Week of October 27, 2008

DVRs Hurt DVDs More Than TVs

Friday, October 31, 2008

A study of DVR users conducted by Knowledge Networks, Inc., indicates that DVR usage has a bigger effect on DVD viewing than TV viewing. This data agrees with Nielsen Research data which shows that DVR households watch more television than non-DVR households.

More than 10% of viewing in a given hour is for HD programming

8% of all non-live video viewing is done via DVRs, up from 4% two years earlier

The extra viewing by DVR users is good news...to a point. The problem is that time shifting is frequently done to bypass commercials. Furthermore, the length of time between the original airing and viewing will increasingly become an issue with advertisers, who often place time-sensitive buys.

Paper-to-Cloud Newspaper Milestone

Thursday, October 30, 2008

The venerable Christian Science Monitor celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, but it won't be printing a 101st birthday edition. The Monitor, which was among the first papers to most of its editorial content online, is moving from a daily printed paper to an online daily with a weekly printed edition with more in-depth stories on important topics.

This news underscores the trails that newspapers are facing in the digital age. Earlier this week, grim new stats on the circulation of the major dailies showed big readership losses, leading to major cutback at a number of papers, including the LA Times. The news business, like the music business, has never been hotter, due to the migration to digital. But, like the old music industry model, the traditional newspaper industry has been turning dollars into cents as they make the conversion. And with the general advertising downturn due to the ailing economy, there's no relief in sight.

More on Newspaper Circulation Freefall

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

As reported yesterday, figures from Editor & Publisher show a steep and continuing decline in daily newspapers circulation. The numbers for Sunday papers are just as bad, if not worse. Only 2 of the top 25 Sunday papers increased in the 6 month period ending in September. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the St. Petersburg Times each inched up by less than 1% compared to the same period a year ago.

In the meantime, 3 of the other 23 papers declined by at least 10%. The biggest losers (Sunday edition) include many of the same papers with the largest daily drops:

Houston Chronicle -15.7%

Philadelphia Inquirer -13.8 %

Newark Star-Ledger -14.7%

Seattle Post-Intelligencer -9.1%

Newspaper Circulation Continues To Decline

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

According to Editor & Publisher, newspaper circulation continues to plummet. 23 of the top 25 newspapers saw declines in their Monday-Friday circulation in the 6 month period ending in September. The only exceptions were national dailies The Wall Street Journal and US Today, each of which eked out a gain of less than 1%. 5 of the papers saw drops of 10% or greater. The biggest losers:

Atlanta Journal-Constitution -13.6%

Houston Chronicle -11.7%

Philadelphia Inquirer -11.1 %

Newark Star-Ledger -10.4%

Boston Globe -10.2 %

Prime Time TV Viewing Drops Again

Monday, October 27, 2008

All things considered, radio programmers should feel lucky that they're not faced with the same kind of ratings erosion that TV programmers are faced with. The Big 4 TV networks are experiencing another drop in prime time viewing this season, especially in the 10-11PM time slot. According to an LA Times article, worried TV execs are looking at several possible causes: the growth of DVRs, continued fallout from the writers' strike and increasing competition from cable.

Viewing changes due to DVRs is getting a lot of the attention. Research shows that time shifting due to DVRs increase as the night goes on, possibly accounting for the big drop in the 10PM time slot. Nielsen numbers show that 27% of rated households now have DVRs, up from 20% last year. The results also show that people with DVRs watch even more television than those without. But just as radio programmers are discovering with the advent of the PPM, new ratings methodologies, combined with new technologies leads to some unexpected outcomes and increasing challenges in audience retention.