There once was a notion that the arrival of the computer screen would somehow rob the television screen, that the activity of the consumer was a zero-sum game.
Today's release of the first of the so-called "three-screen" reports from Nielsen indicates not merely that the pie is being divided differently, but that the pie is bigger. The market expands as new forms arrive.
New video platforms aren't eroding television's take. If anything, TV is being watched even more (127 hours-plus a month), followed by Internet (26 hours-plus) and cellular phones (three hours-plus).
More than 282 million Americans watched TV, and more than 162 million watched the Internet. What's clear from the report is that online video remains a field with immense potential; as a nascent form of viewing, it's attracting only about two hours and 19 minutes of viewing monthly. Compare that to time-shifted TV (five hours and 15 minutes) and you can see where the growth will come in the time ahead.
New research has been released from a recent select conference on the future of media, and it suggests online Canadians have a strong commitment to broadly defined field of news and information. On average they spend 2.3 hours consuming it from a variety of sources, with TV holding a small edge on the Internet and newspapers.
The Canadian Media Research Consortium report indicates online Canadians like the speed and visual qualities of the Internet, the reliability of television and the depth of newspapers. Having said that, the Internet is also used for deeper dives.
What is also clear from the report is an emerging visual culture. While older Canadians like their text, younger ones want stories told visually.
Disclosure: I am on the advisory board of the consortium.
An analysis by AdvertisingAge of the top 100 U.S. advertisers (or about 41 per cent of the market) indicates that about $1 billion of their advertising shifted into the digital space in 2007. The shift came at the expense of newspapers, which lost nearly $650 million, and television, which lost more than $400 million.
The slowing U.S. economy was also reflected in the figures: a mere 1.7-per-cent increase in the year, the most sluggish since 2001.
The annual massive PricewaterhouseCoopers report on the entertainment and media industries out today is music to the ears of traditional media.
"The oft-reported death of traditional media remains greatly exaggerated," the report notes.
While there is no question digital revenues will grow strongly in the years ahead, the report says conventional television's revenues will, too (if not at the same clip).
Media revenue overall will hit $2.2 trillion by 2012. Of that, digital and mobile revenue will account for only about 11 per cent.
The hardest hit of all media will be the music industry, PwC forecasts.
As for newspapers, the report predicts that Web revenue will account for about 15 per cent in the U.S. by 2012. Revenue will grow, albeit at a rate of less than three per cent, worldwide.
The Solutions Research Group says trends suggest Americans will be spending as much time viewing video (eight hours) as they sleep by 2013. Today Americans spend about six hours a day viewing video, up from 4.6 hours in 1996.
It's been noted recently that newspaper Web sites are commandeering the local advertising market online.
But Broadcasting & Cable Magazine has analysed the basis of that same Borrell Associates study and found some insightful news for television stations online.
Station sites that offer lots of video, weather and interactive features are faring very well. Given that most TV stations have certified meteorologists on staff, weather should be a particular advantage.
It strikes me at times strange that the huge video gathering apparatus of a television outlet isn't somehow channeled online --- all of the B roll, full-length interview that extracted the clip, and video blog-like offerings from reporters who stand outside meetings and wait for their conclusions.
Britain, the world's most developed online advertising market, is on the cusp of making more digital history. Ad spending online will pass print and television next year, says the Internet Advertising Bureau, the World Advertising Research Centre and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The market share was 15.3 per cent in 2007 (revenues of about $5.6 billion), behind print (19.9) and TV (21.8), but the rapid growth is set to eclipse both media next year. The pace of growth in paid search is slowing somewhat, but search, classified and banner advertising all showed strong growth. The Reuters story on the report is here.
Much as this is a blog on media change, it is impossible not to get drawn into the last few days of speculation about the future of Katie Couric and her role at the CBS Evening News. I'll get to the media change part soon.
The New York Times weighs in today with a lengthy backroom piece, co-bylined by its sterling media writer Bill Carter, that reveals a recent CBS executive discussion with Couric and her agent about whether she might leave the anchor job before her contract expires in 2011 --- say, right after the U.S. election later this year --- and occupy a new network role.
Now, I've only managed in the much tinier Canadian division of this big league, and only for a couple of years, but the leak of this discussion is almost certainly the kiss of death for her tenure. Anchor loyalty is frail and needs constant nurturing. Audiences flee easily. It's hard to imagine how viewers will provide loyalty (not that they were, anyway) when it's feasible Couric and CBS are even musing about a premature departure. Just to have that meeting and discussion --- or to leak it, anyway --- is to essentially generate the goodbye.
Which brings me back to the topic of media change, because Couric was supposed to be it --- a new approach to nightly news, a new vivaciousness, perhaps with a new set of commitments around life-relevant themes, in order to connect with a disaffected audience and help save the genre. While many of the purists were worried she would fluff down the news, their concerns were the least of the eventual worries.
No sooner was she on than did she start seeming more solemn and, well, wholly traditional. She'd surrendered that wondrous breakfast-time Today Show effect and adopted nothing magical in moving to dinner-time CBS News.
Her status today is an eight-figure mess and her demise will once again touch off the debate about the viability of the nightly newscast. U.S. network television news ratings are in decline, partly because of the addition of all-news networks like CNN and Fox, and partly because the hour of the broadcast is harder to fix as an appointment in a commuter/long work day world.
Given that it was reported this week that CBS News is in talks with CNN about cost-sharing its newsgathering worldwide, the Tiffany network is in the midst of a journalistic perfect storm.
The new BBC site is no longer under wraps and it's highly impressive.
Most notable as a comparison to its old site is the design simplicity. I counted fewer than 20 stories on the splash page (less than a dozen if you count the duplicated files).
The modules are customizable, as is the colour scheme.
I'd love to see the research in behind the redesign, because I think many managers are looking at reducing the complexity of splash pages and permitting users to choose elements. CNN's recent changes went in that direction, although there's a lot of white space and small type that doesn't work as well as my first glance at the Beeb.
A critical challenge for newspapers is to engage non-newspaper readers now online.
A new comScore study has some interesting and positive findings.
It found that those who don't consumer a printed paper are, as one might expect, younger. But they aren't necessarily light news consumers. Quite the opposite, in fact. They visit a lot of news sites.
Both heavy and non-print readers frequently surf recognized news brands, which suggests the brands themselves have stand-alone qualities online.
And they like the TV brands online, pointing to the need for audio and video in any offering.
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