- AdWeek: Facebook Tweaks Cause Concern Among Marketers, but Not Necessarily Panic (4 min read)
- AdAge: As Marketers Rush to Programmatic, Consumer-Privacy Rules Still Apply (4 min read)
- PressThink: “It’s not that we control NewsFeed, you control NewsFeed…” Facebook: please stop with this. (5 min read)
- Economist: Google Mobilegeddon (2 min read)
- George Brock: Andy Mitchell and Facebook’s weird state of denial about news (4 min read)
- New York Times: Comcast’s Track Record in Past Deals May Be Hitch for Merger With Time Warner Cable (4 min read)
- WSJ: Comcast Strives to Save Merger With Time Warner Cable (5 min read)
- BBC: AdBlock Plus defeats German publishers in court (3 min read)
- The Atlantic: The Eternal Return of BuzzFeed (21 min read)
- AdExchanger: How Can Programmatic Inspire Audiences? (3 min read)
/ An inside look at the business of digital content
Archive
Archives
DCN’s Recommended Reading: Week of April 23, 2015
A Look at the State of Programmatic Buying and Selling
PulsePoint recently released its Global Programmatic Platform Intelligence Report. The global data in the report examines trends and changes in inventory, ad spend and contextual categories on mobile and desktop in 2014.
Key findings include:
- Programmatic Continues to Move Mobile: Mobile programmatic inventory and ad spend increased significantly in 2014 and will continue to grow exponentially in the next three years.
- Contextual Targeting Will Move RTB Beyond the Cookie and Up the Funnel: Contextual targeting is a fundamental building block of advertising and will be more critical than ever. Why? Because together, contextual and programmatic data technology will enable smarter audience targeting where 1st and 3rd party cookie data is less prevalent.
- North American Market Share Will Shift To Europe & Asia: As Europe and Asia ramp up programmatic buying, they have the benefit of learning from early challenges and innovations made in the US, including targeting options beyond the cookie. Both markets are in a prime position to benefit from programmatic and will continue to capture more of the market share in 2015.
eMarketer examines PulsePoint’s research in its post Programmatic Sellers vs. Buyers: Who’s More Hooked On Mobile?
ESPN’s Jason Whitlock Talks Game Plan for The Undefeated
Q: Please describe the origins of the new ESPN-backed site, The Undefeated, which will launch this summer:
A: The origins for the name came the day Maya Angelou died. I was on the Internet reading about Maya and came across her quote: “You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated…” The name The Undefeated just struck me as perfect. I think it crystallizes the African-American struggle and the struggle for athletes and really all Americans.
The story of the site’s origins is bit more complicated. I’ve always wanted a site that examined race and culture through the lens of sports. That’s what I’ve been doing with my column for 20 years. When Bill Simmons launched Grantland, I felt it was just a matter of time before someone got the opportunity to combine sports and race. John Skipper and I had drinks in Los Angeles and I got to pitch him on why I should be the guy to do it.
Q: Tell me a bit about the target audience for this project:
A: The target audience is anyone interested in the African-American journey and sports. I believe that’s most of black America and a really high percentage of the rest of America. There’s a reason Roots was such a highly watched miniseries. Our struggle is compelling. I believe it’s the single most fascinating narrative in the history of this great nation. It’s an underdog story of triumph.
What we hope people get from the website is an elevated conversation about our journey and celebration of our journey. Our target audience isn’t being served properly because black media outlets were gutted during integration and have been underfunded since.
Q: Why do you feel that the issues of race and sports needs its own site, rather than being incorporated into existing media coverage?
A: I think it is being incorporated into the existing media coverage. I think you will find the best of our work on ESPN.com. But I believe the Internet has made niche journalism the way to go. The Internet has trained us to look for specifics, specific things we’re interested in. If you can launch a site built around NFL coverage, surely you can launch a site built around race and sports. You realize race and politics are the two longest debates in the history of America? George Washington never discussed the NFL. He discussed race extensively.
Q: Could you give me an example of a sports story you’ve seen in the past that needed “The Undefeated” to have told it differently:
A: People have been writing about Charles Barkley for 30 years. There have been four books focused on Charles Barkley. The man is an interview machine. Jesse Washington framed Charles Barkley in a totally unique way for us. He explained Barkley’s authenticity in a way that made sense and connected it to Booker T. Washington’s uninterrupted influence on Southern philosophy.
Q: The Undefeated is being called “a black Grantland” by some. How do you feel about this comparison?
A: In an attempt to connect with his audience and be respectful of what he’s built, I said on Bill Simmons podcast that we were doing a “black Grantland.” It was an innocent comment not meant to define the site or what we planned to do. It was an organic comment said with respect. People ran with it because, other than his podcast, I said little else about the site for the next year. The site is going to be an examination of race and culture through the lens of sports. That’s quite different from a site about sports and pop culture.
Q: Do you have any concerns that your persona will overshadow the larger objectives you have for the site?
A: We’re going to be defined by the work we produce. Great journalism is never overshadowed by a single individual no matter how handsome.
Q: Describe the team you are creating for The Undefeated:
A: I’m looking for people who want to be journalists more than writers. Writing is fun. Journalism is rewarding. Journalism is about the subject and the issue. Journalists are comfortable in situations where everyone else is uncomfortable. I’m looking for people who don’t want to talk about what they’ve done in the past. I hope I’m hiring hungry people. I hope I’m hiring people with the necessary life experience, self-awareness and integrity to be fair. Journalism promotes fairness.
Q: Do you have any thoughts about the issue of diversity in the media and how we can more accurately portray the many cultures and perspectives that make up our audiences?
A: Require all journalists of any color, sexual orientation or age to be journalists. Require journalists to seek new information, follow the truth wherever it leads. Alex Haley (Roots) and David Simon (The Wire) are responsible for the two greatest narratives ever told about the African-American journey. Haley is black and Simon is white. They’re both great journalists.
Q: What do you hope The Undefeated will achieve?
A: I want the site and the journalists on the site to be part of America’s conversation on race and culture. I want the site to be an impactful leader in that dialogue.
10/5/15: Jason Whitlock, ESPN part ways
Streaming and Multiscreen Viewing Continue to Rise
Today’s consumers own a variety of streaming video-capable screens and they are using these devices more than they did a year ago according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) report “The Changing TV Experience: Attitudes and Usage Across Multiple Screens,” an in-depth study that explores new ground in the ongoing dramatic shift in consumers’ television viewing habits. The IAB found that US adults surveyed say they spend nearly 5 hrs a day on their computer, slightly more than they spend watching TV. The next most used devices are smartphone (3.6 hrs) and connected TV (2.4 hrs).
The research also found that, particularly among connected TV owners, streaming is on the rise:
- Three quarters of connected TV/device owners and roughly half of computer, tablet or smartphone owners report streaming online video at least once a month.
- One-third of connected TV owners stream video to their TV daily. One in four computer owners and one in five smartphone or tablet owners stream video daily.
The IAB finds that now, “multiscreening is the new normal.” Highlights from the IAB’s findings on multiscreen viewing include:
- 78% of US adults who watch TV use another device while watching TV and the smartphone is the predominant second screen: Two in three smartphone owners multiscreen while watching TV; over half of all computer or tablet owners multiscreen
- 84% of smartphone multiscreeners do so daily, as do 79% of computer multiscreeners and 65% on tablets.
- The rise in multitasking is driven by smartphone and tablet owners: Multiscreening activity has increased for 40% of smartphone multiscreeners, 39% who do so on tablets and 28% on computers.
To view the full “The Changing TV Experience: Attitudes and Usage Across Multiple Screens” report, visit www.iab.net/changingtv.
Bulk Surveillance Needs to Be Checked and Balanced
Ever since the National Security Agency’s (NSA) aggressive surveillance activities were disclosed, there has been a raging debate about the legality of the programs and whether limits should be placed on the government’s ability to collect data about citizens.
NSA advocates point to the efficacy of these surveillance programs, but it is important to note that these programs come at a cost – a cost to our international standing, a cost to the basic freedom of citizens. From my perspective, I also see a cost to consumer trust.
The NSA collects all kinds of bulk data about how people use the internet and interact with other people and organizations. This broad and pervasive data collection undermines consumer trust in the Internet as people assume that the government is watching everywhere they go on the Internet. Another way that the NSA activities undermine consumer trust is through Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act, which empowers the NSA to force private companies to divulge records about their consumers. Data that consumers choose to share with a company they know is part of the value proposition that consumers knowingly engage in. But, when the NSA forces a company to disclose this closely-held data, the value proposition, the company’s reputation and the consumer’s trust are all undermined.
In January 2014, the President’s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) questioned whether the NSA has sufficient legal authority to operate the telephone records program under Section 215 and that the program “potentially implicates both the First and Fourth Amendments to the United States Constitution.” As for the efficacy of the program, they noted that, “We have not identified a single instance involving a threat to the U.S. in which the telephone records program made a concrete difference in the outcome of a counterterrorism investigation.”
With Section 215 of the Patriot Act set to expire on June 1, it is vital that Congress carefully re-balance the NSA surveillance programs to account for all the costs to our society. The U.S. system of government has long been constructed around an effective structure of checks and balances, which has preserved our freedom, liberty and safety.
Recommended Reading: Week of April 16, 2015
- NYT: E.U. Charges Google With Violating Antitrust Laws (5 min read)
- AdAge: Are Attention Metrics the Future? (3 min read)
- NYT: A ‘Darker Narrative’ of Print’s Future From Clay Shirky (5 min read)
- Washington Post: In cable, it’s survival of the fittest as channels drop from the bundle (5 min read)
- Washington Post: Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron on journalism’s transition from print to digital (23 min read)
- AdAge: Kraft’s Julie Fleischer at Ad Age’s Digital Conference: Not All Data Is Crap (1 min read)
- AdAge: Welcome to the Video Revolution (2 min read)
- MediaPost: Turn Hit With New Lawsuit Over ‘Zombie’ Cookies (2 min read)
- WSJ: Growth of Ad Blocking Adds to Publishers’ Worries (4 min read)
Inside DCN’s Next Conversation: Revenue Diversification
Revenue diversification is the final topic in the three-part series taken from our invite-only dinner The Next Conversation—an event we hosted inside the Digiday Publishers Summit in Vail, CO on March 26th. It’s a topic we think and talk a lot about with our members—from podcasting to events to eCommerce and subscriptions – digital content companies are well aware that advertising won’t fully pay for the great content of the future. And one clear take-away is that all forays into new streams of revenue must align with and complement one’s brand. Context matters.
Some highlights:
“You have to diverse your portfolio in terms of revenue. Whether it’s through subscription, events…you cannot have 70% of your revenue coming from advertising and only 30% of your revenue coming from elsewhere. It has to be more balanced”
—Steve Suthiana, Global Head, Digital and Media Operations, Mansueto Ventures
“You’re really looking for a path that allows your users to demonstrate loyalty and that grows your revenue separate and apart from ad dollars”
—Paul Marcum, Head of Global Digital Video, Bloomberg
“I think what Vice has done really well is bring equity back to the brand.”
—Lindsay Nelson, VP, Vox Creative, Vox Media
“Content is king.”
—Brian Danza, CTO, Daily Caller
Inside DCN’s Next Conversation: Millennials
This is the second segment in our three-part series from the DCN The Next Conversation dinner — an event we hosted inside the Digiday Publishers Summit in Vail, CO on March 26th. This time we cover a topic that’s arguably over-analyzed and bordering on eye-roll inducing: Millennials. But this demographic is increasingly prevalent in our workforce and we need to make the most of them in our organizations as we seek to engage them as audiences. So we felt it was an important discussion to have with the folks gathered around our table — the media leaders who are hiring and managing the next generation of talent and are the cultivators of organizational culture.
Some highlights:
“I think there’s a great amount of discourse and discussion and openness that comes from employing people who say ‘why’”.
–Brendan Spain, US Commercial Director, FT.com
“…We’re not all like that. Treating us like everyone else is really important. BusinessInsider embraces Millennials but they don’t call us ‘Millennials’”
–Michelle Denhart, Sales Development Director, Business Insider
“Hire young people who are smart and do cool things around them and you’ll be fine. Let them shape the workplace.”
–Neil Vogel, CEO, About.com
“A Facebook audience is very different than a Twitter audience which is very different than a Snapchat audience. As a publisher I’m going to publish and promote content in each of those individual areas based on what I know about that audience in that area. So, I’m not doing it specifically for a Millennial.”
–Lauri Baker, VP, Brand Strategy, Huffington Post
OTT Video Consumption Increasing Overall Video Consumption
Access and entertainment research from Parks Associates finds 57% of consumers in U.S. broadband households subscribe to an OTT (over-the-top) video service, such as Netflix or Hulu Plus. In its new report, TV Everywhere and the New World of OTT, the research firm reports the average U.S. broadband household spends $9 per month on Internet video, up from $7 in 2012.
Data highlights from Parks Associates include:
- There will be nearly 50 million streaming media players sold globally by 2017.
- S. broadband households watch an average of 3.4 hours of Internet video per week.
- S. broadband households spend more than $6 per month on average on subscription OTT video services.
- Among U.S. broadband households with a pay-TV subscription, 15% are very interested in at least one OTT service, compared to 9% of households without a pay-TV subscription.
- 7% of U.S. broadband households are likely to subscribe to an OTT video service from HBO.
- Over 50% of U.S. broadband households subscribe to an OTT video service.
- More than 75% of streaming media player owners have an OTT subscription.
- Homes with children spend on average 90% more on OTT services and digital video than homes with no children.
digit
3 Ways the Digital Newsroom is Evolving
A recent American Press Institute report showed that although audiences are increasingly viewing news on laptops (69%) and cell phones (56%) television remained the number one news source, with over 87%. According to a 2014 Pew Research report the top six most known and trusted news sources were all television outlets.
Your area’s local TV station most likely has the dominant news brand in your market and despite their usefulness, hot new devices and clever apps have yet to change that. TV news has the dominant, trusted brand, visual quality, and local star power to retain audiences. But in order to keep that position, TV stations are having to operate in ways that go beyond “traditional.”
Today, local newsrooms need to think not just about appearing on multiple platforms, but also in terms of making the local newscasts that are the staple of their brand better suited to a digitally-savvy audience.
So, how are they meeting the challenge? Here are three ways:
- TV needs to maintain its status as the most stunning visual media.
Showing is always better than telling and touchscreen presentations are an easy way to do that because those on-air touchscreens used by many TV news anchors are much more than just a fancy display. Touchscreens allow vivid, animated presentations for elections, sports, 3D modelling, local events, traffic, and weather all to be created on the fly and put directly into the hands of the on-air talent.
Touchscreens not only make it easier to create and use animated presentations, they show on-air personalities using technology similar to what audiences use at home, which builds the perception of broadcasters being on the right side of the technological curve.
- TV needs to be a social activity.
Social Media is used by 73% of the people in the U.S. Viewers on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are enthusiastically uploading pictures and commentary as quickly as stories develop. Social media comments, images, and videos can (and should) be integrated with news broadcasts. This is accomplished through touchscreen presentations using complex filtering to grab user-generated content as it becomes available. The result is that viewers are transformed into a virtual army of on-the-scene reporters and, perhaps even more importantly, increasingly dedicated viewers.
- TV needs to immediately gratify.
Arguably, all content consumers today expect real-time information. But when it comes to news, time is of the essence. As information about events emerge, social media provides a way to keep on top of events as they unfold. However it is also important for on-air talent to demonstrate their expertise and integrate the video coverage and on-the-scene reporting that viewers expect, despite the demands of the increasingly rapid news cycle. From Amber alerts to elections, crime coverage, severe weather and national disasters, today’s broadcasters need to leverage digital tools to deliver real-time information.
At AccuWeather, we’ve worked with TV news for 30 years to help them not only with accurate weather forecasts, but also by developing digital tools that help them continue to evolve their craft. The future of the complete digital newsroom is already here. This year, at the 2015 NAB Show, AccuWeather will introduce a number of new features and enhancements to help create a complete digital newsroom, including street-level, 3D traffic, social media and UGC integration, real-time polling, and drone HD video.
In the landscape of local news, TV may still be king. But it won’t stay that way if it ignores the power of digital. By leveraging the power of their brands while embracing the changes in their audiences’ behavior and expectations, local TV news stations will stay dominant news forces in their markets that can grow with rapidly evolving media technology.
Loren Tobia, VP of Display Sales & Services at AccuWeather, has over 25 years of experience in broadcast news, as television news director for stations including WTVH Syracuse, NY; KMTV Omaha, NE; and WSAZ Huntington, WV. Loren was also chairman of RTDNA in 1996 and has been treasurer of the same organization since 2001. He is a former member of CBS News Affiliates Board, a former member of the Bloomberg News Affiliate Board, and the former chair of West Virginia Associated Press Broadcasters.
How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability
Knight Foundation has just released the third installment in a series of reports, which it launched in 2011, that track the progress of nonprofit news sites as they strive for sustainability. The report “Gaining Ground: How Nonprofit News Ventures Seek Sustainability” analyzes trends among 20 local, state and regional nonprofit news organizations. It also incorporates insights from interviews with leaders of a few additional nonprofit news organizations that have a predominantly national scope. Many, though not all, of the organizations included in the study have been funded by Knight Foundation. The report is based on data collected from a cohort of 20 nonprofit news organizations about their mission, Web traffic, revenue and expenditures. Researcher Kate Marshall Dole led the data collection efforts and report development. Community Wealth Partners, a social sector consultancy and evaluation firm, performed the data analysis.
Key findings include:
- The revenue for nonprofit news organizations increased by an average of 7% between 2011 and 2013. In 2012, revenue grew by an average of 3%; however median revenue was only 7% suggesting year-over-year revenue for half the sites was either flat or declining.
- The organizations generated 23% of revenue through earned income in 2013 compared with 18% in 2011. Nonprofits remain very reliant on foundation funding, and few appear to be rapidly approaching a sustainable business model.
- The most growth in earned income has occurred through sponsorships and in-person events. Though advertising is the earned income source utilized by the most nonprofit news organizations, advertising revenue was flat from 2011 to 2013.
- Spending remains highly concentrated in editorial expenses, though as organizations grow in size they appear to invest more in marketing and technology.
- Sites grew Web traffic by an average of 75% from 2011 to 2013, and the share of mobile traffic and referral traffic from social media grew considerably. A few sites are piloting more sophisticated efforts for tracking impact beyond basic website analytics.
Focusing on the Future of Women in Tech
Tech, some would have you believe, has a “woman problem.” However, the problem is much larger: While U.S. Universities are on track to graduate about 400,000 computer science majors by the year 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor predicts that we’ll need about 1 million more than that by then. So whether or not we want to focus on issues of gender, tech has an undeniable people problem.
The discussion around women in tech roles is not unfounded, however. Despite promising reports of universities such as the University of Toronto setting a slew of female STEM records and Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley and Harvey Mudd trumpeting record-setting female enrolment in computer science courses, the statistics around women in tech are not pretty. The number of women computer science graduates has steadily declined since 1996 and while women earn 57% of all bachelor degrees, they only represent about 12% of computer science degrees. And for those who do join the field, 56% leave by midcareer—an attrition rate that is almost double that of men.
With that in mind, I sat down with Katharine Zaleski, co-founder and president, Power to Fly, at our recent members-only Tech Day to discuss why it is important to have more women involved in tech roles in media companies as well as how to better attract and retain them.
After spending more than a decade at the Huffington Post, Washington Post and NowThisNews “building a career that required spending about 10 hours a day in an office,” Zaleski found herself a new mother questioning the viability of balancing her hard-won career and a new-found affinity for home life. She quickly realized that there were many women in a similar position, or that might not want (or be able) to move to New York or Silicon Valley to pursue their ambitions. This led Zaleski to team up with Milena Berry to found PowertoFly, which connects women seeking tech jobs (remote and in-office) with organizations looking for (female) tech talent.
Zaleski pointed out that she’s far from alone; women leave the workforce in their thirties because they can’t work strict office hours and participate in as much of the after-hours camaraderie that is one of the cornerstones of tech team-building. She also says it is unfortunate that so many companies think they are improving employee retention by “extending the male college experience and creating a ‘campus’ where you can get your hair and laundry done.” Many women, Zaleski believes, will be put off by a company that “considers personal life a distraction.”
Instead, Zaleski encourages organizations seeking female tech talent (and, arguably, any tech talent as the market becomes increasingly competitive) to embrace remote working in order to broaden the pool of available skilled workers. And this may require developing new management skills and embracing many of the collaborative and real-time tools younger workers will already be very comfortable using. It also mandates a much needed shift, according to Zaleski, on “output and results…In fact, if we ran our in-office culture more like remote culture, we might all be better off.”
It is also essential that companies give their want ads a reboot so that they are more appealing to women. She cited an organization with which she worked that was baffled why it wasn’t attracting more female applications: their job ad began “seeking a superman.” It can also be useful to demonstrate a willingness to provide remote working, family leave benefits, and other benefits that show that the company is one that values work-life balance.
To keep women from leaving tech careers, it is certainly important to create an environment in which employees are treated equally and fairly. It is also essential to be clear about job expectations (that don’t revolve around how much time is spent in a given cubicle) and the path to upward mobility. It is also beneficial to invest in on-going skills-based training.
And to those who cite the “pipeline problem” as the primary reason women aren’t better represented in technology? Zaleski responds: “I get annoyed that the conversation is so focused on college and high school girls when there are so many qualified women out there looking for jobs. Let’s get these women jobs they can live with.” And that, she pointed out can help build a generation of role models that will inspire more young women to devote their skills to the future of tech.