I just don't believe it.
Under the headline "DVR, Once TV’s Mortal Foe, Helps Ratings," the New York Times reports that "nearly half" of all people who watched DVR-recorded shows still watch the commercials. With DVR penetration at about 33%, this is a very meaningful issue to television advertisers. I've said for a long time that when the DVR penetration passes 50% the TV industry is going to face a massive profitability crisis based on declining revenues (driven both by price and volume).
The source for this nonsense is Nielsen, whose spokesman says it all makes sense because TV is a "passive media", thus explaining why so many people would not press the fast forward button to skip the ads.
I know it's dangerous to take your own behavior and extrapolate it to all others. But I know I record shows PRECISELY so that I don't have to watch the commercials, and only pause to see the latest ones from Apple because they are so entertaining.
And my guess is that almost everyone else is doing the same thing, no matter what Nielsen has to say about it.
What do you do?
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Blogging ain't easy
Okay, Okay, for the few people who check out this site, you may have noticed that I have not written anything for three months. I had a good excuse, I spent most of the summer traveling.
But it was several months of silence before that. What gives? Well, it turns out writing a blog ain't so easy. First, you have to decide, are you going to be one of those prolific bloggers like Jeff Jarvis, who twitters dozens of times a day, or are you going to be one of those infrequent, but profound commentators, like Clay Sharkey.
The pressure to be profound was just too great, and the pressure to be on top of the news was also too much for me. So I'll compromise. I won't be profound, and I won't write frequently. I'll just write once in awhile, try to say something understandable, and spell the words correctly. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, give me a week or two to come up with something to say.
But it was several months of silence before that. What gives? Well, it turns out writing a blog ain't so easy. First, you have to decide, are you going to be one of those prolific bloggers like Jeff Jarvis, who twitters dozens of times a day, or are you going to be one of those infrequent, but profound commentators, like Clay Sharkey.
The pressure to be profound was just too great, and the pressure to be on top of the news was also too much for me. So I'll compromise. I won't be profound, and I won't write frequently. I'll just write once in awhile, try to say something understandable, and spell the words correctly. Now that I've gotten that out of the way, give me a week or two to come up with something to say.
Friday, July 3, 2009
John Arthur leaves Los Angeles Times
John Arthur, the executive editor of the Los Angeles Times, was let go this week. The editor, Russ Stanton, said in a memo "we differ on the best approach to reaching our goals." At least, he conceded, "this decision is a difficult one."
I don't know Russ Stanton. But I know John Arthur. And his departure is yet another nail in the coffin of the Los Angeles Times. The "velvet coffin"--a term used to describe the place in the 80's and 90's--has become a real empty coffin, just waiting for the body.
John and I worked together when he was editor of the Valley Edition of The Times, and I was its president. I've continued to keep track of his excellent work ever since. I count him as a good friend.
He is a journalist's journalist. Not flashy. Solid. Analytical. Aggressive, but thoughtful. The fact that the Los Angeles Times will no longer have him around to decide what news goes on the front page means that its readers will be short shrifted, and the reporters and editors there will lose a great mentor and teacher.
Perhaps it is inevitable, this continuing drain of top-notch talent out of the print newspaper business. But it's not fun to watch.
I don't know Russ Stanton. But I know John Arthur. And his departure is yet another nail in the coffin of the Los Angeles Times. The "velvet coffin"--a term used to describe the place in the 80's and 90's--has become a real empty coffin, just waiting for the body.
John and I worked together when he was editor of the Valley Edition of The Times, and I was its president. I've continued to keep track of his excellent work ever since. I count him as a good friend.
He is a journalist's journalist. Not flashy. Solid. Analytical. Aggressive, but thoughtful. The fact that the Los Angeles Times will no longer have him around to decide what news goes on the front page means that its readers will be short shrifted, and the reporters and editors there will lose a great mentor and teacher.
Perhaps it is inevitable, this continuing drain of top-notch talent out of the print newspaper business. But it's not fun to watch.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Jon Stewart Daily Show visits the NY Times
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The Web's Dirty Little Secret: Flawed Measurement
Close readers of this space will recall that when I wrote about the decision by the Seattle Post Intelligencer to go web only, I reported widely different numbers for its monthly unique visitors. Compete.com had only 30,000, but the PI itself said that Nielsen reported 1.8 million unique visitors, and its own internal numbers had 4 million uniques.
Big difference, huh.
Today's New York Times tells a similar story for a much bigger site, hulu.
"Does Hulu, the Web’s most popular place for TV viewing, reach nine million people a month or 42 million? Millions of dollars in advertising revenue may hinge on the answer. But no one seems to know for sure how big the site’s audience is."
Nine million or 42 million????? That's like saying the circulation of the New York Times might be 800,000 or 4 million? You'd think you might pay a different price for advertising, depending on which one it was!
It's a problem that the industry has been wrestling with for some time. "The web has been around for more than 10 years as a medium, and it's been called the most measurable medium in history. Yet, web publishers at large media sites such as CNN.com or NYTimes.com have been dismayed to see that their direct counts of web visitors measured from their servers vary so wildly" from those reported by various measurement firms, says Mark Glaser.
It turns out that web measurement firms rely on two basic approaches, panel and census based. In simple english, the panel approach is similar to what has always been used for television or radio--track the habits of a supposedly random representative group and then extrapolate to the entire population. The census approach tries to track actual usage from the servers (but then has overstatement problems of its own because it might include counts for automated search spiders, spyware traffic and the like).
This may seem like inside baseball, but if I'm a media buyer and I can chose between a site that has 500,000 unique visitors or ten million, for the same price, it would be an easy decision, except that it's the same site.
The wildly divergent numbers demonstrate the nascency of the market for online video measurement. It’s “still the wild wild West,” said Rob Davis, a leader of the interactive video practice at OgilvyInteractive.
We are still at the infant stage for new media, still figuring out what the data means, how "efficient" it really is, and what it's worth. In the meantime, you can trust that the good sales people will be telling the best story--the difference from yesteryear is that instead of having to rely on the numbers brought in by the friendly radio ad sales person, you can go up to the web yourself and find whatever numbers you want.
Big difference, huh.
Today's New York Times tells a similar story for a much bigger site, hulu.
"Does Hulu, the Web’s most popular place for TV viewing, reach nine million people a month or 42 million? Millions of dollars in advertising revenue may hinge on the answer. But no one seems to know for sure how big the site’s audience is."
Nine million or 42 million????? That's like saying the circulation of the New York Times might be 800,000 or 4 million? You'd think you might pay a different price for advertising, depending on which one it was!
It's a problem that the industry has been wrestling with for some time. "The web has been around for more than 10 years as a medium, and it's been called the most measurable medium in history. Yet, web publishers at large media sites such as CNN.com or NYTimes.com have been dismayed to see that their direct counts of web visitors measured from their servers vary so wildly" from those reported by various measurement firms, says Mark Glaser.
It turns out that web measurement firms rely on two basic approaches, panel and census based. In simple english, the panel approach is similar to what has always been used for television or radio--track the habits of a supposedly random representative group and then extrapolate to the entire population. The census approach tries to track actual usage from the servers (but then has overstatement problems of its own because it might include counts for automated search spiders, spyware traffic and the like).
This may seem like inside baseball, but if I'm a media buyer and I can chose between a site that has 500,000 unique visitors or ten million, for the same price, it would be an easy decision, except that it's the same site.
The wildly divergent numbers demonstrate the nascency of the market for online video measurement. It’s “still the wild wild West,” said Rob Davis, a leader of the interactive video practice at OgilvyInteractive.
We are still at the infant stage for new media, still figuring out what the data means, how "efficient" it really is, and what it's worth. In the meantime, you can trust that the good sales people will be telling the best story--the difference from yesteryear is that instead of having to rely on the numbers brought in by the friendly radio ad sales person, you can go up to the web yourself and find whatever numbers you want.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
