Cable system operators continue to lose video subscribers.In the second quarter of 2012, the top nine cable companies lost 540,000 video consumers, a bit lower than the 600,000 video subscriber loss in the second quarter of 2011, according to Leichtman Research Group.Looking at the 13 largest multichannel video providers in the U.S. -- cable, satellite, and telco operators -- the business lost 325,000 video consumers, 1,500 more than the total loss of video customers in the second quarter of 2011.Leichtman says the top nine cable companies have 52.1 million subscribers, satellite TV companies have 34 million and telephone companies reporting 8.6 million.The telephone companies had the best positive results during the period -- although slowing down from gains made years ago. They added 275,000 video subscribers, compared to 386,000 customers in the second quarter of 2011.Satellite TV providers also took it on the chin, losing 62,000 subscribers. This compares to a loss of 109,000 in the second quarter of 2011. DirecTV had its first loss of subscribers -- 52,000 -- in the second quarter.Looking at the entire past year, multichannel video providers added about 375,000 subscribers, compared to a gain of about 210,000 over the prior year.Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, stated: "While reports of multichannel video industry losses in the second quarter of 2012 have rekindled pronouncements of cord-cutting impacting the industry, the reality is that industry-wide losses in the traditionally weak quarter were nearly identical to losses in last year's second quarter."
Gannett, with its slew of NBC stations benefiting from Olympic ad sales, took out a full-page ad in its own USA Today newspaper Monday congratulating NBC on its strong ratings and other accolades during the London Games. “Extraordinary storytelling … Innovative viewer engagement … Record-setting broadcasts,” the ad read, saying "from your friends at Gannett." Logos of the 11 stations, which are in markets such as Atlanta, Denver and Phoenix, were displayed on the bottom. On Aug. 6, Gannett said its stations in Denver, Minneapolis and Atlanta were the three highest-rated NBC affiliates in the country among the top-25 markets -- citing ratings in the adult 25-to-54 demo in prime time. KUSA in Denver was the leader, Gannett said, with a 51 share average. Stations in St. Louis, Phoenix and Cleveland were also in the top 10, Gannett said. In July before the Games, Dave Lougee -- who oversees the Gannett station group -- said Gannett had already booked “significantly more dollars” for London at that point than it had taken in for the entire Beijing Games in 2008, according to a SeekingAlpha.com transcript. Lougee said Gannett expected to end up with up to $12 million more in sales than it garnered for Beijing, which might be 50%-plus more. “Over a year ago, we decided to transform our Olympic sales process, and through training and investment, we are getting -- and frankly, overachieving -- the results we had hoped for,” he said. “Specifically, we've got a significant increase in local businesses who are advertising in the Games on our stations.”
Another over-the-top wannabe digital video TV site has drawn the ire of the major broadcasters.This week, NBC, ABC and CBS have joined Fox in a copyright infringement claim against the entrepreneur behind FilmOn, who started up an Aereo-like site called BarryDriller.com. Fox filed its claim on Friday.The name BarryDriller is a play on media executive Barry Diller, a major investor in the TV service, Aereo. The networks have not specified what specific damages they want against BarryDriller.com.Alki David is the man who started up FilmOn.com a couple of years ago. FilmOn is an Internet-based TV site; its aim was to rebroadcast over-the-air TV station signals. Like Aereo, BarryDriller.com says it uses individual digital antennas to send signals to individual customers.Aereo has said its Net-based operation is similar to TV customers using their own analog over-the-air antennas in their homes. Aereo recently won a court decision in July against the broadcasters' efforts to force an injunction order on the company.A report in Deadline.com says BarryDriller.com's parent company, Aereokiller LLC, has suspended carriage of KNBC in Los Angeles. The company's efforts are intended to retransmit broadcast signals initially from Los Angeles and New York-area markets.Recently, David agreed to pay the networks $1.6 million and stop operations on the streaming site FilmOn.
Hispanic voters are wielding more power at the ballot box, but political campaigns have lagged in their use of media targeting Hispanics, including Spanish-language media. With that in mind, the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, which represents the interests of Hispanic businesses, announced a new initiative to track and analyze Spanish-language political ad spending in 10 key states with large Hispanic populations in the run-up to the November elections. The USHCC project, called “Speak Our Language,” will attempt to highlight the disparity between Hispanic voting power and political spending on Hispanic media, as well as the correlation between Spanish-language ad spending and positive electoral outcomes. It hopes to “hold 2012 campaigns accountable for their commitment to the country's Hispanic communities,” according to USHCC President and CEO Javier Palomarez. “Speak Our Language” will focus on Spanish-language local TV, radio, print, and online advertising, drawing data from Kantar Media’s Campaign Media Analysis Group. CMAG data from the 2008 and 2010 elections showed big disparities between general Spanish-language advertising and political advertising spending in some key Hispanic markets -- which are located in swing states. For example, Kantar CMAG president Ken Goldstein noted that “in 2010, in Miami, Spanish-language stations garnered 31% of all non-political television advertising, but only 12% of the political advertising and in Denver, Spanish-language stations attracted 14% of all non-political advertising, but just a little more than one percent of political ad spending.” At least one major Spanish-language TV network is urging Hispanic viewers to participate in this election. In May, Azteca America and its parent company, Grupo Salinas, announced a partnership with Voto Latino, a nonprofit organization devoted to raising electoral participation in the U.S. Hispanic population, on a new cross-platform campaign of public service announcements urging Hispanics to vote. Fundación Azteca America, a nonprofit organization created by Grupo Salinas to advocate on behalf of U.S. Hispanics, is also continuing to support immigration reform with a campaign under the theme “I Too Am America,” highlighting the role played by immigrants in U.S. history. From 2000-2011, the U.S. Hispanic population grew 14.7 million, more than the rest of the population combined (14.5 million), to a current total of around 52 million, or about 16.8% of the overall population, according to a recent Nielsen study titled “The State of the Hispanic Consumer.” In the next five years, Hispanics are expected to add another 7.4 million people. The total buying power of Hispanics living in the U.S. grew from $1 trillion in 2010 to $1.1 trillion in 2011, and is on track for $1.5 trillion by 2015, according to Nielsen.
TNT got some welcomed good news with the finale of "The Closer" on Monday, as well as the start of spinoff "Major Crimes."Completing seven seasons, "The Closer," which put TNT on the map years ago in the original drama arena, earned, for its series finale, a big 9.1 million viewers -- putting it as cable's No. 1 rating series so far this summer.The start of "Closer" spinoff "Major Crimes" on the same night hit a big 7.2 million viewers -- which Turner says is the top new series launch this year. The network has launched two other big dramas in recent months -- the return of "Dallas," which grabbed 6.9 million viewers on June 13, and "Perception," which scored 5.6 million on its July 9 debut.Since premiering in 2005, "The Closer" ranked at as the No. 1 series on cable from 2005 -- when it debuted -- through 2009. But it has dipped in recent years.In July, TNT's prime-time viewership was down 7% to nearly 2.7 million. For the second quarter, TNT was down 9% to 2.5 million viewers. Earlier in the spring, TNT benefitted from higher-rated NBA games.
Longtime CBS Sports executive Mike Aresco, who has negotiated TV contracts with many sports rights holders, is moving to the other side of the table. Aresco has been tapped as the commissioner of the troubled Big East Conference, which is set to begin TV negotiations.The executive vice president of programming at CBS Sports has worked on deals and operations regarding March Madness, the SEC and other college programming. He also helped turn CSTV into the CBS Sports Network.The Big East has lost several teams to other conferences and has taken on West Coast teams as a way to keep itself viable as a football league. Aresco does have a major plus in his favor: National and regional sports networks are increasingly hungry to obtain programming; the Big East offers premiere basketball.Word came Monday that the Big East has hired Bevilacqua Helvant Ventures, along with former CAA Sports Media Ventures chief Chris Bevilacqua, to lead its TV negotiations.Aresco starts his new role next month, which will also include navigating the changing landscape of college football to ensure the Big East maintains an automatic bid in the Bowl Championship Series.At CBS, Aresco played a role in forming a partnership with Turner to hold onto March Madness rights. Also noteworthy is CBS’ role in helping the SEC reach its current football prominence. Arguably, CBS carrying a league game nationally every Saturday has been a major factor in the SEC winning multiple national championships in a row. University of Connecticut President and head of the Big East search committee Greg Williams said it was “truly an international search” and called Aresco’s ”breadth of experience and depth of knowledge in intercollegiate athletics” are assets.Aresco, a lawyer with a degree from UConn, joined CBS Sports in 1996 and was promoted to his current role in 2008. Aresco has also worked at ESPN, which has carried Big East basketball since 1979.
In the 2008 election, President Obama's embrace of Facebook and other online tools helped him raise money, build support among young voters, and ultimately beat John McCain to win the presidency. Four years later, it appears he's picking up where he left off. A new study by the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism indicates that Obama is well ahead of Mitt Romney on the digital campaign trail. The Obama campaign is posting almost four times as much content and is active on nearly twice as many platforms, according to the Pew report, which analyzed the content and volume of candidate communications on their Web sites and social media channels from June 4 to 17. The biggest gap is on Twitter, where Obama has averaged 29 tweets per day overall: 17 on @BarackObama (the account associated with his presidency) and @Obama2012 (his campaign account). By contrast, the Romney campaign averaged only 1 tweet per day. Likewise, Obama has had about twice as many blog posts on his campaign site and more than twice as many YouTube videos. The two candidates were closer in the level of Facebook activity, where both averaged about two posts a day. Despite Obama's advantage in digital messaging, the study found that neither candidate is using social media to amplify input from voters. In other words, it has been more one-way than two-way communication. The candidates, for instance, rarely “retweet” posts from citizens. Only 3% of Obama's 404 campaign tweets during the study period were retweets. Romney only had one. Voter content also had only a minimal presence on Romney's digital channels. While Obama made more substantial use of input from people, the report said it was limited to one area: the “news blog” on its site, where content could be completely controlled. This is the fourth presidential election cycle in which the Project for Excellence in Journalism has looked at the content of the digital campaign. This year it broadened its analysis to include content posted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as well as blog posts and material featured on campaign site home pages. As far as the 2012 election goes, things are just heating up. “As the conventions drew closer, Romney’s campaign took steps to close the technology gap, and may well take more with the addition of Paul Ryan to the ticket,” said PEJ Deputy Director Amy Mitchell. “But there is a long way to go before the Romney team matches the level of activity of the Obama campaign.” Among other findings from the study: Campaign Web sites remain the central hub of digital political messaging. Even if someone starts on a campaign’s social network page, they often end up back on the main Web site -- to donate money, to join a community, to volunteer or to read anything of length. A July redesign of the Obama page emphasized the centrality of the campaign Web site further. Rather than sending users to the campaign’s YouTube channel, the video link now embeds the campaign videos directly into the site. Romney on the attack. While both campaigns’ digital content focused mainly on their own candidate, roughly one-third of the posts from the Romney campaign were about Obama -- largely attacking him for a policy stance or action. About half as many of the Obama campaign’s posts, 14%, took aim at Romney during the period studied. It's the economy, stupid. Both candidates have focused on the economy, with 24% of all Romney posts and 19% of Obama's addressing the topic. However, the campaigns took different approaches as Romney has given more attention to jobs, while Obama's economic messages were almost equally divided between jobs and broader economic issues, such as the importance of the middle class. Obama’s digital strategy targets specific voter groups more than Romney’s. The Obama site allows visitors to join 18 different constituencies including African-Americans, women, LGBT, Latinos, veterans/military families or young Americans. By clicking to join a group, a user then receives targeted content. The Romney campaign had no similar options at the time of the study, but has since added feature pages for nine groups. Users, however, can still only join the general “Team Romney” rather than a particular voter segment.
Whether you call it integrated marketing, 360 communications or media-neutral planning, the need to systematically adopt processes that objectively and consistently reflect the media landscape and how consumers interact with it has gone largely un-met.Although we’ve talked of integrated marketing for more years than many Mediapost readers will have been in the business (or been born for that matter!), the media and marketing industries remain heavily siloed. The media landscape may have changed, but many industry practices and characteristics have not kept pace.Individuals have whole careers centered around one marketing discipline; companies are structured around units defined by specific media and many facets of the industry’s underlying infrastructure -– measurement, planning and buying systems -– are based on approaches that are past their sell-by date. This is to say nothing of how the industry rewards and remunerates those in different roles.This is not to say there hasn't been progress. Measurement systems designed to inform cross-platform planning and buying have emerged. (I should declare an interest here as USA TouchPoints was conceived in part for this purpose.) Planning software has evolved to keep pace with the emergence of new platforms and so on, but even as vendors tackle the challenges of providing reliable data on new platforms and behaviors, the greater challenge is a human one.Now, with the modern media ecosystem significantly more diverse and multifaceted than ever before, there is a need to not only re-examine how different marketing functions should be aligned to establish an evolving model of best practice, but also to assess exactly what kind of person is needed to deliver this more integrated approach.In a cross-platform world of media-neutral consumers, the person that will rise to the top within agencies, media owners and within advertisers themselves will be the hybrid thinkers. Those who intuitively cross the chasm between traditional media and digital media; paid, owned and earned media. Those who can recognize how the strengths of different channels and disciplines can best be leveraged in tandem for maximum ROI against the brand objectives.Whether selling or buying, this approach is inevitably going to be the one that wins out as it boils down to simply making the most of the resources available. There will, of course, always be the need for operational specialists who focus more in one area than in others. But the project leaders and senior management will increasingly be hybrids and organizational structures will morph to accommodate the fact.In the short term, the challenge will be finding this talent. Some of these skills already exist, and they’re probably most readily found among the planning and strategy communities. Some creative will also fit the bill. But the rate at which more hybrids are being bred is almost certainly too slow to meet the growing need. Some might think that universities would be a good source of such thinkers -- after all, students are already living the life of media disruptors (or so the mantra goes). But in reality, there are very few if any courses that teach an applied approach to cross-platform media studies and most textbooks on media are hopelessly out of date. The solution lies within the hands of the industry -- not only with regard to the training and remuneration of people already in place, but also the structuring of organizations and the collaboration with the country’s top 10 communication schools to help shape the future of curriculum. We need to ensure that tomorrow’s graduates can deliver against the challenges of integration that continue to grow as each year passes.