Hot topics click link for more
Ukraine broadcaster uncertain about Eurovision
‘financial constraints’
Ukraine’s National Television Company (NTKU) may not broadcast this years’ Eurovision Song Contest in Moscow, said vice president Roman Nedzelsky according to RIA Novosti (April 23). A lack of funds may prevent KTKU from sending crews and journalists to cover the event, he told a Kiev news conference.
The Russian news agency also reported that Ukraine’s contestant Svetlana Loboda, set to perform in the second semi-final May 14th, may also be affected by “financial constraints.”
Russians and Ukrainians have been glowering at each other over various media events, the Eurovision Song Contest being only one. The Russian contestant is, in fact, Ukrainian singer Anastasia Prikhodko, who had been rejected by the local Ukraine contest. This week the two countries are squabbling over the authenticity of a film version of Nikolai Gogol’s Taras Bulba, says the Kyiv Post. (JMH)
Swiss Twitter
buzz in four national languages
The Swiss Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) is Twittering. DETEC wants to offer “additional access” to its news and press releases. (See DETEC presser here – in French)
DETEC makes rulings on broadcast and telecom licenses. Perhaps these will now be confined to Twitters 140 character limit. The DETEC statement did not make clear if Twittering would be in the four lantional languages simultaneously.
Twitter – and its fans base – seems to be the perfect (and momentary) communications anecdote for this era of economic insecurity, raising the noise and lowering the substance. Nothing revolutionary (See how that did or didn’t work here) and everything about it reminds me of that music business axiom: too hot not to cool down. (JMH)
Florida To Tax Newspaper, Magazine Subscriptions Delivered By Mail
As the law stands now in the US state of Florida buy a newspaper or magazine at the newsstand and you pay the sales tax. But have a subscription delivered by mail and you don’t. So in these hard economic times for the media and you want to equalize the tax system do you strip away the newsstand sales tax or add it to the mail subscription.
No prizes for guessing what the Florida House Finance and Tax Council has unanimously agreed to. Hint: It’s not to lower tax income.
NAB Attendance Way Down
There’s good news and bad news for media event holders if National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas is anything to go by.
The good news for exhibitors: those who did come seem to have purchasing power. Those who didn’t get to make the trip this year were the lower rung folks who don’t have the power to buy anything.
The bad news for the NAB’s budget: Attendance dipped below 100,000 to 83,842 – that’s off 21,417, a whopping 20%. In 2007 111,028 attended so the 2009 attendance is down 25% over the two-year period.
So, bottom line, media congresses can expect quality but not so much quantity.
Consumers want TV – and they’ll pay for it
Good golly, Elvis. Another revelation.
Accenture’s Global Broadcast Consumer Survey, released at the US National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, confirmed something every media watcher knows: research shows, research sells. Asking 14,000 people in 13 countries – that would include the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and Malaysia – the business consulting firm revealed that people who like TV are watching more TV.
Two in five (40%) said they watch at least six channels, a shade more than last years’ survey. Roughly the same percentage (39%) said they watch eight or more programs each week, up more than a shade. Three out of four (73%) said they watch the same show on more than one channel. New shows are harder to find and consumers seem less interested in finding them.
Pointing in the same direction, nearly half the respondents (49%) said they are willing to pay for the shows they like. But 40% said they want free-to-air TV and will suffer through the ads. Consumers prefer subscription services to pay-per-view.
Las Vegas media reports "light foot traffic" at the NAB convention, compared to previous years. The NAB has not released pre-registration or attendance figures. (JMH)
US Newsroom Employment dropped 11% in 2008
The American Society of News Editors (ASNE) – they used to be called the American Society of Newspaper Editors but apparently “newspapers” is a dirty word these days although their spin is they wanted to include Internet editors -- says employment in US newspaper newsrooms tumbled by 11% last year with 5,900 workers losing their jobs.
The 46,700 newsroom employees left at the end of 2008 compares with the 1990 peak of 56,900.
ASNE says last year’s newsroom losses were the greatest since the organization started keeping records in 1978.
Havas CEO Fernando Rodes Vila Thinks It Will Take A Couple Of Years For Things To Turn Around
Havas CEO Fernando Rodes Vila used a motoring metaphor at the 2009 Festival of Media in Valencia, Spain, to succinctly describe how he sees the economy these days, “In 2007, money was moving at about 200 kilometers an hour and now it’s at about three kilometers an hour,” the head of the French advertising conglomerate told delegates in his keynote speech.
“Consumption and speed of money are stopping the engine from starting, and it will be two to three years before those factors turn around.” He added, “The cars we build today were conceived in 1930 and those values are no longer real. This is a metaphor for our way of life and it will clearly put a reduction in the speed of our future growth.”
Where Was CNN in Geneva?
Monday’s biggest international story was the speech by Iranian PresidentMahmoud Ahmadinejad at the UN anti-racism conference in Geneva that the US, Canada, Israel and a few other countries boycotted because the conference was seen as Isaeli bashing. Once the Iranian President started calling Israel racist the rest of the EU delegations that did attend walked out. And the cable news companies gave it big coverage, but where was CNN’s on-the-spot reporter? For the network only offered up voiceovers done from London by correspondent Atika Shubert.
Even lowly France 24 had a correspondent reporting by satellite, let alone a 40-minute live debate that featured Juliettede Rivero, Geneva advocacy director at Human Rights Watchvia satellite from the UN grounds. But on CNN it was only agency video (Eurovision, AP) and Shubert’s voiceover. Her reporting was actually very complete – the agency wires were put to good use – but this was not a CNN class act.
And it’s not that CNN didn’t know the event was coming and that Ahmadinejad would be the only head of state speaking and that the US was boycotting (is that why CNN boycotted?) Remember in 2005 when Ahmadinejad gave his maiden speech in New York and the blanket coverage that received? Of course, CNN has major facilities in New York, but it doesn’t in Geneva. Even so, Geneva is Easy Jet’s European hub – lots of low fare flights each day from London to Geneva; surely cost was not the deciding factor in not flying a crew in?
And yet if a lesser event occurs in London then no problem. Tamil protesters were on vigil outside the British Parliament Monday and that merited frequent live reports by senior foreign correspondent Nick Robinson. Of course, that was London and if Ahmadinejad had given his speech in London no doubt the coverage would have been very different. And that’s one of the big problems with CNN’s European coverage these days – it has become ever more UK centric. There is more to Europe than the UK (and yes we know it has bureaus in Paris, Frankfurt, and Rome; too bad it doesn’t make more use of them.)
You will recall that CNN got rid of Reuters at the end of 2007saying it would invest that money to increase its own coverage. It has opened some one-person bureaus, primarily in the Middle East and Africa, but perhaps Geneva, the UN European headquarters, should be added to that list? If CNN doesn’t undertstand why then it should just follow for a while the Geneva UN reports filed on BBC World!
McClatchy, the third largest US newspaper publisher, has been warned by the New York Stock Exchange that it faces delisting if it doesn’t get its market capitalization up to $75 million. At Monday’s close the company was capitalized at $49 million (59 cents a share although down to 54 cents in after-hours trading). Remember it paid a net of around $3 billion three years back for the 20 Knight Ridder newspapers that it kept.
The company says it has 18 months to comply with that standard, but it also has a requirement that by December its shares rise to at least $1.
Last year the NYSE delisted Sun-Times Media Group, Journal Register Co., and GateHouse Media.
Food discounters buying radio, newspaper ads
Buy one, get one free
Nielsen Media reports first quarter ad bookings in Germany fell 2.5%, year on year, to €4.7 billion. Radio and newspaper bookings were up 10% and 6.4%, respectively, due to “aggressive marketing by trade organizations,” said the statement (April 15). Online ad bookings increased 15.1% to €350 million. The figures represent ad bookings at full rates without discounts and other, er, incentives.
Discount food retailers like Aldi increased ad bookings by 22% to €525 million. Bookings by health insurance funds were up 52%. Ad bookings from the automobile industry shifted from makes and models to image campaigns, benefiting radio broadcasters most. On the other side, telecoms - mobile and otherwise - booked about 40% less, year on year.
TV ad bookings were down 2.7%. Bookings for magazines, outdoor and cinema were also down. Traditional media ad bookings – presumably everything but online – were down 2.5%.
Nielsen Media offered a bit of demographic targeting insight. €5 million in ads were booked by the beer business in online media. (JMH)
Swedish file sharing portal Pirate Bay’s owners had their day in court and the verdict is in. Guilty. And they will now walk the plank as “accessories to breaching copyright laws,” said the court statement (April 17).
Pirate Bay has operated since 2003 as a peer.to-peer catalogue containing all sorts of video, music and games. Users, about 3 million are registered, click on links to other sites containing downloadable material. The Stockholm district court rejected defense claims that Pirate Bay violates no copyright because it hosts none of the copyright material. Music and film industry lawyers convinced Swedish prosecutors to bring charges last year.
Copyright holders will certainly applaud the decision, as they did when US courts gutted Napster. Without a viable business model for the Web-era, the music and film industries have resorted to lawsuits and prosecutions. It’s a ‘whack-a-mole’ strategy – whack one and another pops up – that largely benefits law firms. (More on business models and new media here)
The four Pirate Bay defendants were sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay. They have indicated their intention to appeal to decision.
As the decision was being read out, Sydsvenskan (Malmo) visited an eighth grade class for a little real world insight. Nearly all the teenagers said they’d downloaded material from the Web without paying. Why? One said, “It’s just something you do.” Another reasoned, “Perhaps people will be more afraid (to download), but they cannot get one million people.”
Is there a solution? The students thought a system like the television license fee might work. “Maybe not so great that you have a problem paying it.” (JMH)
|
