Are kids wringing out SpongeBob?
Back in September, right before the quarter ended, Viacom trimmed its advertising revenue outlook to high single digit growth from double digit growth. One of only a few media conglomerates to take that step–News Corp, Time Warner, and CBS were much more upbeat–the move prompted some concern among media watchers that advertisers were beginning to slash their budgets on macro-economic concerns.
But that wasn’t the case. It turns out the problem was Viacom specific. As the Sumner Redstone-controlled company disclosed during its fiscal fourth quarter results Thursday, domestic advertising revenue growth slowed in part because of a mid-September ratings plunge kids network Nickelodeon. Total domestic ad revenue across Viacom’s cable networks, which also includes MTV, VH1, and Comedy Central, for FQ4 was up 7 percent versus the third quarter’s climb of 12 percent.
What’s more is that Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman threw audience measurement company Nielsen Co under the bus on Thursday’s earnings call, saying the ratings drop at Nickelodeon was “inexplicable.” He said Nielsen’s data did not match Viacom’s own set top box data for viewers. The company is currently in discussions with Nielsen– the dominant company that tracks TV ratings that determine ad rates — and the watchdog organization Media Ratings Council to resolve the situation.
Here’s Dauman on the call: “Let’s just say that we wouldn’t have had to have any conversatoin with either of them based on the set-top box data they are examining. That is the reason everybody believes there is an anomaly.”
Nielsen responded with this statement: “It is the longstanding policy of Nielsen not to comment on specific client business issues. As Viacom stated on their earnings call this morning, we have worked closely with Nickelodeon and the Media Ratings Council to conduct an exhaustive assessment of the methodoligical and market factors reflected in national TV ratings. To date, the review process confirms that our measurement methodology, operations and related reporting processes are working as expected.”
Battling with media companies over ratings data is unfamiliar territory for Nielsen. Broadly speaking, the company has been criticized by some media conglomerates that claim its methodology for tracking consumers’ viewing habits is outdated. For instance, last November former NBC chief executive Jeff Zucker said Nielsen’s sample size was a problem, explaining that CNBC’s ratings fell after only three people were taken out of a 300-person Nielsen sample.
But, as it related to Nickelodeon, the problem may have nothing to do with Nielsen at all. Maybe it’s that children have turned against TVs. Hard as that is to imagine, that’s the takeaway from a note issued by Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente Thursday looking at a ratings rundown titled: “What are the kids watching these days?”
Bing takes slight lead over Yahoo, still waaaaay behind Google
For the first time ever in the search world, Microsoft’s Bing overtook Yahoo in August search share, according to the latest data from Nielsen. Bing’s 13.9% share edged out ever- so-slightly Yahoo’s 13.1%.
It should be noted that Microsoft and Yahoo have a partnership that kicked off in August that involves Bing powering Yahoo’s search. If Nielsen combined Bing-powered search it would represent a 26% share of search.
While Bing and Yahoo scrap for second place, Google blows everyone out of the water with a 65% share of all U.S. searches.
Furthermore, Google dominates most of the U.S. search advertising market with around 71% slice of an estimated $12.4 billion in search advertising spend, according to eMarketer.
Nielsen Says – In: social networking; Out: email
Anyone with a Facebook account knows how addictive social networking can be. But a new report by analytics firm Nielsen illustrates just how central social networking has become in the Average Joe’s day-to-day life.
Nearly a quarter of Americans’ online time is now spent on social networks, according to Nielsen. And all that time spent on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter is coming at the expense of traditionally popular Web activities, particularly email.
Email accounted for 8.3 percent of Americans’ online time in June, down from 11.5 percent a year earlier.
The total number of minutes that Americans spent using email in June plunged 34 percent year-over-year, while the total number of minutes devoted to social networking jumped 31 percent year-over-year.
“When you’re on Facebook, you can do instant messaging, you can email and share content,” said Nielsen analyst David Martin. “Maybe an assumption is that social networks are directly displacing some of these traditional channels for communication online.”
That’s not great news for the Yahoos, Googles and Microsofts of the world, which have built substantial email businesses over the years.
To make matters worse, Nielsen said the “portal” category — web sites like Yahoo or AOL — represented 4.4 percent of Americans’ online time in June, compared to 5.5 percent a year earlier.
Completely agree, people are speaking on Facebook walls and no longer writing emails
No Super Bowl blues; expect big TV ratings
The U.S. economy might be weak, but the Super Bowl still scores with consumers.
The CBS broadcast of the National Football League’s championship game on Feb. 7 between the Indianapolis Colts and New Orleans Saints should draw strong TV ratings, possibly challenging viewer levels not seen since the late 1990s.
“We’re looking at a big rating,” said Neal Pilson, former CBS Sports president and head of his own sports consulting firm. “The fact that the two conference championships got better than usual ratings usually indicates that there’s a lot of public interest.”
The NFC Championship game between New Orleans and the Minnesota Vikings drew 57.9 million viewers, ranking it as the most watched conference championship game since the 1981 contest between Dallas and San Francisco that featured “The Catch.” It was also the most heavily watched TV program, excluding Super Bowls, since the 1998 “Seinfeld” finale.
Meanwhile, the AFC final between Indianapolis and the New York Jets drew 46.9 million viewers, ranking it as the most watched AFC Championship in 24 years.
While a Super Bowl with popular Vikings quarterback Brett Favre might have scored a higher rating than the current matchup, the Saints are an exciting team that received a lot of exposure in the championship, Pilson said. It also helps that it’s the first NFL championship to feature both conferences’ No. 1 seeds since January 1994, when Dallas played Buffalo.
If the game remains close into the fourth quarter, he expects a rating of 43.0 or better. A ratings point is a percentage of U.S. television households that watched the game.
30-Seconds are the operative word here. Look, I am not a big fan of contact sports, look what it did to OJ, so forgive me for what I am about to say. This clone of British Rugby always makes me think that these hulks are gay Hell’s Angels bikers in tights that had their motorcycles repossessed but were allowed to keep their helmets as an occupational necessity. They run out of breath every two minutes and then perform YMCA moves. The US needs to learn to keep momentum. This stop-and-start foreign policy confuses people. Don’t take the foot off the gas-pedal, unless of course it is a Japanese vehicle.
What you watched on TV last week…
First President-Elect Barack Obama sparked a run on newspapers, and now his appearance on 60 Minutes helped deliver CBS the largest weekly audience of any network this season. The news program, featuring Obama’s first post-election interview, drew more than 25 million viewers, the biggest number since January 1999.
Not surprisingly, that helped CBS win the week in total viewers and in the 18-49 year-old category. Season-to-date, CBS is tops in total viewers, and essentially tied with ABC for the 18-49 crowd. Here are the Nielsen figures for the week ending Nov 16::
Total Viewers (’000, change from 2007-08)
CBS 12,314, +3 percent
ABC, 10,467, +1 percent
NBC, 7,742, -6 percent
Fox, 6,782, -21 percent
What you watched on TV last week…
Helped by the World Series, Fox last week scored five of the top 10 shows among 18-49 year-olds. That’s the good news. The bad news is that Fox ratings were nonethless down 22 percent for the week, and are down 17 percent year-to-date, according to the latest Nielsen data.
Fox isn’t alone. Season-to-date ratings for NBC and ABC are down similar amounts. That leaves CBS on top. But even CBS is down 6 percent, so it’s dubious honor.
Total Viewers (’000, change from 2007-08)
CBS 11,351, up 2 percent
Fox, 10,875, down 21 percent
ABC 9,958, down 11 percent
What you watched on TV last week…
It was another solid week for CBS, which has become a regular at the top of the TV ratings race so far this season, according to the latest figures from Nielsen.
But while CBS was the most-watched network and brought in the most 18-49 year-olds, it was ABC’s soapy dramas that were the most popular individual shows. Sexy doctors and sexy housewives, pretty bankable as ratings winners.
Total Viewers (’000, change from 2007-08)
CBS 11,472, up 4 percent
NBC 7,207, down 13 percent
ABC 9,147, down 14 percent
Fox, 6,727, down 43 percent
What you watched on TV last week…
It was a big week in the TV world for CBS, according to the latest Nielsen data.
Its live plus same day ratings for the week ending October 12, the third week of the new TV season, are below. As you can see, CBS won in total viewers, adults aged 18-49, and had the top show of the week in CSI.
TOTAL VIEWERS (Average ratings/Audience) CBS 3.8/11.0 million ABC 3.3/9.6 million Fox 2.7/8.0 million NBC 2.4/7.0 million
ADULTS 18-49 (Average rating/Audience) CBS 3.2/4.2 million ABC 3.0/3.9 million Fox 2.7/3.6 million NBC 2.7/3.5 million
WEEK’S TOP SHOWS, ADULTS 18-49 (Network, Rating) 1. CSI (CBS 7.1) 2. Desperate Housewives (ABC 5.9) 3. Grey’s Anatomy-Thursday 9pm (ABC, 5.6) 4. OT, The (FOX, 5.4) 5. NBC Sunday Night Football (NBC, 5.2) 6. Two and a Half Men (CBS, 5.1) 6. SNL: Weekend Update 10/9 (NBC, 5.1) 8. Office (NBC, 4.8) 9. Survivor: Gabon (CBS, 4.4) 10. Dancing With The Stars (ABC, 4.3) 10. Criminal Minds (CBS, 4.3) 10. CSI: NY (CBS, 4.3)
(Photo: Reuters)
The Hollywood Reporter, redesigned
The Hollywood Reporter is joining the ranks of newspapers and magazines that are redesigning their print editions and Web sites, but the changes that the nearly 80-year-old publication is making will affect much more than the way it presents itself.
Monday’s official relaunch of one of the top trades covering the movie business also will feature more charts, more data and more of a business focus in its reporting, publisher Eric Mika told us in an interview late last week.
“The industry is the largest exporting product America has. It’s not a frivolous business,” Mika said. “None of the publications to date really represent that. … It reaches out to the finance community, the technology community, but it does not forget the core readership on Wilshire Blvd., New York City and London.”
Elizabeth Guider , editor of the Reporter, said the plan is to continue offering stories about casting and deals — what she called the “bread and butter of Hollywood” — but the new mandate in an era of cheap information is to offer readers more analytical coverage with quick turnaround. That’s a similar aim for news outlets from The Wall Street Journal to our own news service , and a familiar proposal for a way to figure out how to charge people for news when so much of it is free these days.
Speaking of free, the Reporter’s parent company, Nielsen, plans eventually to make some of that information available online for a fee.
“Once we have enough real exclusive data … that sort of area will go behind the wall,” said Mika. “What is exclusive data? Data that only we can obtain, analyze and develop.”
Here are some of the changes coming to the print edition:
