Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Another Entertainment Biz Disruption: Have We Read This Story Before?

A media critique by Wayne Friedman, Staff Writer Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Whenever possible, suck a few more dollars out of entertainment consumers -- preferably at high prices. This is the idea seemingly underlying The Screening Room.
Using this proposed new in-home movie service, consumers would pay a nice $50 to see a brand-new theatrical movie at home, available the same day of its release in theaters. They get a weekend’s worth of time — a 48-hours window — to watch that future “Hunger Games” must-have film.

And by the way, they also need to buy another clunky home set-top device, costing $150. All this is brought to you by none other than the Napster King himself: the original music and entertainment disrupter Sean Parker, co-founder of the music service.

How can this be a successful enterprise? By luring studios in to make even more money than the $11 billion or so in U.S. box office revenues big studios pulled in 2015.
What about the movie theater owners? They also get a cut. AMC Entertainment, now the largest movie theater chain in the U.S., has come on board, reportedly. It’s also been endorsed by some big-time movie producers and directors.

But other theater owners -- as well as the industry group National Association of Theater Owners, and some other well-known movie directors -- think The Screening Room is bad news and would just accelerate movie revenue erosion.

Perhaps Parker and company are targeting just the niche marketplace of certain entertainment consumers eager to be the first in line for new content. Still, you can see why theater owners might be nervous.

For movie studios, there is strong temptation to grow another window of theatrical revenues. But it's never a sure thing. The rise of digital movie sales -- and other platforms like Netflix, and VOD -- contributed to erosion in other areas. Look at what's happening to the declining DVD business (rental and sell-through).

Keep in mind that the music site Napster didn’t survive -- even with some 50 million regular users. But Sean Parker’s invention did have ripple effects in changing much of the music business.
Among other things, it pushed artists to work with newer music digital platforms like Spotify and Pandora that wanted just single pieces of music. Album sales suffered; many artists also said they have suffered.

Perhaps some well-known movie directors, producers and writers might want to keep some of this in mind when considering seismic business alterations.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Nielsen Rolls Out Digital

$Radio Ink - Radio\'s Premier Management & Marketing Magazine$

The radio industry has been eagerly and patiently waiting for a ratings system that can accurately measure over-the-air listening and online listening -- and the data needs to be easily presentable and understandable to advertisers. Nielsen has been testing its online audio ratings product for many months, and today the company announced the service is ready to go.

The Nielsen Digital Audio Ratings service is already collecting data on more than 2,500 station streams across the 48 PPM markets (Nielsen says diary markets will follow soon). Measurement for custom-curated and on-demand audio, including podcasts, is currently in development.

The service will formalize a two-month pre-currency preview period covering data from the February and March 2016 surveys, available in mid-March and mid-April, respectively. Beginning with the April 2016 survey data, released in mid-May, clients must license Nielsen Digital Audio Ratings to access data related to their own media properties and the data of other subscribers. The estimates will include both an average quarter hour and average minute audience metric for digital streams.

To measure streams, Nielsen uses what's called a proprietary software development kit (SDK), which is integrated into mobile apps and Web players. This method uses big data, a census-style measurement approach, and demographic information from third-party data providers, which is calibrated with Nielsen's PPM panel.

Nielsen Audio Managing Director Brad Kelly said, "With the way people consume content in a continual state of change, it's critical to capture all of the platforms where people are listening to audio, whether on the radio, computers, or smartphones. To achieve Total Audience for audio, we must provide a comprehensive view of listening behavior across all platforms, and what better way to start than with radio. Nielsen Digital Audio Ratings allows broadcasters, advertisers, and marketers to better understand the dynamics of a station's over-the-air and online audiences."

What About Digital Revenues For Trad TV Nets?

A media critique by Wayne Friedman, Staff Writer Thursday, March 17, 2016

Maybe it’s time we need to stop worrying about how much money traditional TV networks are getting from regular on-air commercials -- and more about what those networks will get from digital platforms.

CBS on Tuesday sketched out a plan so in five years -- with four million subscribers -- its ad-supported, digital over-the top-service CBS All Access could make $400 million a year.

Let’s say the current $6 a month price is still in force by the time, which gives CBS $288 million a year in subscription fees. That means around $120 million a year or so will come from the digital advertising on CBS All Access.

And that’s not the whole story.

Rough estimates suggest that the entire yearly take of digital advertising revenue from prime-time shows on all digital platforms for the five English-language TV broadcast networks (Hulu, network-owned apps, etc.) comes to around $2 billion a year.

What does each network pull in? Hard to tell. Perhaps looking at the share of traditional national TV ad dollars would give us a better idea.

In any event, that level of revenue may not make much of a difference when looking at the entire $70 billion-plus TV advertising business. But it may stand out in the total digital video market, expected to hit $9.4 billion this year and $11.7 billion in 2017, according to eMarketer.

Even in light of the complaints about insufficient digital TV measurement by major media measurement companies, this is good news: TV advertisers want premium digital video, and they know where to find it.

Premium original TV network programming running on digital platforms continues to mean tight commercial inventory supplies, with CPMs some three or four times higher than for comparable traditional TV inventory.

There’s still plenty of worries about how much overall the digital ad business is taking away from traditional TV -- but what's really needed is determining what advertising share traditional TV is getting out of digital media. It’s always about the bigger picture.

U.S. Media Market Expands To Highest February Yet, Long-Tail Brands Outpace Top 10 Categories

by Joe Mandese @mp_joemandese, Yesterday, 10:13 AM

After crashing in January, the U.S. media marketplace expanded in February, reaching the greatest volume ever for the month, according to the latest installment of the Ad Market Tracker.

The tracker, powered by Standard Media Index and published by MediaPost, measures total ad volume from major agency holding companies representing about 80% of U.S. ad volume. The index jumped 21 points to a 204 in February after plummeting to a 183 in January. The fall-off follows normal seasonal demand patterns on Madison Avenue.

On a year-over-year basis, the index rose 18 points over February 2015.

Much of the expansion appears to be coming from the long-tail of brand spending. While the top 10 product categories represent the lion’s share of spending, smaller categories expanded at a faster rate in February.

The top 10 categories rose 15 index points, while categories 11+ jumped 21 points in between January and February.

U.S. Ad Spend Up 10% In February, TV And Digital Climb

by Wayne Friedman, Yesterday, 11:06 AM

Amid overall double-digit percentage U.S. advertising spending gains for February, TV’s syndication, national cable and and local cable advertising sales posted healthy improvements for the month -- less so for broadcast TV. Standard Media Index showed total TV advertising grew 5% in February versus the same period a year before -- this despite weak rating results for TV overall.

Syndication had the best gain during the month of any TV segment -- 15% higher; with national cable TV adding 11% and local cable advertising gaining 9%.

Broadcast network advertising and local TV broadcast posted overall weaker results -- national TV down 2% and spot TV advertising virtually flat, inching up 1%.
Breaking down national TV further, SMI says national cable benefited from strong near-term scatter market advertising buying -- soaring 21% in February over a year ago, while broadcast networks were down 2%.

Looking at the upfront piece of those national TV performances -- upfront deals made back in the summer of 2015 for the current 2015-2016 TV season -- cable TV was up 8%, while broadcast was down 2%.

According to media buying and selling executives, typically 75% of national broadcast networks and around 50% of national cable networks advertising comes from upfront advertising deals.
Total national TV upfront advertising was up 3%, with total national TV scatter advertising 11% higher.

Digital media grew 21% overall with strong activity in video (up 43%); social media (adding 49%); Internet radio (gaining 63%); and ad network/ad exchange business (28% higher).
Joining digital radio strong growth in the month was traditional radio, soaring 22% during the period. Out of home added 10%. Magazines and newspapers were on the losing end -- down 5% and 17%, respectively.

Overall, U.S. ad spend for February was up 10%.

SMI captures 80% of total national U.S. agency spend from the booking systems of five of the six global media holding groups, as well as leading independents. Group M is the one big media holding company that doesn’t participate in SMI’s data.

Harnessing The Power Of Social Influencers Is The Way Into Millennial Wallets

By Jeff Urban Friday, March 18, 2016

The millennial generation grew up with headphones on their ears and smartphones in their hands, and are often found with content from both devices jockeying for their attention at the same time. These digital natives became the largest living generation in 2015, according to the Pew Research Center, overtaking their parental Baby Boomers and are now the largest consumer segment in the country. The group with the shortest attention span has the most purchasing power and brands are seeking to quickly master the best way to earn their valuable dollars.

When consuming sports, for example, millennials are more inclined to watch a video from their favorite YouTuber versus a professional athlete. When 13-17 year olds chose their favorite athlete to watch, the “My Favorite YouTuber” category ranked only behind LeBron James and Tom Brady as individuals who they like to follow.

With social influencers establishing passionate audiences, it is essential for brands to identify influencers to communicate their messages to millennials. The most effective marketing to millennials takes place when social influencers and brands they trust to be authentic are communicating to them. A study from Defy Media found that 62% of millennials ages 13-24 years old would try a product suggested by a YouTuber, versus 42% who would try a product based on a movie. In another study of millennial perception of celebrities, Variety asked respondents to assess 20 well-known personalities, such as Smosh, Katy Perry, Paul Walker and PewDiePie, “in terms of approachability, authenticity and other criteria.” Their findings were that the top five — and six of the top 10 — were YouTube stars.

Social influencers are grabbing millennial’s attention, so everyone’s getting in on their influence. Philanthropic organizations are utilizing social influencers to help engage millennials in their causes. Boxed Water, for example, partnered with influencers like Jaime King, Megan DeAngelis and Aidan Alexander to spread the word about their campaign on Instagram with the National Forest Foundation called The Retree Project. For every photo posted with the hashtag #Retree, Boxed Water planted two trees. A month after it was launched, there were more than 3,000 Instagram photos with #Retree and in total, they planted 73,630 trees. These influencers may not be household names, but they’re moving millennials to action.

Another successful example of a brand harnessing the power of social influencers is Madewell. To celebrate the anniversary of their classic tote bag, Madewell engaged five lifestyle influencers, including Stephanie Sterjovski and Bethany Marie, to promote the anniversary across multiple social platforms using the hashtag #TOTEWELL. They also ran a competition for users to submit their own #TOTEWELL moments that resulted in hundreds of submissions from tote bag consumers.

Sometimes the most successful campaigns bridge the gap between mainstream celebrities and social influencers, like when trick shot stars Dude Perfect partnered with actor Paul Rudd in a Dizzy Bat Challenge to promote the upcoming “Ant-Man” movie last summer. This single video garnered more than 12 million views on YouTube.

The best ways to communicate with millennials are evolving and brands need to continually innovate in order to reach them in an effective way. Social influencers are bridging the gap between traditional advertising and a recommendation from a close friend. Harnessing the power of social influencers is an excellent way to speak to millennials in an authentic way, especially if a brand or advertiser wants to reach a targeted, passionate fan base that will be more likely to engage with their product than through a mass campaign.

Monday, March 14, 2016

Radio Still Dominates The Automobile