At 8:45p Sunday evening, WABC-TV and Cablevision announced an “agreement in principal” which averted a crisis for both parties allowing the Oscars to be carried by Cablevision at 9p Sunday night.

by Dave Zornow

WABC-TV, New York has removed their signal from Cablevision’s lineup blacking out all of the Disney-owned station’s programming including tonight’s broadcast of the Academy Awards.

The banner headline on the station’s Website, SaveABC7.com, says “Cablevision betrays their customers again! First HGTV and Food Network, now ABC7.”

Cablevision’s Website counters: “The definition of corporate greed: ABC demanding $40 million for WABC-7.”

Just like the health care debate, the screaming obscures the facts. Until cooler heads prevail, the three million Cablevision subs in the NY metro can go to a neighbor’s house and watch the Oscars on Verizon’s FiOS, Time Warner, Comcast, DirecTV, Dish Network or online at ABC.com or Hulu.com.

Here is a profile of the leading characters for today’s performance.

Q: I’m going to miss Good Eats AND The Oscars? How can this be? TV is supposed to be free!

A: When SaveABC7.com says “First HGTV and Food Network, now ABC7″ they are refering to a squabble earlier this year between Scripps Networks and Cablevision where Scripps’ channels were off the air for three weeks in Cablevision homes. WABC’s implies that Cablevision no longer carries HGTV and Food network. This is incorrect.

Also remember that there is no such thing as free TV. WABC, Cablevision and everyone else on the dial makes money by promising advertisers that you will be there to view their commercials. Although you may not think you are paying to watch TV — in the eyes of media buyers and sellers — your attention is a valuable commodity for which billions of dollars are paid each year nationally.

Q: Why is this happening now?

A: FCC rules say that a station can request compensation OR grant retransmission consent in exchange for a preferred channel position. This agreement, negotiated on a system by system basis, is up for renewal every three years.

Q: So, if WABC already has a preferred position (Channel 7), why are they asking for money, too?

A: Good question. WABC is playing hardball for a $40 million increase on top of the $200 million which Cablevision says they already pay Disney. WABC says disputes these figures.

There’s alot of information we don’t know — and will never know, either. Disney’s cable channels include ESPN channels, ABC Family and The Disney Channel. Over time, Disney has received carriage of new channels — and better channel positions — as part of these negotiations.

It’s possible that the $200 million which Cablevision says that it now “pays” is the calculated value of all of these negotiated concessions. We don’t know. But it’s reasonable to assume that Cablevision has been paying cash as well as giving up other concessions to Disney for carrying WABC-TV. Things which prior to today Disney felt had value.

Q: Certainly WABC pays a lot for these programs. Shouldn’t Cablevision should pay its fair share?

A: It is unlikely that WABC-TV pays anything for the programming it receives from the ABC Television Network. In fact, many stations in the country are paid by the ABC, CBS and NBC to carry network programs in a decades long practice called “compensation.” Because WABC-TV is an owned and operated station of the ABC Television network, it isn’t clear if they receive cash compensation to carry programming from their corporate parent.

Q: If Cablevision decides to pay more for WABC-TV, will my cable bill go up?

A: Here’s the FCC’s answer: “In return for allowing a cable system to carry its signal, a television station may require the payment of a fee or other consideration. Any new or additional costs incurred as a result of retransmission consent agreements may be passed through to cable subscribers.”

Q: If WABC-TV only makes money when they run commercials, won’t they be hurting themselves by yanking the Oscars and all of their other programs from three million households in the biggest TV market in the US?

A: WABC-TV and the ABC Television network have promised advertisers a certain “delivery” of demographic viewers to tonight’s Oscar broadcast. If tomorrow’s Nielsen results show they fell short, they will owe “make-goods” (future no-charge commercials) or cash back. This is an issue for both the local station and the ABC Television network.

Q: So if Cablevision subscribers are angry and Disney advertisers will be angry with WABC-TV, why are they doing this?

A: Good question. This is the grown-up version of adolescents daring each other to see who can hold their hand over an open flame for the longest amount of time. But in this game, Cablevision, ABC and Oscar fans are all going to get burnt by this episode of “As The Media Turns.”

Sources: FCC, SaveABC7.com, Cablevision
See also: NYT 3/7/2010

This story was originally posted on NyackNewsAndViews.com

The 2010 Super Bowl set a ratings record with 106.5 million people tuned into the Big Game. About 7 in 10 U.S. households watching TV on Super Sunday watched the Bowl averaging a 68 percent share of viewing.

Which is huge, but it isn’t everyone. What were the other 32 percent of football-agnostic people watching? How does the rest of broadcast and cable compete with most the watched telecast of all time?

For the most part, competitors treat the Super Bowl like most of us handle the recession. You muddle along as best as you can and hope it’s over quickly.

“You’re fighting for a much smaller piece of the pie. It’s not worth trying to counter program,” says Peter Gordon, former head of programming for The Golf Channel. “It’s not worth putting out your killer key lime pie when you’ll get the same viewers for apple pie.”

More than 30 percent of all TV viewing is too big an audience for some competitors to dismiss. There have been big successes during the Super Bowl halftime – but none recently. In 1993, In Fox’s Living Color lured 20 million viewers away from the Super Bowl with a special football-themed parody.

Media consultant and former head of Fox cable research Steve Leblang says successful counter programming needs to reach a broad audience. “General entertainment networks such as TNT and USA will run older skewing drama marathons because there is a larger percent of viewers that tend to be less interested in the Super Bowl and sports in general,” he says.

One tried and true strategy is to rerun tried and true TV classics. This year, ABC Family ran The Sound of Music opposite the Super Bowl with modest results – about what was expected when you go up against the Big Game. The hills may still have been alive – but they delivered about 25 percent less than its usual audience.

“It’s not that programmers lay down,” says Gordon. “It’s more like recognizing reality.” However, some channels literally lay down. Or encourage their “talent” to do so.

Animal Planet aired the 6^th Annual Puppy Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday, an event filled with “dogged defense, puppy penalties and Fido first downs,” starring pups from animal shelters. Announcers provided the football-like play-by-play for the on the field animal play.

“We were very pleased with the performance – it did extremely well both on TV and online,” says Lauren Goodson Machen, senior research director at Discovery’s Animal Planet. She says Animalplanet.com broke its previous record for unique visitors on Super Sunday, counting 56 percent higher traffic than last year’s Puppy Bowl.

Machen says despite the CBS’ record-breaking Super Bowl delivery, this year’s TV household Puppy Bowl rating was on par with last year. Which doesn’t surprise media consultant Leblang. “Networks that are the most successful are reaching an underserviced demo niche.”

Even on Super Bowl Sunday there’s something on the tube for everyone. Where some viewers go gaga over Drew Brees, others go “aaahhh” over bunny rabbit cheerleaders and a blimp piloted by hamsters.

Sources: blog.nielsen.com, Animal Planet, Wikipedia

This article was originally published on Associated Content.

Miami Beach, FL, Feb 5 — South Beach is ground zero for the largest media event on the planet this weekend, Super Bowl XLIV.  Fans are cranked to see the team from the 25th ranked TV market battle the underdog from the 51st largest DMA. Together, the faithful in these TV markets represent little less than 1.5 percent of all US TV households.

(Yawn).

But it is far from a “yawn” for marketers who have committed millions in ad spending and local promotions, not to mention the thousands of fans that flock to South Florida for Super Bowl festivities. The NFL — and their licensed sponsors — have literally taken over the beach in Miami. Pepsi and DirecTV have each erected temporary stadiums on the beach for musical events with space at each venue for 8500+ fans.

Marketers with beachfront exhibits hoping to cash in on pre-bowl traffic include typical sports advertisers like GMC trucks, Comcast, McDonalds and Bridgestone Tires.  One less likely advertiser has placed ten 6-foot high orange aluminum boxes with 15 foot vertical poles running from 7th to 10th streets along Ocean Drive. They form an eye catching clothes line — with each box emblazoned with the Tide laundry detergent logo.

What’s a women oriented product like Tide doing in the middle of an NFL event?

“When I look around, I don’t see just men here for the Super Bowl. I see woman, children, families and seniors, too,” says Mandy Treeby, Proctor and Gamble’s brand manager for Tide. “Most people here aren’t even going to the game,” she says. “Instead, they are here for the event.”

Event organizers say up to 250,000 people will descend on the South Florida for the Super Bowl. Tide hopes to make the most of that foot traffic, introducing their new “Style is an Option. Clean is Not” ad campaign.

P&G says the campaign is a celebration of personal style. People need to have a sense of pride and dignity knowing what they wear is clean. “Tide does a lot more than keep clothes looking their best,” says Suzanne Watson, associate marketing director for Tide North America.  “Tide celebrates people’s diverse sense of style and their self-expression.”

“We’re not targeting the Super Bowl as much as we are creating a presence in South Beach,” says Treeby. “People are coming to Miami from all over the country.  There’s a buzz here. The Super Bowl is a celebration of style — it’s a great opportunity to introduce our new campaign.”

“Tide’s Mile of Clean Style,” produced by the Gigunda Group,  includes a fashion runway where visitors can be photographed and “make their own style statement” by walking or dancing down the runway.  The brand is also doing its part for Haiti relief efforts by giving the profits from the sale of Tide vintage t-shirts, sold from their mobile laundry Loads Of Hope truck, previously deployed to help displaced Hurricane Katrina families.

With all eyes on Miami for Super Bowl XLIV, Gigunda Group went the extra mile ’s8211; airing some clean laundry on a blocks-long clothesline to raise money and awareness for those in need.

Treeby says, “Tide has been overwhelmed with the traffic at their display; we are getting great engagement from everyone who visits.”

Statistically speaking, the Mac and the Republican leadership have alot in common.

MacDailyNews’ recent headline “Apple Mac owns 90% market share for ‘premium’ PCs costing over $1,000″ comes as quite a shock to anyone who spent the first 10 years of their Mac ownership being ridiculed by PC friends and IT departments.

I remember the day when an IT director for a progressive media company refused my request for a friendly and fuzzy early Mac so my research department could crank out something more client friendly than what was available on our IBM PS/2 running Lotus 1-2-3 and printing on a dot matrix printer. “Thou shalt not use the ‘M’ word here,” she told me.

Too bad I wasn’t working at some cutting edge cool place like MTV. Wait, come to think of it I WAS working at MTV. Which just shows you how far Mac acceptance in the marketplace has come.

But I digress from the 90 percent statistic shocker. “Nine out of 10 premium PCs purchased from US retail brick-and-mortar stores or online sites (including major chains and Apple Store) during [the] fourth quarter was a Mac,” says Joe Wilcox from BetaNews.

It’s incredible and not quite believable that the company that had a perennial sub 10 percent share of sales currently is responsible for 9 out of ten PCs sold. It’s also not quite true, either. The numbers aren’t flawed. It’s the base that’s in question.

Once upon a time, you needed to spend close to $3,000 for a state of the art PC. Every year the specs would change…but the price would be more-or-less the same. Over the last ten years things gradually changed where each time you bought a new PC you got more — literally for less. Now you can buy a middle of the market machine for less than $1000.

So it’s not so amazing that Apple dominates the $1,000 and up market. The twin shockers here are how cheap it is to buy a PC and how Apple has consistently received a premium price (for delivering, arguably, a premium product) while the margins on Windows machines have steadily declined.

This is a trick that researchers and marketers know well. If you don’t have a good story against total the total market, change the base to something that’s more relevant to the target which tells a better story.

Sometimes, researchers are called to task for “manipulating the base” to tell that better story. As it happens, politicians frequently employ the same trick although they rarely get called out for this behavior.

This week, conservatives and Republican leaders are screaming about a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal 2011, the largest peace time budget in history. Deficits are projected to shoot up to a record $1.6 trillion this year. When the late Senator Everett Dirksen once mused “A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking about real money,” he never could have imagined that some day we’d have a multi-trillion dollar national deficit.

But conservative leaders are doing one worse than eager researchers. By disregarding the $1.4 billion deficit Obama inherited in addition to two wars, a teetering banking system, failing automakers and soaring unemployment, they aren’t just manipulating their numbers, they are manipulating their followers, too.

Without context, Apple’s 90 percent share is impressive but meaningless. The same can be said for a deficit so huge it defies comprehension. It’s easy to say “we can’t afford a $1.6 trillion deficit.” But we couldn’t afford the wars and Medicare Prescription Drug bill that helped wiped out the surpluses at the start of the last decade.

Content is king and talking points to the base have their place.  But context is the glue that holds it all together.

Research and technology pioneers in the set-top-box space seem to have their own timeline for delivering the New World of STB ratings for the media business: Dateline 1492.

Early findings from STB vendors have underwhelmed some critics in the media business. Some have even suggested that spending any more time on finding a route through this New World of data was a waste of time.

Industry leaders probably feel a little bit like Isabel and Ferdinand when Columbus came home without a shortcut to the East Indies. After all, they were looking for spices and a quick ROI, not stories and continued investment without a clear payoff.

Eventually, Columbus’ explorations paid off. Although he didn’t meet the initial goal of replacing the dominant methodology of the time for reaching Asia, he piqued the interest of others whose findings changed the course of history. Eventually, Columbus even changed the conventional wisdom of his time, too.

An impatient media industry wants it to be 2009, but STB vendors and researchers know it’s more like 1492. The early findings of set-top-box research suppliers only begins to suggest some of the valuable insights that lie ahead. Set top box may never become an alternative currency. But patience and investment will lead to new commercial creative and programming/promotion insights — and many other uses we have yet to discover.

Columbus may not have been much or a navigator, but history indicates he was a pretty good marketer. His stories of exploration changed the focus from the Far East to the New World, convincing traders that there was as much ROI to the West as there was to the East. Only time will tell if today’s early STB efforts will have the same impact.

Dave Zornow is president of TNG Research, a media app development and research consultancy. He edits the MediaNewsAndViews.com blog and provided data processing support for the Collaborative Alliance Set Top Box Think Tank.

This article was originally published on MediaPost’s TV Board on 12/24/2009.

The combined operations of Rentrak’s Box Office Essentials and Nielsen EDI will give Rentrak a 90 percent share of the global theatrical ticket sales tracking more than 50,000 movie screens in 14 countries.

Ron Giambra, EVP of theatrical worldwide for Rentrak doesn’t believe there will be any regulatory hurdles given the small size of the market ironically noting, “we are now the sole provider. That was the reason for this purchase.”

Nielsen has been doing a year-end “fridge clean out” of its financial books, selling less profitable enterprises. Eight media magazines were sold off including the Hollywood Reporter and Billboard magazine as well as closing the 100 year old Editor & Publisher publication.

The LA Times says Nielsen EDI’s strengths in Spain, Britain, France, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Australia complements Rentrak’s dominance in several smaller markets like India and Russia.

Insiders say that Nielsen EDI, although strong internationally, was losing share domestically and had fallen out of favor with many of the top studios.

Sources: LA Times, Rentrak

This is probably a great day to buy stock in Carbonite, Mozy, IronMountain or anyone of dozens of online backup providers. Yesterday’s news from Nielsen has got to make even the best prepared IT managers twitch. And for those who don’t have a backup solution in place, downright apopletic.

We apologize for the delay in releasing data yesterday, Tuesday, November 17, 2009. Yesterday’s power outage at the Nielsen Oldsmar data center facility was due to a problem at a substation transformer that impacted the local area. This resulted in a substation failure which caused a power surge large enough to damage our uninterrupted power supply. We were able to bring up our diesel generators within seconds but had to restart and test all equipment in the data center. This took us the better part of the day. We were able to retrieve and validate all data. Nielsen Answers and all products and systems are back on line and accessible for all users.

The St. Petersburg Times quotes a Nielsen spokesman saying, “We have backup plans for hurricanes, and we do test for the possibility that the building will be struck by lightning. This was an unforeseeable, unprecedented event.”

Nielsen now knows what we the little people already knew. Although you can insure against data loss, insuring against lost time is quite another thing.

To their credit, Nielsen over the years has done an amazing job of recovering from hurricanes, server crashes and various other human errors and acts of god. Of course, that doesn’t mean their clients are always so grateful for their efforts.

There’s always a lighter side to data disaster — usually provided by those who don’t have to clean up the mess or suffer the consequences. Last May, when Nielsen didn’t deliver ratings for almost a week because of a server crash, TVByTheNumbers blogger Bill Gorman provided this explanation:

Summary for the rational: Nielsen has a very complicated system. Mistakes were made. Sorry. We’re doing our best to correct them and make sure they don’t happen again.

Summary for the crazy: Nielsen’s process was built to undercount the ratings of your favorite shows while overcounting those of the shows you hate. Problem is, managing a conspiracy of that complexity is not an easy thing. This week our nefarious scheming was almost exposed. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

The media business feigns paralysis everytime Nielsen drops a bit. Which is ironic for an industry whose consistent answer to why numbers don’t match is always “rounding.”

Sources: St. Petersburg Times, MediaNewsAndViews:”The Week The Ratings Died, TVByTheNumbers

Back when HBO was new and before ad supported cable hit its stride, a handful of UHF stations in major markets offered a subscription over-the-air TV service to compete with cable. Now a Silicon Valley start-up wants to dust off that business plan with a digital twist. The San Jose MercuryNews says

Sezmi’s service differs from those of traditional pay-television operators. Its customers get local broadcast channels via the public airwaves. But the company also relies on those airwaves, via deals with local broadcasters, to send pay-TV channels to its customers. It also plans to send on-demand and Internet programming to consumers via customers’ broadband connections.

The startup promises an integrated media experience, delivering broadcast, cable and select Internet sites (READ AS: YouTube) in one place managed with a DVR. They also offer 6,000 VOD titles, too.

There’s a free three month trial in LA and the SF Bay area. Southern California testers will see Comedy Channel, TNT and CNN but deals haven’t been secured yet for Bay area viewers.

The secret sauce to Sezmi is a small digital antenna called the  “Smart Reception System.” The company says “for the first time, advanced techniques used in other applications such as wifi and wireless have been applied to TV reception.” Translation: it’s a digital antenna in an enclosure which should cover 85 percent of LA. Maybe.

These features will make cable and satellite subs yawn as most of this has been done before. Except the price:$4.99 for basic service and $24.99 for premium channels. The gotcha is paying $300 for Sezmi’s proprietary equipment. You also can’t Sezmi unless you have a broadband internet connection — which means you are still most likely tied to an MSO or a Telco.

In May, 2008, USA Today reported that Sezmi  “is counting on phone companies, and perhaps also wireless carriers, to market the service as a bundle with Internet service.” The California beta tests suggest that plan may not panned out as telcos have aggressively pushed services like FiOS and U-Verse.

Sources: Sezmi, San Jose MercuryNews, Wikipedia, USA Today, 5/2008, Technologizer 11/16/09

See also: PC Magazine

Paul Lynde’s musical complaint in Bye Bye Birdie — echoed by the parents of baby boomers in the 60’s — still resonates with today’s parents. Too much TV.

Nielsen says Kids 2-11 are watching more television than they have in years. The under six set averages 32 hours or more in front of the set each week with Children ages 6-11 clocking in at 28 hours. The ratings company notes that their time is less because of that whole “school” thing which gets in the way of TV.

One trend kids *haven’t* adopted is DVR playback as 97 percent of all viewing is live. Younger kids watch more playback than 6-11 suggesting that parents are recording and playing back programs for the youngest viewers.

Fortunately, they don’t spend all of their time watching TV. Nielsen says K6-11 also spend about 2 1/3 hours each week playing video games too. Internet usage is up fr this group too, although Nielsen didn’t specify if the children were on line watching Hulu or downloading cheat codes for their gaming sessions.

Saturday’s October 3, 2009 headline “Palin Holds Own In VP Debate” in the BattleCreek Enquirer tells all you need to know about how Alaska’s Sarah Plain when she went mano a mano with Joe Biden on October 3. The article, which Google News featured prominently at 7a, was at the top of the list of “related” Friday articles about Palin’s chances in 2012.

Only problem is that the BattleCreekEnquirer was a year too late.

A closer read of the story shows that it should have been filed with a dateline of October 3, 2008 — not 2009. The error was amplified by Google’s news-bot-algorithm-thingee when this retro story was grouped with recent comments by former McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt said a 2012 Palin nomination would be catastrophic for the party.

Web publishers use CMS (content management systems) to manage stories, dates, bylines and ad placement. Obviously something snafu-ed in Battle Creek followed by the clueless electronic editor-in-chief-bot at Google (There’s no truth to the rumor that the new Google News slogan is “All The Dated News That’s Fit We Publish.”).

One of the funnier quips about this slip out belongs to GeeWizard, a comment poster on the BattleCreekEnquirer website.

I’m excited to see Palin, a fresh face in politics. I’ll bet she’ll be sad to quit her position as Governor of Alaska once the American people unanimously vote her into the White House. She’s not like other slimy politicians who are only interested in self-promotion and million dollar book deals. She loves her state and would stay with it forever if she could. GO PALIN!!

Wait….what year is this?

Damn computers. Can’t live with em. Can’t sue ‘em when they screw up something stupid, either. But I bet there will be hell to pay at the editor’s desk in Battle Creek come Monday morning.

Sources: Battle Creek Enquirer, October 3, 2009, The Atlantic, CNN VP Debate Transcript