Nielsen this morning released preliminary estimates for television’s so-called “universe” -- the percentage of U.S. households with at least one conventional TV set capable of receiving at least one conventional TV signal -- and for the second year in a row, it has declined, albeit at a miniscule rate. Like last year’s decline, Nielsen executives attribute some of the reduction to changes in the U.S. Census’s estimates for the number and composition of U.S. households, which the TV universe estimates are based on, but they say at least part of it is a function of changes in the media technology composition of U.S. homes. Precisely how much, they cannot say. “We continue to see increased media use proliferation, fueled by consumers able to watch professional, long-form video delivered traditionally and over the Internet by a number of devices, such as game consoles, computers, smartphones, tablets and over-the-top streaming like Apple TV,” explains Pat McDonough, senior vice president of insights and analysis at Nielsen, adding that Nielsen estimates that TV penetration, “as currently defined,” will be at 95.8% of U.S. households in January 2013. The preliminary estimates, which will be used as the basis of all of Nielsen’s calculations –- and the planning, buying, posting and guarantees for TV advertisers next year –- project the number of TV households will decline to 114.1 million for 2013, from 114.7 million in 2012. The number of persons 2+ living in those TV households will decline to 289.2 million in 2013 from 289.3 million in 2012. The final 2013 TV household and persons universe estimates will be released in August. McDonough explains the impact of the 2010 U.S. Census data releases, noting that they occur over two years: “The 2012 universe estimates were the first to reflect the 2010 Census results for total population, total households, and ethnic population totals. “These advance 2013 universe estimates are the first to reflect the 2010 Census results for demographic details (persons by age, sex, and ethnicity) as well as ethnic households.”
The NBC network and TV stations witnessed strong advertising growth in the first quarter of 2012 -- with or without the Super Bowl. But higher programming and other costs left NBC in an out-of-profit position for the period. NBC's broadcast revenue, reported by Comcast Corp., its majority owner, grew 37% in the period to $1.85 billion as a result of Super Bowl advertising sales, higher prime-time network ratings and higher revenue from a content licensing agreement. A big chunk -- $259 million -- of its overall take came from the Super Bowl advertising that was recorded in the period. Even without the Super Bowl, NBC's broadcast revenue was up 18%. Revenue activity moved at a slower pace at NBCUniversal’s cable networks, up 5.8% to $2.14 billion. Overall, NBCUniversal revenue gained 18% to $5.5 billion. Operating cash flow did not score as well for its TV network and stations -- although it narrowed its losses. There was operating cash flow loss of $10 million compared to operating cash flow of $20 million in the first quarter of 2011. NBC says that higher programming and marketing costs supported the midseason prime-time schedule. Cable networks grew almost 6% in advertising revenue during the period, with revenue from affiliate fees climbing nearly 4%. As with its broadcast group, cable managed to narrow its operating cash flow 1.4% to $805 million. Cable took in higher programming and production costs, primarily due to a shift in the number of NBA games to the first quarter of 2012. NBCUniversal’s Universal Studios film segment also had a good period -- up 22.3% in revenue to $1.2 billion, this coming from release of “Dr. Seuss's The Lorax” and “Safe House." It also gained home entertainment revenue from “Hop” and “Tower Heist." Operating cash flow edged into the positive territory -- $6 million compared to an operating cash flow loss of $146 million in the first quarter of 2011. Theme parks increased revenue 5.7% to $412 million, compared to $390 million in the first quarter of 2011, driven by higher spending at the Orlando and Hollywood parks. Overall, Comcast revenue grew 22.7% to $14.9 billion with net income sinking to $1.04 billion from $1.5 billion. But operating cash flow gained 15% company-wide to $4.7 billion. Comcast noted that its first-quarter numbers included two months of NBC results. Comcast closed its deal to acquire a majority stake in NBC from General Electric at the end of January 2011.
Although Time Warner cable network TNT continues to take a hit in its overall prime-time ratings, revenues for its cable networks division, including HBO, continue to climb. In releasing its first-quarter 2012 results, Time Warner’s networks rose 3% to $3.6 billion. Advertising revenues grew 6%; subscription revenues tacked on 5%. Much of the advertising hike comes from good pricing from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. While nonsports TNT programming has taken a hit --- down by double-digit percentages since last September -- Time Warner says advertising sales from NBA regular-season games are up, as are ratings in key viewership categories. The Time Warner network group’s operating income dipped 2% to $1.14 billion, mostly from higher programming costs. Theatrical film revenues and TV licensing revenues grew 7% to $2.8 billion, thanks to solid theatrical releases, higher television licensing revenues and the subscription video-on-demand revenues of television series. Time Warner witnessed continued drops in home entertainment revenues. The film unit’s big earners: “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” grossed nearly $535 million in worldwide box office receipts and “Journey 2: The Mysterious Island” pulled in more than $320 million worldwide. Magazine revenues sank 3% to $773 million; there was a 5% decline in advertising and 2% in subscription revenues. Overall, Time Warner revenues were up 4% to $6.98 billion, and net income fell 11% to $581 million.
Visibility to actually view where ads serve up on Web sites has been an issue for publishers and advertisers trying to keep track of performance. GeoEdge has developed an analytics platform giving publishers, ad networks and media buyers a tool to capture and analyze any ad displayed on Web sites around the world. It provides a thumbnail image, regardless of location. The platform, GeoEdge Analytics, captures images of ads as users view them and sends to advertisers. It also analyzes the same Web page from many different locations and tracks changes of how the page and ads appear for various viewers. Any banner ad automatically gets categorized to ensure quality. Once a malicious ad is identified, an alert is generated with the ad's data and screenshots. Also, American advertisers running spots on publisher sites in Europe can capture a view of how campaigns perform to ensure compliance, explains Amnon Siev, vice president of products at GeoEdge, which manages a network of servers in more than 100 locations. Siev said the platform collects information about the advertiser, ad network, placement on the page, and performance and vertical segmentation of the ad. For example, the ad served up about 20% of the time in a specific geographic location, he said. Advertisers and publishers can link visibility to ROI, as well as monitor competitor strategies, according to Siev. Publishers also can run analysis on their competition. For example, The Wall Street Journal can run analysis on ads appearing on The New York Times to identify the top performing ads in specific segments. "U.S. companies can run analysis on sites running ads for online gambling, which is all about acquiring users," he said. "Let's say you're a big online casino and your competition launched a campaign for poker in the Philippines. Typically, companies in the U.S. or Europe cannot see the creatives, but through GeoEdge Analytics they can."
Satellite radio broadcaster Sirius XM has recruited a record number of subscribers, growing 8.3% to 22.3 million for the first quarter. Total revenues jumped from $724 million to $805 million over the same time period, the company revealed in its first-quarter results. A large part of the company’s growth came from new vehicle sales and vehicle trial subscriptions converting to paying subscriptions, with 45% of all new vehicle owners deciding to convert to paying subscriptions -- the same as first-quarter 2011. Looking to the future, Sirius XM CEO Mel Karmazin said improving car sales will continue to drive growth for the satellite broadcaster in 2012, projecting total subscriber growth of 1.5 million by the end of the year -- revised upwards from the company’s earlier forecast of 1.3 million net additions. Subscriber churn, an important measure of the company’s stability, decreased slightly from 2% in 2011 to 1.9% this year, reflecting the increased share of vehicle-based subscriptions, which tend to be less volatile. Karmazin noted that churn decreased despite an increase in the subscription price. Advertising revenues remain a fairly small part of Sirius XM’s business, growing from $16.6 million in the first quarter of 2011 to $18.7 million this year (remaining stable at 2.3% of total revenues). Karmazin said the company hopes to woo new subscribers and retain existing ones, with a range of new content and features delivered via satellite and Internet: “We are rolling out more satellite channels via factory-installed 2.0 radios, and we are improving our online offering by delivering even more live sports coverage, updated apps with enhanced features, and later this year, on-demand content and personalized radio.”
Nielsen data indicates that Americans continue to love the traditional TV set, but their ways of watching TV content are changing. The average American watches close to five hours of video a day -- 98% on a traditional TV set. But gaming consoles, for one, offer a “secondary gateway” for content and are available in 45% of TV homes. In the last year, 8 million more homes acquired an HDTV set. Nielsen said this “suggests that the TV screen remains the dominant platform on which to consume content, but the “definition of the traditional TV home will evolve.” As that takes shape, Nielsen data shows there is plenty of traditional viewing, with live and time-shifted versions accounting for 33-plus hours a week. This viewing is down by 0.5%, however, compared to the last three months of 2010. Netflix has proven to be popular on TV sets, with more than half of users watching on one via a gaming console or over-the-top device. Gaming consoles are in 3% more homes versus last year, and in the last three months of 2011, Americans spent 30% more time on them versus the same year-ago period. Homes without kids are showing growth in console adoption, which Nielsen said is “demonstrating … (they) are appealing to a range of audiences for a variety of purposes. Microsoft, for one, has tried to turn its Xbox into an entertainment hub. Consoles might be growing, but Nielsen suggested cord-cutting is not -- saying “it will take major industry changes or consumer behavior swings to affect the subscription model anytime soon.” Nielsen suggested that kids are gravitating to time-shifted viewing, as it was up about 20% over last year among the 2-to-11 set. Whole-home DVRs that allow kids to watch on a secondary TV screen and consoles may be factors. Smartphones are also propelling more video consumption, with 35.5 million mobile phone owners watching video on their phones -– up 35.7% over last year.
Looking to further transform itself into a sleeker, perhaps more urbane women-targeted network, Lifetime has pushed out new graphics, a logo and tagline. The tagline “Your Life. Your Time" is intended to be the mother ship of the Lifetime brand. In one bit of key art, a young woman holds up one finger to her lips, signaling some secret, quiet message. Next to this photo is a new round, red-orange colored logo featuring a slightly askew exclamation mark with the words under the graphic: “lifetime. your life. your time.” Tim Nolan, senior vice president of marketing, stated: “Embracing everything we love about life, Lifetime strives to be as brash as it is honest and always entertaining.” Nancy Dubuc, president and general manager of Lifetime Networks, added: “Nothing is more valuable to women than time. A moment in time can be an experience that becomes memorable, and Lifetime creates times for viewers to laugh, cry, or be inspired." Lifetime, which had been struggling with declining viewership for seven years, posted its first growth period for the first quarter of 2012 across its key demos -- adults 25-54, women 25-54, and women 18-49. The network says all the design changes are part of a retransformation of the network that started a year ago -- one that will deliver a three-pronged programming strategy of original scripted series, movies and reality shows. Back then, it announced an expansion of some 350 hours of original programming.
With more people using smartphones while shopping for homes, Trulia is launching a mobile ad platform to help real estate agents reach in-market home buyers on their devices. Trulia Mobile Ads will allow agents to buy display advertising within a particular Zip code -- even on an exclusive basis -- to generate leads through a click-to-call feature within ads. The ads will appear in Trulia’s iPhone and Android apps as well as its mobile site. The company says its mobile traffic has increased 250% in the last year, with about one-third of its overall online traffic coming from the mobile side. On weekends, when people are most likely to be out house-hunting, mobile traffic sometimes even surpasses desktop visits. In addition, Trulia has found that people using mobile phones to search for homes are 60% more likely to contact a real estate agent. Now the company is capitalizing on those trends with its new ad offering. “Because this consumer audience is at that stage where they’re out looking at homes, visiting listings, going to open houses, and driving through neighborhoods, it made sense to offer advertising to real estate agents who want to reach those consumers in the moment,” said Stephen Rossi, director of business services marketing at Trulia. The new mobile ad system essentially extends Trulia’s existing Local Ads product to phones. Agents are able to buy up to five blocks of impressions for a given ZIP code, with each block equal to 20% of the available impressions on map search results pages for that location. That would potentially allow an agent to buy up all the impressions for a ZIP code for up to a year. The ad units themselves take the form of drop-down banners that include an agent’s photo, name and number. Unless the agent had bought all the advertising for that ZIP code, the image and information for competing agents might also appear in that banner. The ads automatically minimize after five seconds. If someone clicks on the ad, however, it expands to full-screen, with the agent’s contact details and brokerage along with a “Call Now” button and lead form. Ads will appear after a certain number of touches on the map view, but are frequency-capped per each mobile session. Ad pricing will vary by location depending on factors such as demand for homes or property valuations in a given area. Rossi added that mobile ad slots are being offered on a first-come, first-serve basis, but that the platform would only be open to agents already advertising on Trulia for the first few weeks before being opened up more widely. He also noted that the mobile ad service doesn’t involve any bidding process. “We’ve thought about an auction process, but what we do as a service to our (real estate agent) customers is give them the opportunity to lock in rates for a certain period of time, and when we do adjust rates, we do it based on demand in the marketplace,” he said. Mobile ads will not initially be available for Trulia on tablets, but the company plans to add that capability. Trulia currently offers apps for the iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
Leonard Armato, former top Skechers executive and commissioner of the AVP pro beach volleyball tour, has joined sports marketing firm the Leverage Agency as chairman and managing director. He had been CMO and president of Skechers Fitness Group for two years. He will open a Los Angeles office for New York-based Leverage, which did a deal involving KFC and the AVP. Other clients have included Gillette and Reebok. Leverage, founded by Ben Sturner, said Armato will spearhead a “brand accelerator model” in its approach. Skechers has received attention for its Shape-ups line and Super Bowl advertising. During his seven-year run as chief of the AVP, Armato landed $100 million in “integrated branded content deals.” Armato was at one time a prominent sports agent with clients such as Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Ahmad Rashad, Oscar De La Hoya and Shaquille O'Neal. He developed the "Golden Boy" trademark for De La Hoya. Recently, Leverage announced a deal to help secure sponsorships for the Ivy League. Leverage worked with Skechers on an endorsement deal for marathoner Meb Keflezighi. Leverage has moved beyond sports into branded entertainment, including working with “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
Life in the digital 21st century is really a function of euphemizing ourselves from cradle to grave. Maybe that’s always been the case, but today’s spinmeisters seem especially adroit at squeezing majesty from mendacity (or mundacity) and snatching pyrrhic victory from the jaws of defeat. Consider just a few of today’s better examples: Friend A friend used to be the recipient of your purest love. Nowadays, a friend is someone to click on once and forget entirely, with no requisite love/hate investment of any sort. Thanks to Facebook, today’s friends are to yesterday’s friends what yesterday’s dollar is to today’s two bits (on a good day). Don’t be surprised to see Mark Zuckerberg take over for Ben Bernanke at the Federal Reserve (or vice versa) in the near future. They’re both in the same business with the same cheap currency and the same borrowed slogan: eat all you want, we’ll make more. Quality Time Quality time is a euphemism for no time at all, mostly because we spend all of our time (quality or otherwise) attending to all of our time-saving digital devices. Relevance and Metrics Digital marketers often use the word relevance in broad association with the word metrics. Of course, neither describes anything that actually works. Rather, they describe things that can be sold, and are therefore, most effective when used in the same sentence, as in: “We need a new suite of metrics to ensure relevance.” Translation: “We can’t sell the old metrics anymore.” That’s why everyone in online advertising is on the hunt now for a more relevant metric to replace the CTR: apparently, no one can sell statistical zero. Usually, those marketers that use the word relevance as a metric to describe ads are their own best customers: They’ll buy anything. (Please see Optimization and Performance below.) Optimization and Performance (Please see Relevance and Metrics above.) Optimization and performance are what we sell when nothing works at all, as in: “We need to optimize congressional performance and the Boston Red Sox bullpen.” Or, “The ad campaign was optimized to elevate performance to statistical zero.” Artificial Intelligence AI is where we currently deposit all of our hopes for a better future through digital technology -- largely because we have no faith in our own intelligence anymore (for obvious reasons). But beware of false gods: As my brother Mike says: “If my phone is so smart, why can’t I reach anyone with it?” Communicate and Communications There’s a reason why we never see the verb communicate in the same sentence with the noun communications: No one can actually communicate in today’s world of instant communications. (Please see the smartphone reference under Artificial Intelligence above.) Transparency and Accountability Typically, those who demand the most transparency and accountability in others are those who are least transparent and accountable themselves. Demands for transparency and accountability are theatrically most effective as congressional committee opportunities to display righteous indignation and shock in response to the sudden and inexplicable loss of billions of taxpayer dollars -- most of which gets pumped back into political and special-interest campaigns for more transparency and accountability. Artisan I tossed this one into the mix because I suddenly see it everywhere. For instance, the bread aisle of my supermarket now sells artisan baguettes. But it’s the same old baguette with a new artisan bag. Meanwhile, Duncan Donuts is now running an ad campaign for artisan bagels. Significantly, no one in the ads seems to know what the word artisan means. I rest my case. What are some of your favorite euphemisms for life and work in the digital 21st century?