TODAY’S PAPERS: Secrecy over readership plans; Is Mitchells on the Vodafone list?; Freeview confusion
It’s Monday, so it’s the biggest day of the week for media and marketing in the metro papers.
The Australian Financial Review:
The murkiness of research company Roy Morgan’s plans on how it will measure newspaper readership in the future is tackled by Neil Shoebridge in his column today. He points out that it is 17 months since trade body The Newspaper Works hired research Ian Muir to review the system, saying that “the newspaper industry has opted for secrecy”. He reports that the state of affairs is frustrating media agencies who hear rumours that there may be no changes until 2011.
Vodafone’s review of its media account – featuring incumbent Ikon, PHD and Universal McCann – may be on hold because of the proposed merger with 3, saysthe paper. When the link-up was first announced, Mumbrella speculated that Mitchell Communication Group might try to get on the list through its links with 3-owner Hutchinson, despite the fact that it also has connections with rival brand Optus. But at the time Vodafone claimed it was “business as usual” for the pitch.
Free TV’s revenue decline is getting worse, says the AFR. It quotes one TV exec as describing the last two weeks of this month and the first two weeks of March as “a big black hole”. However, it also reports that the outlook is healthier in the regional markets.
The Australian
Mark Day also has questions about media measurement, confessing:
“Newspaper readership figures are causing their regular head-scratching. How can it be that when the number of copies sold – that is, circulation – drops by 2.5 per cent, readership figures (that is, the number of people who read the publication) can climb by 23 per cent? That’s the Morgan Research score card relating to the weekend edition of The Australian Financial Review.”
He also raises the delay in the next set of radio ratings which have been blamed on extreme weather, “an explanation that, on the face of it, seemed so odd that it caused much speculation and a search for another reason. Could it be that the survey results were so different, so startling, so unsettling to the status quo that they had to be run again?”
Ratings measurement is also tackled by Steve Ahern, who confesses that when his family took part in the process, he fiddled his mother’s results.
Media coverage of the bushfires continues to be a focus for The Oz’a media section. It features a piece from journalist Gary Hughes, who survived the disaster, on the occasional excesses that he witnessed.
Australian ad agencies face gloomy prospects, says Hamish McClennan, the global boss of ad agency Y&R. The Aussie tells The Australian:
“There is no doubt that Australia will catch cold and I think it will be a very severe cold.”
The ABC behaved like a commercial broadcaster, serving up rubbish during the non-ratings season, says Errol Simper. He says:
“Summer television schedules are always ghastly, insulting things to behold. Yet it could just be that the ABC surpassed itself in summer 2008-09. It was as though someone deep in the bowels of the organisation, possibly Marie Antoinette, had declared: ‘Let them eat crust.'”
Aussie media organisations are waking up to the possibilities of Twitter to connect with readers, says The Oz. It focuses on Marie Claire magazine, which has 271 followers. (Should you wish to join Mumbrella’s 963 followers, you can do so here.)
The Cannes Lions will see several Australian jury representatives, reports The Australian. The list of 11 local jurors includes Naomi Parry of Black Communications, who will be on the first ever PR jury, and Vince Frost who will be a juror in the design category, which is in its second year.
WPP’s media agency MindShare and ad agency JWT have put together a special unit to handle client Kellogg, in a move that The Oz’s Lara Sinclair described as “reintegrating the advertising business“. However, the move – named K1 – is not an entirely new one for WPP. Team Detroit is the company’s US-based link up looking after client Ford, while the holding group has also taken a similar arrangement for managing its client HSBC.
Freeview’s marketing campaign is confusing customers, manufacturer Sharp tells the Oz in comments that Freeview refused to respond to.
Daily Telegraph
The Nine Network may have landed the first interview with former Guantanamo Bay inmate David Hicks, reports the Tele’s Sydney Confidential page. It says a chauffeur at Sydney airport was last week seen holding a sign saying “David Hicks, Channel 9”.
Sydney Morning Herald
Ten should not expect somone to ride to its rescue, says the SMH, suggesting that ownership changes could be triggered within days.
The Freeview is deliberately misleading as well as confusing. The next major problem will be when all those people who already have digital receivers cannot access the Freeview EPG because their device is not considered compatible with the service. Freeview is planning to sell branded digital recievers and may use its commercial decisions to exclude owners of existing devices from accessing the EPG. It is possible that technically compatible devices will be denied access to the EPG for commercial or political reasons. I watch free to air tv via an Elgato EyeTV and my MacBook Pro. I suspect such devices will be denied access to the EPG.
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For more on the manipulative and deceptive way Freeview witll restrict access to the EPG, consider this: “Freeview-branded set top boxes will be able to receive the Freeview Electronic Program Guide which displays all programming information in one format.”
In effect: “Only their “approved” hardware will be able to display the new all-channels EPG, and of course that hardware will be crippled as that is the stated intention of Free TV Australia. The PVR you spent close to a grand on, no, sorry, no EPG for you. That $4000 TV? Sorry, no EPG for you.”
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Regarding the media measurement issues raised by Mark Day and Steve Ahern I would like to pass some informed comment.
First Steve, the radio ratings process has been changed to alleviate that situation. Previously ONE person in a household was ‘recruited’ and diaries were left for ALL members of the household. This lead in some instances to issues with completion and compliance – such as those you mention. The person who gave permission generally did the best job. Mind you, all the raw data is inspected and people who had ‘outlier’ listening were excluded from the final sample – of course someone who worked at a radio station would never fill in just their own station! This does not say that there are not issues with manually recording radio listening – but we are on a better track. Electronic methods are being looked at.
A side effect of changing to ‘specific person’ (based on “who had the last birthday to keep it random”) is that with the average home having 2,7 people, we now have to knock on almost triple the number of doors to get the sample. The fact that this change happened in one of the hottest summers on record meant that it was simply not safe to have fieldworkers knocking on doors in 46 degree heat! The fact that the data hadn’t been processed at that stage should lay rest to Mark Day’s scuttle-butt theorising.
Finally regarding, circulation and readership HAVING to head in the same direction, this is simply NOT true. In hard times we see less people paying the cover price and passing on their copy more (as people have less cash for entertainment). That is, the “readers per copy” (RPC) increases as the circulation (sales) decline – which results in more readers but less copies sold. The inverse tends to apply in the good times when people say “I like that title I borrowed and will buy my own”. Mind you, circulation down 2.5% and readership up 23% sure boggles my mind! Be aware that is comparing a quarterly circulation to an annual readership – so that MAY account for some of the variation … but sheesh !
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Ahhhh, my Mumbrella hit for the day, nothing feels better.
Thanks Tim, it’s so damn easy to come up to speed by quickly flicking through your blog.
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