Bank) and National Media Group (controlled by Russiya Bank). The remaining 20% stake will be held by current management. (See more about media in Russia here)
CTC Media, owner of several TV channels, is not included in the New Vi shareholding. News of the Vi restructuring sent CTC Media shares, traded on the US NASDAQ exchange, 9.28% lower. A week ago CTC Media shares fell 22.6% on passage of the new “On Mass Media” law that limits foreign ownership to 20%. CTC Media shares are currently held by Swedish broadcaster Modern Times Group (38%), foreign institutional shareholders (36%) and Cyprus-domiciled Telcrest Investments (25%). CTC Media, incorporated in the US State of Delaware, said it is “closely monitoring” the legal developments.
“The media industry is consolidating,” explained Gazprom Media CEO Mikhail Lesin, quoted by Vedomosti (October 6). “It is a natural process.” Mr. Lesin was a founder of Video International in 1987, traveled through government jobs and is “credited” with designing propaganda channel Russia Today (RT).
Asked about that 35% market share rule Federal Anti-Monopoly Service deputy director Andrey Kashevarov said “intervention” is not necessary. “Getting a dominant position in the market is not in itself a breach of the law. Abuse of dominant position is a violation.” New Vi is expected to move 80% of TV ads in Russia, 60% of radio advertising and 40% of internet advertising.
Publishing world executives have spent much of the last decade somewhere between panic and despair. There have been evolutions, devolutions, involutions and Silicon Valley camp-outs all in search of the digital penny. Exceptions are notable.
Big German media house Bertelsmann announced acquisition of the 25.1% stake in big magazine publisher Gruner + Jahr (G+J) is did not already hold, reported Handelsblatt (October 6) and others. Heirs of the founding Jahr family were finally persuaded to sell. “The full acquisition of Gruner + Jahr is a strategic milestone in strengthening our core businesses,” said Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe in a statement. Negotiations, apparently, have been underway for two years. (See more about Bertelsmann here)
G+J publishes dozens of magazine titles in about 30 countries. Best known in Germany are Stern, Brigitte and Geo. Last year’s profit dropped conspicuously and a digital-shift was announced, complete with lay-offs. (See more about media in Germany here)
Bertelsmann is the world’s biggest book publisher with Penguin and Random House. Through the RTL Group subsidiary it owns more than 50 broadcasting outlets in 9 countries, quite often top rated. Then there’s the BMG music rights company. The Arvato digital services subsidiary provides e-commerce solutions and employs 66 thousand. The company has been criticized as slow and ponderous. Bertelsmann paid cash, sum not disclosed, for G+J.
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