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Online radio grows
measurement needed
A study of online radio in Germany produced by Berlin strategy consultant Goldmedia and sponsored by Bavarian regulator BLM (July 23) shows a rapidly expanding number of online radio offerings, from 450 in 2006 to 1900 now. Then overwhelming majority (80%) are available only on the Web, the rest being simulcasts of FM stations. (See Goldmedia release here)
The report forecasts a rise in internet radio users per day o 21 million in Germany by 2013 from 7.5 million estimated at the end of 2008. Time spent listening to online radio, they estimate, is 73 minutes on average. More well-known simulcasts of FM stations hold listeners longer, 91 minutes.
“As an ad medium,” said report author Marcel Piopiunik, “online radio must be measured with hard numbers.”
That would mean, perhaps, incorporating data with the Media-Analyse (ag.ma) survey, which would require converting internet radio agnostics. A year ago ARD AS&S research director Dieter Müller said “There’s no question listeners are not listening to the internet.” (Read here) (JMH)
No sharing the Aplauz
This is, after all, show biz
Listeners in the south-western Poland city Wroclaw were confused for a couple of days this week as Radio Aplauz seemed to be different, depending upon where in the city they were listening. From Monday morning there were two broadcasts, both on the same frequency. This had nothing to do with sun-spots.
It seems half the company licensed to operate Radio Aplauz went one direction, toward one part of the city of 600,000, and the other half lit up its own transmitter. Radio Aplauz has two principal owners, which are battling over control. One owner, holding a 45% stake, is Broker FM, owned by big German media company Bauer.
The competing signals last only for about a day and a half as the ‘old’ Radio Aplauz gave in to Broker FM’s claim on the frequency. (JMH)
It’s A Poor “Christmas” For Fashion Magazines
They say that the September issue of fashion magazines is as important to the publishing business as December is to retailers. The month can make or break annual publishing budgets with that month alone bringing in some 20% of the revenue, and figures released this week indicate that the big US fashion glossies are seeing September ad pages down by more than 30% over last year, and last year, if you will recall, wasn’t exactly a banner year to begin with.
Remember when it took two hands to pick up the September Vogue at the newsstand – usually more than 700 pages. This year the ad pages are down 37% so it could just be a mighty one-hander now. W is down 53%, Glamour is down 42% and, yes, the male titles got hit, too, with GQ down 32%.
So it seems the recession is also hitting high, with the big fashion houses and cosmetics companies cutting way back on their annual huge September spend. The magazine industry is hoping that’s all it is and that once the economy recovers the magazine spend will come back and not be sent elsewhere.
But Conde Naste (W, Vogue etc.) isn’t taking any chances. It has hired McKinsey to take a look around and everyone knows whenever McKinsey walks in the door it’s just a matter of time before many staffers are sent packing out that same door.
So Much For Getting A Job At Best Buy
Do you Twitter? Do you have more than 250 followers? If not, then don’t even think about getting a senior management job at the US retail electronics giant Best Buy. A recent job application for a senior position required the applicant to have at least 250 Twitter followers. Better start calling, or rather Twittering, your friends and family.
But what if this turns into a trend? Can we expect the majority of US Fortune 500 companies and global conglomerates to require each of their senior managers to have 250 Twitter followers or be shown the door? Can anyone get hired for a senior position and not have 250 Twitter followers? Has the digital world really come to this? (More on Twitter users here)
All sounds nonsense, doesn’t it? Let’s return to the issue in a year’s time and see just how nonsensical it really is. (follow Phil on Twitter)
Changing channels in Lithuania
Cut, cut cut
Without a last minute reprieve the Polish speakers in Lithuania will lose free-to-air television from Polish public TV (TVP). The contract between a Lithuanian operator and TVP expires this week (July 22) and the Polish government doesn’t seem inclined to pay the transmission fees.
To say that TVP is immersed in a financial crisis wildly understates the situation. Forking up the estimated PLN 3 million (about €700,000) for transmission fees, even if funded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, seems a reach too far. About 7% of Lithuania’s population are Polish, most living in or near the capital Vilnius.
TVP President Peter Farfal said TVP would still be available to Polish speakers in Lithuania but on cable and satellite. “Put simply,” said Farfal, “it is a luxury, which public television can not afford today.”
Media watchers in Lithuania have had a mixed reaction. Rural viewers not connected to cable systems will be most affected, they say, particularly those of limited financial means. TVP is considered in Lithuania as a high quality broadcaster. One free-to-air option, according to some, is Polish language broadcasts from Russia. (JMH)
Government ad spending rises
Hey, big spender!
The biggest ad spender in the UK is the government, reports Nielsen (July 21). UK government agencies spent £540 million (about €625 million) on marketing and communications in 2008 through the Central Office of Information (COI), a 43% increase. Less than half, £211 million (about €245 million), was spent on advertising, up 35% over 2007. The COI overtook Procter & Gamble’s ad spending by £38 million (€44 million).
Governments are hardly newcomers to buying ads. The French government, through the Service d'information du gouvernement (SIG), has budgeted €22.4 million for 2009. The Belgian government is one of the country’s top five advertisers.
The COI uses a variety of media to inform the public, climate change and anti-obesity being new high profile campaigns.
Reporting details of UK advertiser habits earlier this year, Marketing Magazine (March 24) said COI spending for 2008 was £178 million (€206 million); £72 million (€83 million) in TV, £47 million (€54 million) in radio and £36 million (€42 million) in print. (JMH)
Do You Watch 130 TV Channels A Day?
The average American household in 2008 received 130 TV channels, 11.5 more than the year before, but the household restricted its viewing to just 13.7% of the channels available, according to the Nielsen Company.
The good news for advertisers is that in spite of the Internet, games, and handheld devices, the average US household watch more TV each week more than ever before, to 58 hours and 27 minutes, up some 40 minutes.
The marketing lesson from this is that it’s one thing to get a TV channel available to a household, but quite another to get the household to watch it. Same lesson, come to think of it, that probably applies to all media these days – you can always provide more choice, but people are pretty set in their ways and you need to work on it to get them to change.
Less Worse?
It may be wishful thinking, or maybe there really is some good advertising news in the air – you’re starting to see various reports coming out saying that marketing people are feeling “more confident” in placing spend, that June and July newspaper figures are “less worse” than previous months this year, that celebrity-focused magazines seem to be doing ok, and so on. It may be grabbing at straws but …
Anyway, it’s worth noting, therefore, the latest Advertising Optimism Report from Advertiser Perceptors that says, based on questioning of 200 media decision makers, that they are planning higher ad spending and they are more “optimistic” than they have been for some time.
Before you all go out and start raising ad rates, however, it should be noted that “optimistic” applies to mobile, online, cable TV and Outdoor, whereas “pessimistic” but improving applies to Broadcast TV, radio, magazines and national newspapers.
And who is still out in the cold? Local newspapers where the ad spend view is not only pessimistic, but it’s declining, too.
There’s Still Life In The Newspaper Ad Insert
Journalists like to think the main priority of a newspaper is to provide news, whereas the business side would rather use the word “information” because “information can cover not just news but advertising, too. And while the newsroom may not like the idea that people buy newspapers for advertising information, the truth is that now more than ever with free news on the Web it is the display ads -- local and national – that garner a lot of print reader attention these days.
Which is why ftm has been beating the drum for several years that newspapers should be promoting far more than they do how much they save readers every day in coupons let alone the discounts advertised by local stores. The newspaper should be considered by the reader to be a revenue producer (in savings made from acting on advertisements), and not a cost center.
With that in mind a recent study by MORI Research for the Newspaper Association of America (NAA) should not go unnoticed, for MORI says that in its poll of 3,000 adults more than 70% “regularly” or “occasionally” read newspaper advertising inserts and in the past month a full 82% said they took some action because of a newspaper ad insert.
Some 60% of readers said they clipped coupons; and 50% said they bought something because of an ad. And that means to those readers the newspaper is a profit center! That message needs to be spread far and wide.
The Most Trusted Man in America
Walter L. Cronkite 1916-2009
The family broke the news early Saturday morning (July 18). Legendary newsman Walter Cronkite passed away, aged 92, of complications of old age. He is survived by son Chip and daughters Nancy Elizabeth and Mary Kathleen.
Cronkite’s legacy as a newsman who embraced the transition from newspapers to television is storied. Few from his generation, the pioneers of television news, survive. While few under a certain age have more than a passing awareness of that contribution, for the generation of broadcasters who came of age during that earlier media revolution Cronkite set a particularly high standard.
My favorite Walter Cronkite story isn’t about television. Working for radio station KCMO (Kansas City, Missouri) as a young news reader one of his jobs was to announce baseball games. He did this from a studio, interpreting wire copy as it arrived, filling listeners minds with all the color the language could bring.
He brought the same empathy for people to television, earning for himself the honor of the most trusted man in America, which lasted long after his retirement. But Cronkite also earned for television news the trust of all. And every television news anchor – the term was coined for Cronkite – is part of his legacy.
“And that’s the way it is…”. (JMH)
Murdoch and Berlusconi – like father, like son
Now, children….
The battle royal between rival clans – Murdoch and Berlusconi – is in the hands of the next generation, reports Handelsblatt (July 16). The article’s set-up describes the Murdoch clan gathered in June at “a fortress from the 15th century” in Milan’s center with the Berlusconi clan “ten kilometers away” at Mediaset headquarters. Perhaps a bit melodramatic, yes?
The sons, says Handelsblatt, “will fight out the battle.” That would be James Murdoch and Piersilvio Berlusconi.
“This is just the beginning,” James was quoted.
“The war is real and has only just begun,” an unnamed “former Mediaset manager” is quoted. “Piersilvio understands the competition with Murdoch as his main job.” (See more on Murdoch v. Berlusconi here and here)
I’m waiting for the movie. (JMH)
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