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Comcast / NBCU Deal Bores US
For every beginning, there’s an ending
The weekly ftm executive editorial lunch at at the usual exquisite Geneva bistro is a fine venue for a round-about discussion of current media happenings. As it turned out one hot topic was a non-topic: the Comcast-NBC Universal deal. All agreed it bores us to tears.
How can this be? The biggest media deal in years just didn’t cause a stir around the table. For those equally unimpressed, big cable TV company Comcast and big US network NBC with its production arm Universal studios agreed to a joint venture with billions changing hands. French media company Vivendi held a trump card, owning a piece of NBCU, and made about $5 billion selling it back to NBCU parent GE (formerly known as General Electric) so that GE could sell the majority of NBCU to Comcast. It isn’t a done-deal until all the regulators pass muster but for all practical purposes Comcast will significantly own and operate NBCU. Both Comcast and NBCU have global footprints. It’s a big media deal when big media deals are rare. (More on big deals here)
We’re bored with it. The reason became apparent later this week as last decades big media deal – AOL Time Warner – finally faced reality. "The D-I-V-O-R-C-E became final today." (Sing it, Tammy!!)
Once upon a time, that AOL Time Warner merger was a big deal. It came at a time when conventional wisdom harked the end of ‘old media’ (Time Warner) and honked the rise of ‘new media’ (AOL). We’ve been hearing that story for – it seems – ages.
AOL, the internet innovator, attracted all the attention, certainly from stock traders and other betting parlors. Distribution, they said, is the future and the internet is the engine. Time Warner, then an aging publisher, represented the dark, unprofitable past. Investors and their wags gleefully foretold the great profits to be had by betting on distribution and against content producers.
Of course, none of that turned out to happen. AOL virtually vanished in the wash of zillions of internet distributors, Google being the most sexy. Time Warner established itself as a global content producer ready for every platform.
So here comes Comcast and NBCU. It’s the same story. Distribution – technology enhanced – is always attractive to stock traders. It is highly ‘productive.’ Content production is never attractive to the financial set. It eats cash and employs too many people.
We know how this story will end. (JMH)
Suddenly Tiger Is Gone
Accenture has a neat ad featuring Tiger Woods. He’s playing at St. Andrews and chooses a 6-iron for his next shot while the caddy suggests a 7-iron. An off-camera voice says “Arnold Palmer made that same mistake back in …” Tiger looks towards the voice but there are just two sheep grazing. He stays with the 6-Iron, makes a great shot and as he walks away clearly puzzled at how sheep talk, the shepherd emerges from behind a tree. Great ad but it hasn’t been on for a while – might that have something to do with Tiger’s car accident in Florida Nov. 27 when at 2:35 a.m. he backed out of his driveway into a fire hydrant and then smashed into a tree.
Since then, with the Internet really wagging about Tiger’s private life, some nine women have alleged they have had an affair with the world’s number 1 golfer, and his wife has moved out of the family home. Not exactly the image companies are looking for.
And it’s not just that ad we don’t see any more. According to Nielsen Company in the US, ads featuring Tiger Woods have disappeared from prime time and cable channels. Yet another celebrity endorser hits the dirt? The companies say it is pure coincidence they haven’t got campaigns featuring Tiger now. Right!
Tiger, according to Forbes Magazine, has deals with six companies which make up a large part of the approximate $110 million he rakes in annually from endorsements and tournaments.
Bloomberg notes, incidentally, that not everyone is suffering from Tiger’s alleged indiscretions. Traffic to golf.com has quadrupled.
How Did “Soap Operas” Get That Name?
Procter and Gamble figured out as far back as 1933 that you could hook huge numbers of listeners, and later viewers, by producing continuing episodes of fiction in a serial format. P&G pushed mostly it soap and detergent products on such shows and thus the expression “soap opera” stuck. But now P&G has announced that after 77 years of producing some 20 such programs the end is in sight in 2010.
P&G’s last soap opera, “As the World Turns” goes off-air next September and while P&G says it will try and find another platform, given the costs of the show that is very doubtful. Indeed, it is costs that have killed soap operas in recent years. Large casts means hefty production costs, and the truth is news, talk and reality cost less to produce and can bring in similar ratings.
The programs may disappear but the expression “soap opera” will forever be with us.
Conrad Black’s Lawyers Appeal Before The Supreme Court
Conrad Black had his day -- actually his lawyers had one hour – before the Supreme Court Tuesday and most of the comments from the justices seem to indicate they thought the fraud law under which former Hollinger boss received three fraud convictions was far too vague and, as Justice Steven Breyer feared, it could be used against an employee who just “goofs off” (i.e. phones in sick and then go to a sports event).
But even if the Justices rule the law too vague and not enforceable, Black’s bigger problem is his obstruction of justice conviction. His lawyers, no doubt, would argue that if the fraud convictions are overturned then there could not be any justice to obstruct.
The justices are not expected to rule on his case until June, 2010. Black, meanwhile stays in a Florida federal prison where he still has more than four years to serve on his 6 ½ year sentence. There is no parole in the federal prison system.
Israeli Knesset Drafting Bill To Stop Foreigners Owning Newspapers
It is thought in Israeli that the free newspaper Israel Today may just have had enough influence to have swung the last election in now prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s favor, and the feeling also today is that the newspaper espouses most of Netanyahu’s political thinking. And that’s for a newspaper owned by an American billionaire, not by an Israeli. So Netanyahu’s opponents figure the way to get rid of the newspaper is to draft a law that newspapers must be owned by Israeli citizens or permanent residents
"Due to print journalism's vast influence, a situation cannot exist where a paper can act as a power base and serve as an influencing instrument in the hands of elements whose motives are unclear," the draft bill reads. "
Israel Today was founded in 2007 by American billionaire Sheldon Adelson. He is expected in Israel at the end of the month for celebrations marking the launch three weeks ago of a weekend edition which has a 100,000 print run. Circulation during the week is around 250,000.
Spectrum needs respect
Destabilized TV possible
Of all the weighty media issues, spectrum policy gets little respect. This is odd because spectrum – the great ether – is where media lives. Spectrum policy support group DigiTag released a report (December 7) detailing the consequences of spectrum mismanagement. (See DigiTag release here)
DigiTag, which has a relationship with the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), warns of “severe adverse consequences” from opening a chunk of the ‘digital dividend’ spectrum (790-862 MHz) to non-broadcast services as the European Commission has suggested. Existing services, namely free-to-air TV, could be “destabilized” causing considerable distress to viewers. (See background here) Governments, of course, would like to sell that chunk of spectrum to the highest bidders, mainly mobile services operators. (JMH)
Should Editorial Report To Marketing, Or Marketing To Editorial?
The news that some editors at the Dallas Morning News will be reporting to business-side executives has caused a huge stir for all the fears that marketing will infringe upon editorial integrity. How about if marketing were to report to editorial?
ftm partner Phil Stone recalls that in the 1990s that’s exactly what happened with Reuters Media business in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The media marketing boss (Stone) reported to the editor for Europe, Middle East and Africa. And it worked real well. Indeed, at one point throughout the company all the regional media marketing bosses reported to the editor-in-chief.
On the days both were not travelling and in Geneva Stone and the European editor met over morning coffee to discuss upcoming issues and the marketing guy could tell the editor in pretty plain language the comments his marketing people were getting about the editorial report, how clients thought it should be improved, and it basically turned out to be a big win-win – marketing got editorial improvement and editorial was pleased to have the daily customer feedback. And frankly if marketing was trying for a sale to a certain prospect then editorial was only too willing to ensure there were plenty of stories with the subject matter that marketing said would do the campaign good.
Seems to us Dallas has it backwards.
On The Web Can You Tell The Difference Between A Credible Product Review And Paid Content?
For some years now those newspapers that continues to accept freebies – such as international air tickets and free hotels at exotic locations for their travel writers – will usually have an italic line at the end of the story saying something like” The writer was guest of ABC Airlines and DEF Hotel, and it might even list their telephone numbers.” Doubtful in these tough financial times whether editorial would spring the bill for such flights and stays of fancy so it could be argued the freebie had editorial merit in getting some coverage that otherwise would not have been possible. At least the reader knows there was a freebie involved. But what about the Web?
Until now there had been no rules governing those freebies but since the beginning of the month the US Federal Trade Commission has instituted new consumer protection rules requiring those who writes online reviews or endorse products to disclose if they received free merchandise or payment. In other words when we read a favorable Web review about something we should have a clue if the reviewer got paid by the product being reviewed. Seems fair enough.
The FTC knows it can’t police every Internet reviewer so it figures the best way of monitoring is to concentrate on those advertisers and companies it knows relies on word-of-mouth advertising. And that includes the very biggest, beginning with Procter & Gamble.
Billions for digital TV
Must ‘co-exist’ with analogue
Migration to digital television – or digital anything – is a costly affair. The up-side is, arguably, lots more TV, better quality, better coverage. The price tag, though, is always going up.
Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin put his signature on a plan to move digital TV forward. It will cost, he said, RUB 122.4 billion (about €2.75 billion), reports Kommersant (December 7). The first digital multiplex will be in place by 2014, the next two by 2015, and analogue TV must, he said, ‘co-exist’ until 95% of Russian households have new equipment. Russia, we note, is also an immense landmass. About three-quarters of the funding will come from the State, the rest from ‘extra-budgetary’ sources. (JMH)
Spanish commercial broadcasters unhappy
A flood
When the Spanish government changed public broadcaster RTVE’s funding regime, commercial television broadcasters called the moves “muy positivo.” Removing advertising from RTVE would, they said, “bring Spain in line with Europe” on public broadcast funding.
That argument notwithstanding, commercial television association UTECA (Unión de Televisiones Comerciales Asociadas) has a new complaint. Spain’s regional public television broadcasters are, said UTECA, dumping ad prices, “flooding the market,” reported El Mundo (December 6).
Twelve regional public broadcasters, organized as FORTA (Federación de Organismos de Radio y Televisión Autonómicos), are attempting, said UTECA, to “attract advertising” from January 1st that would have gone to RTE were it not for the new rules. FORTA "not only distorts the market," say the commercial TV broadcasters, but act "with impunity" like pure commercial channels to “get huge amounts of public money.” About €500 million from ad spending will be up for grabs, according to several estimates.
FORTA acts as a sale house for the regional public channels and has, according to El Mundo, cut ad rates as much as 30%.
Because the new Spanish rules for funding RTVE involve tax funding – and that means State aid – the European Commission’s Competition Directorate is investigating. "Spain's choice to place greater emphasis on RTVE's public service mission as part of the reform of public service broadcasters is in line with the policy of media plurality which the European Union supports and has the advantage of significantly reducing the risk of anticompetitive spill-overs between public and commercial activities,” said Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes in a statement (December 2). “The Commission has therefore no problem with abolishing commercials in public TV, but we have to look into the way this reform is financed."
Pending the European Parliament’s approval, Commissioner Kroes will move from DG Competition to DG Digital (replacing DG Info Society and Media) in the new year. Current Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Joaquin Almunia, who is Spanish, will replace Commissioner Kroes at DG Competition.(JMH)
Doors spinning at French networks
Or musical chairs?
As recent French national and Il-de-France (greater Paris) radio surveys show, there are big audience changes taking place. So it’s little surprise when big network broadcasters start spinning the doors. (See the recent national survey results here and Il-de-France survey results here)
Weeks ago NRJ Group separated itself from legacy programmer Christophe Sabot, who had only returned to the home of NRJ, Nostalgie, Cherie FM and Rire & Chansons about a year earlier. He’d spent a few years with Lagardère Active. Before that he was the program director of NRJ.
Once the non-compete agreement expired, M. Sabot appeared as a consultant for – VOILA! – Lagardère Active.
Out the door went Lagardère Active head of programming Sam Zniber. He’d been working with the Virgin Radio and RFM projects for just short of a year and a half. He’d also been the roving programming person for the Lagardère Active international stations. Prior to that, he’d been run RTL’s Fun Radio and RTL2 for about two years. Earlier in his career – looks longer than it is – he was a DJ at NRJ.
After Christophe Sabot was shown the door at NRJ Group, NRJ manager Sandrine Tuil departed after a very brief six month tenure. She’s been replaced by Cherie FM program director Didier Bouchend'homme.
For career planning, the last five years or so haven’t been much fun for French radio people. But, apparently, the few who get the top programming jobs just trade them around. (JMH)
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