November 2009

Television Causes Debt? - Perhaps Not !

"Results indicate that television increases the tendency to borrow for household goods and to carry debt." says the article "Television Access Linked to Household Debt" in the November 4th issue of TV Technology (available on-line here) reviewing a paper by two Hunter College economics researchers.

No PhD am I, but I do remember some things from my college research methods course. I remember there being something about controlling for external validity. In their paper, Drs. Baker and George do not appear to have controlled for the effects of increased household newspaper and magazine (think Life and Look) subscriptions. [As their data deals with the 1950's and '60s.] Perhaps printed ads in the home are not a game changer, but think about the possibility that babies cause storks.

Robert Peterson's Plan For Survival

In response to Diane Mermigas' Media Post blog entry "(Paul) Sagan: TV Survival Means Hyper-Local Online Video", Robert Peterson proposed:

"I am starting to think that station managers need to split their organizations into two parts. Today the new hides in bits and pieces throughout the old. Make a new organization that is all about the new and put the best person in charge. Work out what it has to achieve and how to measure.

"At the same time make a coherent organization out of the old. Do your costs cutting here. Make this organization as efficient as possible. In a way Greenfield it - do not accept any assumptions about "we always have done it this way".

"Now you have a portfolio of the new and the old. Both will have to perform. Resources in the end will have to move over time to the new."

At least one TV network is already doing this...

DVR, Once TV’s Mortal Foe, Helps Ratings

"According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four (ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC) networks taken together are watching the commercials during (DVR) playback, up slightly from last year." According to this New York Times article, "... those passive viewers are watching in numbers big enough to turn... some middling successes (“How I Met Your Mother” on CBS) into healthier profit centers, and some seemingly endangered shows (“Heroes” on NBC) into possible survivors."

© 2009 The New York Times Company

Roku Channel Store; Myka; WD TV Live HD

The race to see who can get the most programming on their internet box is on. Roku opened it's "Channel Store" today with ten free channels, including Blip.tv, FrameChannel, Motionbox and Pandora. At the begining of the month Myka announced it's HD box with Boxee and Hulu. (Thanks to David Tanklefsky of Broadcasting & Cable for the Roko part of the story.)

And last week Verizon Communications CEO Ivan Seidenberg said that Hulu "is in for the next eight to twelve months and in two years it won't matter because the world will have moved on." (Thanks again to B&C.)

UPDATE: (12-05-09) A firmware update has made paperweights out of Western Digital TV Live HD media boxes that owners chose to upgrade. (Via engadget.)

An Unsteady Future for Broadcast

The departure of Oprah from syndication and bumps in the road in the NBC / Comcast merger led a peg for this article in the New York Times business section.

"Most analysts and many executives agree that the economic model of broadcast television — which relies much more heavily on advertising than cable — is severely fractured. What they are wondering now is if it is irreparably broken" says the article.

This doomsday scenario is not new, but as upfront revenue declined for a second year in a row, the situation appears dire.

But there might be some ways to postpone the inevitable.

Part-Time Is The New Full-Time

As advertising revenue at the broadcast nets continues to shrink, and more daily hires are doing the work that used be be done by staff employees, I continue to hear stories along the lines of "No you can't work with so-and-so tomorrow. They have already worked their 24 hours for the week."

Sad, but part of a rising trend nationwide.

From Economist David Rosenberg of Gluskin Sheff on June 9, 2009: "It may be true that companies are not cutting back on bodies as much as they were earlier this year because nobody wants to let their skilled staff go despite the lingering weakness in sales. So the strategy remains one of cutting back on hours worked at the same time — not as many layoffs but the effort to economize on the wage bill remains intact. What has happened this cycle is that the shift towards part-time and away from full-time has led to a dramatic reduction in the average workweek to a record low 33.1 hours."