Discovery Channel upstaged by murderers, stalkers
If the low ratings at Oprah Winfrey’s OWN weren’t evidence enough of viewer disinterest in programming that inspires, then perhaps the massive ratings growth at Investigation Discovery, a network whose shows are almost exclusively populated by murderers and stalkers, can provide convincing.
Investigation Discovery, the crime-themed cable channel that launched in January 2008, is not just getting better ratings than OWN, it is also doing better than the Discovery Channel itself. Over the last two weeks, ID averaged 275,000 total viewers, or 8,000 more than the 267,000 viewers that Discovery averaged, according to Nielsen. OWN, which launched in January 2011, only averaged 180,000 total daily viewers during the fourth quarter.
Given those ratings, who needs to spend millions on shows like “Planet Earth” when you can just air cheesy non-fiction crime programming like “I (Almost) Got Away With It” and “Who The (Bleep) Did I Marry. Those kind of shows have the fingerprints of ID president Henry Schleiff all over them. After all, Schleiff built Court TV into a cable network powerhouse on the back of similar programming.
According to a report from investment bank Barclays, the momentum behind ID could give parent company Discovery Communications “substantial leverage” when it negotiates new distribution agreements with cable and satellite operators next year. Currently, analysts estimate that ID only earns 8 cent per subscriber in carriage fees while Discovery commands 36 cents per subscriber.
As the flagship network, however, the fact that Discovery Channel is losing steam could spell trouble for its parent company, which is not only seeing poor results from OWN, but also was forced to recently rebrand the struggling environmental focused network “Planet Green” as “Destination America.”
Advertising weak? Quit worrying so much already
Viacom Inc’s not sweating it, Time Warner Inc. isn’t all that concerned. Why, CBS Corp and Discovery Communications Inc. are cool as cucumbers. Disney certainly sounds confident, as does Scripps Networks Interactive.
So why are investors and analysts — those Nervous Nellies of the financial world — so worried about the advertising market? Besides, you know, the fact that the stock market is getting smacked around, the job picture is just ridiculous, and the U.S. housing market is a wreck. Besides Europe’s debt crisis, which seems to have no resolution in sight. Besides the memories of 2009, when U.S. advertising spending dropped by 16 percent to $163 billion.
It may simply be that advertisers haven’t yet made the decision the cut budgets. But listening to all the top media executives at the Goldman Sachs Communicopia Conference this week left one with the impression that they are feeling pretty upbeat about advertising — and don’t expect any cuts in the near future.
Today, the final day of the conference, Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman described ad sales as “strong” and predicted they would be up by just under 10 percent this quarter. Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes was a bit more restrained, but still said ad sales are holding up and actually “pretty strong” at its cable networks.
And it wasn’t just them. Check it out.
- CBS CEO Les Moonves: “I know the world wants us to say, ‘Gee, the economy is down and our advertising is down.’ That’s just not the case. The advertising climate is very strong.”
- Walt Disney CFO Jay Rasulo: “The advertising space, I would say that what we’ve seen is consistent with what you heard in the conferences last week and what you’ve heard from people earlier this week. On the national level, still directionally pretty strong; locally, a little weaker.”
- Discovery CEO David Zaslav: “The advertising market remains very strong, and it’s been strong now for a year and a half. We haven’t seen any slowdown. We’ve seen it continue around the world. Now there clearly is a disconnect between what the economy is doing and what we are seeing on the advertising side, but we have not seen any slowdown. “
- Scripps Networks CFO Joe NeCastro: “If anything, people are looking around wondering why we’re really so nervous and that they get suspicious but nobody has changed their behavior in any meaningful way.”
Truth be told, New York Times CEO Janet Robinson was about the only wet blanket. Amid all the fun, Robinson had the nerve to warn that advertising revenue would drop by a larger-than-expected 8 percent this quarter, hurt by a pullback in real estate, help wanted and national auto ads. (To be fair Bewkes also warned of print ads being “a little softer”).
Tech wrap: HP shake-up?
A change could be underway at the top at Hewlett-Packard. The company’s board convened on Wednesday to discuss the possibility of ousting CEO Leo Apotheker after less than a year on the job and may appoint former eBay chief Meg Whitman to fill in as interim CEO, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. HP’s board of directors has come under increasing pressure in recent months after a raft of controversial decisions has left investors uncertain of the company’s leadership.
Newly minted Apple CEO Tim Cook will try his hand as star presenter at an October 4 company event widely expected to include the launch of the latest version of the tech behemoth’s iPhone handset, according to a report on AllThingD. Sources told the website that the plan is to make the iPhone 5 available to consumers within weeks of the event. Apple has yet to officially announce or even acknowledge that the new device exists at all. For those tired of yet another story about a rumored release date, there was something akin to a confirmation on Wednesday from an unlikely source: former U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Gore, an Apple board member, apparently told a tech conference that the next-generation phone will indeed be available next month. Oops?!
Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt traveled to Washington on Wednesday to face critics who say his company has become a dominant and potentially anti-competitive force on the Internet. Schmidt told a Senate antitrust hearing that his company has not “cooked” its search results to favor its own products and listings, despite accusations to the contrary from senators and other Web companies. “Google is in a position to determine who will succeed and who will fail on the Internet,” said Republican Senator Mike Lee, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel. Google has been broadly accused of using its clout in the search market to stomp rivals as it moves into related businesses, like travel search.
Dust your library cards off, Kindle users. Amazon announced on Wednesday its Kindle ebooks will now be available for borrowing from more than 11,000 libraries across the U.S. Borrowing a book seems pretty simple: customers find the book they want on their local library’s website and choose the “Send to Kindle” option, which will then redirect them to Amazon.com where they must log in to complete the check out. Amazon then gives customers the option of delivering the book wirelessly to their device of choice – the books are compatible with all Kindle models and mobile apps – or transferring it manually using a USB drive.
Netflix and Discovery Communications reached an agreement to bring episodes of popular TV adventure shows including “Man vs. Wild” and “River Monsters” to the streaming service, the companies confirmed to Reuters correspondent Paul Thomasch on Wednesday. The two-year deal covers only material from prior seasons of the TV shows and is limited to Netflix subscribers in the United States. Discovery has an option for a third year.
Oprah’s network off to slow start
DiscoveryCommunications CEO David Zaslav is clearly hoping Winfrey finishes up with her daytime gig next month. That’s when she will turn her attention to the Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN, as it’s called, is a joint venture between Discovery and Oprah that has gotten off to a rocky start.
Even Zaslav acknowledges that viewership isn’t what he had hoped. Ratings “have been below expectations” and it has been “a slower start” than he had wanted, he said on Discovery’s conference call today. The network has plowed big money into OWN — and has high hopes for it. Zaslav is now looking for results.
“As with any new cable channel, some content is working while other programming is not connected with the audience,” he said.
He’s hoping things change when Oprah can spend more time developing OWN. “A lot of what we have coming is the strength of OWN, and that is Oprah herself. Her show will be winding down and we will get her team,” he said.
Analyst have given Discovery a pass — for now.
Morningstar analyst Michael Corty tells me:
“The ratings have disappointed management thus far, but keep in mind it’s still early in the game. It just shows it’s a challenging thing to establish a new cable network. In terms of increasing investment, there is definitely an upfront cost. The cable business is very competitive and while Oprah brings a solid brand name, starting a new network and getting viewership is a challenging task and will take some time.”
from Summit Notebook:
Discovery CEO talks about Oprah, her show, and OWN
Now that Oprah Winfrey has set a date for when the sun will set on her syndicated talk show -- Sept 2011 -- everybody wants to know if she will recreate the show on OWN. OWN, the Oprah Winfrey Network, is the cable channel set to flicker on in some 80 million homes in January 2011 with Discovery Communications.
At the Reuters Media Summit in New York, Reuters Paul Thomasch put the question directly to David Zaslav, the chief executive of Discovery Communications:
REUTERS: Do you expected Oprah will dedicate a lot of time to the OWN network? DISCOVERY: When we announced OWN, Oprah talked about it as being 'her' media company. Its a 50-50 venture. We think it's going to be very significant asset. But Oprah is the chairman, she's the chief creative officer. Shes spends a lot of time on it with me and the staff, she's involved in all the creative decisions she has a ton of energy and great creativity. We always expected that she was going to be spending a lot of time in front of the screen and behind the screen. Its a big win for us and the cable industry that (she) will be available primarily on OWN. OWN will really feel the strength and creativity of her presence.
REUTERS: Have you talked to her about bringing her current show, or something resembling her show, to OWN? DISCOVERY: We have talked about a lot of creative ways that Oprah can have a presence on OWN (such as Master Class). Oprah has a ton of great ideas. But ultimately, what Oprah does on OWN is Oprah's decision.
REUTERS: But could we see her show show up on OWN? DISCOVERY: "The Oprah Winfrey Show" will probably go down as the greatest show on television in terms of inspiring people, connecting with people and the overall success of it for everyone involved. But (that) chapter will be ending. You will see her, she will be on in a meaningful way. But it will be different from her show and it will be what she wants to do.
Boston Globe, still alive
When we went to bed late last night, the state of play on The Boston Globe didn’t look so hot. Since then… it’s still not looking so hot.
The short story: Some of the Globe’s union appear to have reached tentative accords with the Globe and its parent company, The New York Times, which has threatened to shut down the money-losing paper if it doesn’t win $20 million in concessions. The Boston Newspaper Guild, which is on the hook for $10 million alone, said it has offered more than it has to, but it appears to not have been enough so far. The Times Co, meanwhile, said it would file a federal government notice that it intends to shut the paper. The big issue? Lifetime job guarantees that the Times wants to eliminate.
Here’s the latest from the sleepless reporters at its smaller competitor, the Boston Herald:
Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten left Sacred Heart School at 6:45 a.m. today – nearly seven hours after the midnight deadline – and said the union was taking a “break” from negotiations. The Times had extended the deadline to come up with concessions from midnight Friday to midnight Sunday. “We continue to negotiate in good faith. Negotiations are ongoing and we’ll reconvene at a later time. We’re just going to take a little break for now and move on from here,” Totten said shortly before 6:45 a.m. today. Totten said it was “unlikely” negotiations would resume today and he would not comment on whether the Times had extended the deadline again.
And here’s the Globe reporting on its website:
Shortly before 4:30 a.m. this morning, the Teamsters Local 1 president Mary White, representing 245 mailers at the Globe, said the union had reached a tentative agreement that included $5 million in concessions and changes in the lifetime job guarantee protecting 145 of its members. … The mailers’ agreement followed another post-deadline deal reached with Teamsters Local 259, representing 210 Boston Globe drivers, according to Ralph Giallanella, the union’s secretary-treasurer. Giallanella would not disclose the details, but said union leaders came to an agreement worth about $2.5 million in concessions. Still, Globe unions, negotiating almost five hours after the deadline passed, have more work to do. The lifetime job guarantees will likely continue to be an issue with the final two unions still seeking an agreement – the pressmen’s union and the Boston Newspaper Guild. And both are now negotiating under growing pressure to meet management’s demands.
Bottom line: Today’s edition of The Boston Globe will not turn into a collector’s item. Nevertheless, the “WARN” notice that the Times says it will file means that, absent any agreement in the coming hours or days, sometime in early July you might want to make sure you grab a copy of that sure-to-be special edition. It may be just in time for Independence Day, which would be an especially bitter pill for the city that helped spark the events that led to the founding of the United States.
As a newspaper employee elsewhere in the U.S., I am never elated to see this. No one wins.
Could Google buy Twitter? Ask Arrington, then ask Swisher
******We sprinkled updates into this blog. We’re highlighting them like this.******Thanks to TechCrunch, U.S. tech reporters are about to spend another weekend working instead of playing. UPDATE: Or maybe Kara Swisher at All Things D will save them!******Two sources told proprietor Michael Arrington that Google “is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter.” He wrote:***
We don’t know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding.
***
Twitter turned down an offer to be bought by Facebook just a few months ago for half a billion dollars, although that was based partially on overvalued Facebook stock. Google would be paying in cash and/or publicly valued stock, which is equivalent to cash. So whatever the final acquisition value might be, it can’t be compared apples-to-apples with the Facebook deal.
***
Why would Google want Twitter? We’ve been arguing for some time that Twitter’s real value is in search. It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn’t even have a horse in the game.
******Later, he updated his entry to say that another source told him talks are at an early stage and could amount to a deal to build a Google real-time search engine. Who knows how this one will shake out. Web operations like Twitter can’t get popular without people starting to fit puzzle pieces together to see which company ought to buy them. That might be why The San Francisco Business Times picked up Wired and Industry Standard founder John Battelle’s blog entry that Twitter would go to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp for $750 million. Turns out it was an April Fool’s joke.******Then Swisher at All Things D said this:***
Twitter has to (and will) get a lot more than $250M.Robert:I see your story on this topic at http://www.reuters.com/article/technolog yNews/idUSTRE5322A220090403How come you didn’t cross-link to this blog entry? I think that would have been useful to readers who may want to join the discussion on that topic here.
