Tag Archives: NBC

Stop thinking of social media only as a ratings or sales driver

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An article in the Financial Times seems to speak in no uncertain terms about social media’s inability to generate ratings for television shows, despite both Twitter and Facebook fighting for the right to claim each does it better:

The two social networks have spent the past year trumpeting a virtuous cycle between people watching television and using social media. But, in spite of the buzz, NBCUniversal’s head of research Alan Wurtzel says that social media “is not a game changer yet” in influencing television viewing.

Peter Kafka at Re/Code puts an even finer point on Wurtzel’s views:

He comes to that conclusion after looking at the effect of Twitter, as well as Facebook, on NBCU’s ratings during the Winter Olympics. Wurtzel saw lots of chatter about Sochi on social media, but none of that seemed to translate to increased viewership.

There are a number of reasons why using the Olympics as a yardstick isn’t the best idea. Again, from the Financial Times piece:

Ad executives cautioned that the results could be skewed by the fact that the Olympics draws mass audiences who are likely to tune in regardless of social media buzz.

More niche programming, such as dramas or reality television programmes, could show more correlations between social media activity and viewership, says Kate Sirkin, global research director at Publicis’ Starcom MediaVest Group, which last year committed to hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising spend on Twitter over several years.

Other questions I had that I’d research if I had more time:

  • What are the typical demographics of the Olympics and how do they compare to the average user of Twitter and Facebook?
  • Did NBC utilize its social media channels to encourage viewers to tune in for its broadcasts? Was there a specific call to action? Were they conversational? Or did the tweets read more like a print ad?
  • How many “luge” jokes were made on Twitter during the Olympics? (This is less about the topic at-hand and more because I have the sense of humor of a child.)

Wurtzel’s is a voice worth listening to as he’s had a long career in television with many years in research. And he’s not exactly been against new media as a way to drive eyeballs to traditional TV, specifically for the Olympics:

But Alan Wurtzel, president of research and media development for NBCU, said in separate remarks that new media seemed to have the opposite effect: The more live video people saw of the games taking place in real-time, the more interested they were in seeing curated primetime telecasts that included more information about the athletes, their background and the stories behind their journey to the event.

Still, as Re/Code and Financial Times both point out, there are plenty of studies that suggest a correlation between ratings and social media chatter. And yesterday Twitter CEO Dick Costolo had a specific response to Wurtzel’s position.

But mostly I’m stunned we’re still thinking of social media purely in terms of eyeballs and sales. Especially since not all marketing tactics/channels are expected to have a direct relationship to them. NBC/Wurtzel certainly seems to view social media as such without considering things like awareness, consideration, brand education, etc.

Continue reading Stop thinking of social media only as a ratings or sales driver →

Loyalty over linkbait

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Broadcasting & Cable has some interesting quotes from Vivian Schiller, senior VP and chief digital officer, NBC News about why NBC broke up its joint relationship with Microsoft and moved away from its portal model to one of – according to B&C – “building a loyal following rather than blind page views.”

“What you get with a portal is a huge [influx] of traffic and you see a lot of unique visitors,” said Schiller during a keynote discussion with B&C programming editor Andrea Morabito as part ofB&C/Multichannel News’ Next TV summit on Thursday. “But the bounce rate is extremely high… It’s not really going to be your loyal, engaged audience.”

[SNIP]

“I think that how you measure success is changing,” she said. “It’s about finding your niche, finding your quality and tapping into what you can do best.”

Truth. Although how this squares with NBC’s decision to shutter Everyblock – as unique and niche a news site as there was with a loyal, engaged audience – is for others to answer.

In any case, unique content brings you loyalty. If your headlines or story structure are all about the quick-click you won’t stand out. If you can promise advertisers consistent traffic from a specific demographic or provide a type of content consistently to subscribers who want it, you can sell that. Traffic spikes and stories with empty calories that don’t speak to your core audience are not monetizable and a waste of your time.

Moreover, if you’re chasing the same stories as everyone else, that’s a mistake. As a news site, know your core subjects and develop your newsroom around them. You don’t have to weigh in on every little thing just because it’s “blowing up on social.” (For this week, we can call this the “Not-everyone-needs-to-cover-the-Check-Please!-host-search rule.) Frequent deviation from your core subjects will confuse your audience and dilute your site’s value. Know what you do and do it well and leave the rest to others who can’t.

The above developed from some things I posted to Twitter yesterday. Thanks to Benji Feldheim and Ernest Wilkins for their thoughts on it.

Why #NBCFail matters beyond the Olympics

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Listen to me discuss NBC’s Olympics coverage and other news of the week on WBEZ’s “848” program here.

While most consumers have been perfectly happy with NBC’s Olympics coverage on prime time cable, broadcast TV and online via livestreams and apps, a largely social-media powered stream of objections has converged around the #NBCFail hashtag. There are as many complaints as there are Olympics sports but the biggest objections related to NBC’s tape-delayed coverage and its shutdown of Independent correspondent Guy Adams’s Twitter account. While Simon Dumenco of Ad Age and Megan Garber of The Atlantic have great takedowns of some of the other arguments, there are a few points in this kerfuffle that bear some discussion. These are a few that occurred to me. Fair warning: There’s been so much discussion of this, I’m skipping over some of the bedrock arguments and backstory to get to some of the “where do we go from here” ideas. This is a bit rough and open-ended so bear that in mind.

1. If it’s “just sports” then it can be “just _____.”

One comment I’ve heard often in this conversation is #NBCFail is mostly a “first-world problem” because the discussion is about the coverage of sports and sports isn’t “real news.” But one person’s distraction is another person’s “real news.” Once we say sports is not worthy of real news coverage it becomes easier to say books, consumer tech, music or movies are mere distractions and not worthy of serious consideration either. And once we say something isn’t deserving of careful consideration it makes it easier for publishers to talk less about how it can be covered well and more about how it should be packaged and sold.

2. Is NBC tarnishing its news brand and ultimately making it less likely to monetize those users?

NBC is leveraging its full news power only when it can do the most good for its business interests, not for its consumers. NBC’s tape delay strategy is moot in years when the Olympics are in the same time zone as the U.S. because NBC carries these events live. So it’s not as if it always chooses to emphasize its news interests over its business interests but in the case of sports, or at least the 2012 Olympics, it chooses the latter.

If you’re to be taken seriously as a news publisher, you have a requirement to publish as complete a news experience as possible at the moment when the information will have the most value to your audience. The consumer is paying you – or subscribing to a platform that includes your content – based on the perceived value of that news as well as for the convenience factor of acquiring it. The friction here seems to be that many people want a la carte coverage they can pay for without having to subscribe to a major cable provider. It will be interesting to see NBC explores the creation of raw news feed channels via something like Roku (as well as online) and provides the packaged version on its other more-established channels. It may find its building an entirely new audience segment. Perhaps it doesn’t make sense economically, but might in years (months?) to come. But NBC seems to be losing the opportunity to build this audience in its owned channels and finds some of that digital audience doing elsewhere (see #4 below).

3. What gets treated as the news and what gets treated as entertainment?

NBC doesn’t seem to think providing the big screen/HD TV experience several hours later is a problem. That seems less like a strategy you employ for news and more like one you employ for entertainment. If it’s entertainment, it generally doesn’t matter when it’s broadcast or consumed. But news certainly has a time-sensitive component to it (the dismissive phrase “That’s old news” comes to mind here). The weight of that news is relative to the timing of it.

What stops a publisher from waiting to tell you about news until it can maximize the profit in the telling of it? If you have a big scoop and can figure out how to package it as a multi-day event, why not wait until you have an advertiser to run ads around that coverage before releasing it? There’s an argument to be made that NBC is doing exactly that but I’d hate to see what the end result of that strategy means for news consumers.

4. News coverage is mostly determined by who controls and publishes on the platform

For years now, users have been determining what news is and how it is published, largely through Web and social media channels. It’s no longer the sole province of large print and TV publishers.The conversation sparked by the #NBCFail hashtag has made this more obvious than ever but also showed just how much control big news organizations that A) partner with or B) own the platforms have over the platforms with the biggest reach.

Many people will bootleg news content (like providing an overseas livestream of the Olympics opening ceremonies) not because they want to hijack a revenue stream for themselves but just because they don’t like the idea of a closed system. With a platform like Twitter, it’s easier than ever to find raw feeds which satisfy those whose desire for news of an event outweighs the number of easily-available news sources. (I didn’t have to seek out a livestream of the opening ceremonies; I saw a link for it on Twitter from people I already follow.)

Barriers or inconveniences to the consumption of news (like having to download special equipment, make changes to obscure computer settings or watch a poor quality, buffering livestream) will start to seem like less of an issue to consumers as the real-time value of a news event increases. For me, the value of watching the opening ceremonies live seemed greater because people I followed on Twitter were discussing it. Unfortunately for publishers, the real-time news value is different for each person so it’s tough to know what publishing streams are monetizable and which ones aren’t without either experimentation or waiting to see how users themselves innovate.

As for the Guy Adams temporary Twitter account shutdown, Alexis Madrigal of The Atlantic has a good summary.

NBC may not have known this tweet existed were it not for someone at Twitter who notified NBC of both the tweet and a remedy. Whether the information is public or private is debatable but NBC’s proximity to power, due to its (non-monetary) Twitter partnership, allowed it to get the account suspended without a thorough consideration of this point. Twitter acknowledged it should not have done this, but with the service already looking for more ways to monetize its product for publishers it’s clear they’re interested in hyper-serving this particular user base.

Let’s say an upstart publisher decides to start covering the heck out of the Olympics. Maybe it’s a traditional television channel, maybe it’s Web-only. Perhaps they find a way to provide a broadcast-quality stream of the BBC through fair use. Or they find a way to leverage content from athletes’ personal social media accounts to provide unique value. What’s to stop NBC – which is owned by Comcast – from shutting down that publisher on its Web and cable television systems? Nothing. Or what if NBC develops a “strategic partnership” with iTunes and asks Apple to remove another news publisher’s app because it feels that app infringes on its exclusivity agreement with the Olympics?

As with most issues surrounding social media and news distribution, the best practices in these scenarios are still being sorted out.

NBC and Chelsea, lately: The Paper Machete 11.19.2011

Media, , ,

Here’s my piece from last week’s Paper Machete. You can read my previous pieces for the Machete here.

This piece pretty much speaks for itself but keep in mind I write this to read them so the italics, the caps, etc. are more cues for me as I’m reading than proper written form. Also, I wish the story about NBC wanting to do a sitcom with the Muppets had come out last week because, boy, it really sells my point better than anything. (I had lots more to say about the NBC/Muppets arrangement on Twitter today.)

—

This week, NBC Nightly News announced it hired Chelsea Clinton as a correspondent for “Making A Difference,” its series of heartwarming feature stories. This was really good news because woo! Someone in media is hiring! Or rather, someone…is hiring.

Before I sat down to work on this piece I thought “This is not a big deal. The real issue here is the larger story about how NBC’s news and entertainment divisions are completely lacking in ideas that aren’t brought to them by a bold-faced name” – an idea I promise you I’ll get back to in a moment. But then I finally read the New York Times report that broke the story and I can understand why media critics, bloggers and people on barstools everywhere all turned into little howler monkeys over the news.

Back in July, “an intermediary” contacted Steve Capus, the president of NBC News to tell him Chelsea Clinton was “kicking around what she wanted to do next.” This is amazing for a couple of reasons: 1) In 2011, someone can describe looking for a job with the same words I used in 1997 to discuss hippies on the quad…

And 2) If you found yourself both in need of a job and employing an intermediary wouldn’t you just lay off the intermediary and save yourself both the money and the trouble of getting a job?

But it gets worse. The president of NBC News starts the conversation – and I can’t emphasize this enough THIS IS THE PRESIDENT OF NBC NEWS – by asking “What are you interested in doing?” This is the equivalent of him sliding a piece of paper over to her and saying “We’d like you to take this piece of paper and write down a number…and a job description…and the number of weekly spa appointments you’d like us to make for you. And that! Is our final offer.”

The article goes on to say that “One person close to Ms. Clinton said she had been quietly raising her profile for some time, though the public had not been completely aware of it.” which again says to me you really ought to think of firing your intermediary but also if there’s anyone to blame for the public’s lack of awareness of Chelsea Clinton’s profile-raising…that person is Chelsea Clinton. Not only did Chelsea refuse to make herself available for comment after NBC’s announcement, she also – while in the process of campaigning for her mother’s run for the Presidency in 2008 – refused not only questions from the national press but also a question from a 4th grade reporter for Scholastic News who dared to ask her how good of a First Man her Dad would be if her mom was President. To that question, Chelsea replied: “I’m sorry, I don’t talk to the press and that applies to you, unfortunately.” Burrrrnnnn….

To be fair to Chelsea, she did participate in a press release. In it she said “I hope telling stories through ‘Making a Difference’ will help me to live my grandmother’s adage of ‘Life is not about what happens to you, but about what you do with what happens to you.’ ”

Look, I don’t want to shit on anybody’s grandma…but that kinda crap is what privileged people say when they don’t need to do anything but wait for things to happen to them. The president of NBC News said “Hey, do you want a job?” And Chelsea said “Yeah” and now, Chelsea, you’re going to do be on NBC News because of something that happened to you after your intermediary made a phone call when you were “kicking around what to do next.” When you are Chelsea Clinton or the children of Tim Russert or John McCain or George W. Bush, life is only about what happens to you. You don’t actually have to go out and make stuff happen. You just wait for someone at NBC to say “Hey, do you wanna work here?”

Because when you’re NBC, you hope that familiarity doesn’t so much breed contempt as it does ratings. This year, NBC famously rolled out three shows to much fanfare: The Playboy Club, a show about pretty much what it sounds like; Prime Suspect, a reimagining of a popular British television show and Whitney, a sitcom built around a woman best known as the sidekick of Chelsea Handler, the late-night cable TV comedian. The Playboy Club was cancelled after three episodes and Prime Suspect is dead as well though Whitney is still around despite…I swear I tried to come up with an explanation here or a joke or something but seriously no one knows why the fuck this show is still on the air.

This insistence on television as a security blanket even extends to NBC’s midseason replacements. In a list of upcoming shows on nbc.com are shows based on a book by Chelsea Handler, a reality show about wild and crazy senior citizens starring Betty White, a reality show about fashion starring Elle McPherson and finally a show called The Firm which, yes, is based on the John Grishman novel WHICH CAME OUT ALMOST 20 YEARS AGO.

Unfortunately for NBC, cliches – especially the one about familiarity and contempt – are often true for a reason. New York magazine’s Vulture blog recently released…uh, a slideshow that detailed Nielsen’s recent ratings book and the news was not good for NBC. The network has zero shows in Nielsen’s list of the 40 most-watched shows on TV. Zero. Out of 40.

If you listen to my dad, the problem with America is it doesn’t make anything anymore. NBC has a similar problem. Its fortunes rise or fall on the strength of brands it has little connection to and that mean more to most people than the network itself with the exception of Chelsea Clinton’s future colleague Brian Williams, the current NBC Nightly News anchor and host of the newsmagazine show Rock Center, which is such an awful title you have to imagine that Brian Williams Is Handsome, Smart And Such A Nice Boy was running a close second. NBC’s made Williams into an almost one-man viral video generator, having him appear on The Today Show, Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock and Jay Leno. For a network devoid of product it can call its own, this is an incredibly smart move. According to Vulture’s…slideshow, under Williams, NBC Nightly News is averaging more viewers than all but two of its shows. Sure this is like raving about the turd with the most polish on it, but the fact remains NBC’s most important brand is its news. A brand it decided was best served by the addition of Chelsea Clinton, who once refused to answer a 4th grade reporter’s question.

Maybe if NBC’s lucky, she’ll agree to stick around until Malia and Sasha get tall enough for the camera.