LB's Rambles

Bell Tolling for DVDs?

Is the funeral bell tolling for the DVD business? Apparently so, if you believe the latest study from In-Stat, as reported by CNET. They don't talk about funeral bells, of course - just note that the video-streaming and download business is rising sharply, while there's a corresponding decline in DVD sales.

Oh, technology, you've done it again! And - dare I predict it - something will be coming along in the not-too-far-distant-future that will supplant streaming video and video downloads. Which will cut into the business done today by, say, Netflix. Which means Netflix and similar companies will have to change and adapt in order to stay alive.

It's how technogy and business function, folks. Videotape came along and became the centerpiece of our video lives until DVD technology surpassed it. DVDs were cleaner and brighter and fabulous until Blu-ray came along. And now streams and downloads are supplanting the physical technology, and DVDs in particular are feeling the pain. It's technological evolution. The only constant is change.

Hat tip: Shelly Palmer

We're Losing It

Or maybe that headline should read "we've lost it." "It," in this case, is the faith and trust of the American people - and "we" are the mass media. MediaPost's Research Brief has a depressing analysis of the newest numbers from Gallup's annual Governance poll: 57% of the respondents say they have little or no faith in mass media to report the news fairly and accurately. Whether you're Republican or Democrat, left or right, red or blue, liberal or conservative, that's bad news. Only maybe it isn't really news. It's been that way for four years. And it seems to be getting worse.

I've seen plenty of "solutions" floated, the only problem being that none of them seems likely to work. So what's the answer?

What's Next for ABC News?

Now that David Westin has announced his intention to leave as president of ABC News at the end of this year, the obvious question arises: what's next? When the other shoe drops, what will be its size and style? In other words, what will be the future of ABC News?

The New York Times has a bit of a thumbsucker on that topic today. In a moderate-sized article, we are told that (1) nobody is sure; (2) it depends on who's named as Westin's successor; (3) perhaps there's a merger in the works with a cable outfit like Bloomberg or CNN; and (4) it could be an opportunity for ABC News to reinvent itself.

Sounds like a song we've heard before. There's also what is a (surely unintentionally hilarious) quote from a Journalism Professor Worried About the Future of Television News. He appears not to have noticed that news coverage has changed a bit over the past 15 years. Personally, I'll be very curious to see what does happen next to ABC News - but I'm not particularly worried over the prospect that ABC will reinvent the way it covers the news. That's a process that's going to be necessary for all old-school media as we move ahead. The successful companies have already begun their transitions. Now ABC may have a chance to do likewise.

Westin Leaving ABC News

I must admit I didn't see this one coming: David Westin has announced he will be resigning his post as president of ABC News and leaving the network at the end of the year. He cites a desire to explore new opportunities; others cite a conflict with ABC's top management over finances. The New York Times has the story, with some additional information from MediaBistro. As a former long-time employee of ABC News, I'll withhold any comment at this point, as I expect more will be emerging on this story as we move forward.

Appalling Numbers for the Media

The Gallup organization has come up with some new numbers about the way Americans view newspapers and TV News - the backbone of the so-called "mainstream media." To anyone who works in the field - or has worked there in the past - the numbers are nothing short of appalling: no more than 25%, just one in four, saying they have a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in either medium.

I spent more than 30 years working in broadcast journalism, leaving the field in 1999. Even then, the number of Americans with confidence in the media had slipped to about 1 in 3. The current low levels of confidence are simply unprecedented.

Certainly we're all aware of the ongoing debate over the role of the media and the importance of objectivity in journalism, or even whether such objectivity is possible. And we're all aware of the continuing discussion over the role played by traditional media vs. new and/or social media.

But these numbers, frankly, are frightening. Granted, they're still better than the numbers showing only 11% with those levels of confidence in Congress. But in a society that thrives on knowledge and information, the news media had better start figuring out what it is doing wrong - and fix it. Fast.

Hat tip: Instapundit.

The Aging of the TV Audience

There are some interesting new statistics floating around that paint a disturbing picture of the aging television audience. Writing at MediaPost's Online Video Insider blog, Tod Sacerdoti points to a report saying that the median age for prime-time television viewers is now 51 years old. That means half the audience is older, half younger. But, Sacerdoti says, it does mean that " more than half of all prime-time viewers are outside of the golden demographic of 18-49. The medium that has long been synonymous with massive reach is quickly becoming the most efficient way to reach lots of old people!"

I'm not so sure that the figures are as dire as all that. A number of commenters on Sacerdoti's post question the validity of that percentage: are we talking only about broadcast television, as opposed to cable, for example? A lot of cable channels appear to be skewed younger. Does that television audience tend to sit and watch the television longer than the average viewer might watch Internet video? And what implications are there for advertisers?

I'm not sure of the answers (though I recommend the questions!). Certainly there has been a trend towards an older broadcast audience; More than a decade ago, we saw the ads on programs such as newscasts begin to skew more towards products aimed at older viewers. Think about the number of ads you've seen recently for things such as prescription medicines and incontinence aids. But also think about the ads aimed at selling luxury products and expensive cars: as some of the commenters on Sacerdoti's article points out, the older audience may also be a more financially secure audience.

I find it hard to fault the article, though when it reaches this conclusion: "Advertisers can no longer use lack of standards, measurement or cost of media execution as pretext for avoiding online advertising. The world has changed and, unless they want to advertise body spray to seniors, it is time for advertisers to do the same. "

Wrong Target

Is the marketing community aiming at the wrong target these days? For as long as I can remember, marketers have always been in search of the 18-49 audience, to the virtual exclusion of all others. Of course, I haven't been in that target age group for a fair number of years now...but I think the marketers are wrong. So does Doug Simon, the President and CEO of D S Simon Productions. Writing for the Bulldog Reporter's Daily Dog, he calls it "Stupid Marcom Tricks: Marketers Moronic Love Affair with the 18-49 Demo," and I think that pretty well sums it up. What do you think?

A Plague on Both Your Houses

Well, the dust has had a few days to settle now since last weekend's epic struggle for consumer bucks between Cablevision and Disney. The build-up was predictable, with both companies not only locking in their positions but also spending a lot of money to convince Cablevision's audience that the other side was really at fault.

So who won and who lost?

In order: who won? Nobody. Who lost? Cablevision and Disney. Certainly, the locked-out customers made it pretty clear, via social media, that they were calling down "a plague on both your houses," as Shakespeare put it.

Both companies seem to be under the mistaken notion that communications really hasn't changed very much in, say, the past 30 years or so. If you watch television, you still are limited to your choices of cable delivery. The Internet? What's that?

Sorry, folks. Not any more. Not in an age of social media. Not when the same programming can be found in a dozen different ways.

Catharine P. Taylor sums it up quite nicely, I think, at MediaPost's Social Media Insider blog. It might be a good idea for these dinosaurs to look a little more closely before they dive into the tar pits one last time.

Fandom of the Opera

If you enjoy opera, and you're curious about the technologies involved in producing and distributing the Metropolitan Opera to television, movie theaters and mobile devices, you would have enjoyed a breakfast this morning featuring Mark Schubin. He's a Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) and also the engineer in charge of the Met's media department.

Schubin was the featured speaker at one of Bill Sobel's SobelMedia breakfasts at the Samsung Experience in NYC, presenting a lively talk and slideshow called "Fandom of the Opera." If you think that opera occupies a relatively small and obscure niche in our culture, Schubin will disabuse you of that notion. Some of those live broadcasts have reached as high as #11 at the box office in the weekly movie attendance figures - and that's impressive (not to mention lucrative). Super Bowl popularity? No. But pretty impressive all the same.

Schubin's presentation has some pretty amazing statistics - and you can see most of his slides here, courtesy of his website. Some of the material is pretty amazing; you wouldn't believe the amount of work involved, not only in producing a show using up to 16 HD cameras, but providing simultaneous titling translations in a variety of languages.  I also wasn't aware of the important role opera has played over a span of more than a century and a half, in terms of media development - most of the important inventions were foreshadowed by operatic experiments. Interesting - and highly entertaining - stuff.

Defining the Future of Video

We have all seen article after article about the cnages in the way we consume entertainment. Those changes are forcing massive shifts in the way that entire industries - recording, broadcasting, movies - define themselves and earn the money they need to stay alive. Is the future of television and video consumption to be defined by the ever-evolving hardware and software that make it so much easier for consumers to choose what they see or hear and when to do so?

Well, yes, rather clearly. But more than just the development of portable players and file-sharing software, perhaps it all can be explained by looking at the connections on the back of your television. That's one of the points made by Philip Leigh, of Inside Digital Media, in a column today for MediaPost's Online Video Insider blog. He sees the change as evolutionary - an evolution that has taken place over the past thirty years and continues today - and explains why that back panel on your TV is so important today. It's an interesting take.