A look at the main developments and effects of the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling so far and suggestions for stations. What happens in the aftermath of the ruling at the FEC, in Congress and the states will shape campaign ad spending for years to come - the devil's in the details. Broadcasters have a stake in the outcome, both in terms of the service they provide to the public by their role in elections, and ad revenues.
Viewers have tripled their use of watching TV shows via the Internet since 2006 -- and some of this has hurt traditional TV viewing.
Media researcher Knowledge Networks says this trend affects a broad range of viewers: ages 13-54. Viewing of complete TV shows from streaming or downloaded video has climbed to 22% from 8%. This also has climbed faster for younger 18-34 viewers, rising to 30% from 12% to 30% of 18-to-34 online users. When it comes to making the sometimes more labor-intensive connection of hooking up TVs to PCs, 7% of 13-to-54 viewers have streamed or downloaded TV shows, and 11% for 18-to-34. Knowledge calls this "over-the-top" viewing. There has been some erosion of traditional TV viewing from all of this, the study says. Of those that have reduced or canceled TV service in the past year, due to their online viewing of network TV programming -- or expect to do so in the next year -- 6% of 13-to-54 viewers and 9% of 18-to-34 viewers said they have made these decisions.
The Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT plans to conduct a nationwide survey of public opinion about electronic health information exchange and the privacy and security of personal data that is shared.
"Little is known about individuals' attitudes toward health information exchange and the extent to which they are interested in determining by whom and how their health information is shared," according to an announcement by the Health and Human Services Department in the March 19 Federal Register. ONC hopes to collect about 25,000 responses over eight weeks. After analyzing the data, ONC will prepare and post a report and conduct an online presentation about its results. The data will inform ONC programs and policy.
Norm Eisen, special counsel to the President for ethics and government reform, said federal agencies and the public, more than the White House, are accountable for sustaining open government.
The day after taking office, President Obama committed himself to an open government agenda that would improve transparency, citizen participation and public-private interaction, in part by applying new technologies to agency operations. "This initial push is really wonderful, but what's going to be done to sustain the culture change that we want to occur? It's very easy for the agencies to drift back if the White House isn't paying attention," said Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of transparency advocates. She moderated a talk on Friday hosted by the Center for American Progress, a Washington research group with close ties to the White House. At the event, transparency specialists from inside and outside government debated the impact of Obama's initiative with most agreeing it has enhanced transparency, public participation and collaboration with the corporate sector. The next big task under the program is an open government plan -- an agency-specific navigational chart for embedding transparency into daily operations.
Federal agencies increasingly are using Twitter to connect with the public, but government employees see less value in social media sites, according to a new study from National Journal Group.
The study, which looked at Washington insiders' media consumption habits, found that more than half of Capitol Hill staffers, federal executives and employees of corporations, lobbying firms, nonprofits and other private sector organizations view Twitter as "pointless babble." Nearly a third called the service a "passing fad." "There's so much buzz on Twitter -- nationally, it's Twitter this, Twitter that," said Bernadette Ryan-Leduc, director of research at National Journal Group, a division of Atlantic Media, Nextgov's parent company. "Yes, fine, great, if you want to reach the outside-the-Beltway audience. The people using Twitter inside the Beltway are those responsible for informing those outside the Beltway."
As Mexico prepares for a wireless spectrum land rush, Grupo Televisa SAB agreed in mid-February to pay $1.44 billion for a 30% stake in the local subsidiary of mobile group NII Holdings Inc.
The Mexican government is readying an auction of spectrum licenses earmarked for so-called third-generation services that make greater use of data and media. Televisa can augment its television, broadband and landline phone services with mobile for the coveted "quad play." NII gets a wealthy local partner with a trove of content and cash to spend at the auction. NII is the former international arm of Nextel Communications Inc., which merged with Sprint Corp. in 2005.
Broadcast television's fortunes began to turn around in the fourth quarter of 2009 and evidence is mounting that the first quarter of 2010 will show positive growth, according to the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB) in conjunction with its release of 2009 estimates supplied by Kantar Media.
Total broadcast revenues were down only 4.5% in the fourth quarter of 2009, compared with a total year decline of 12.9%. Susan Cuccinello, svp/research at TVB, said: "Local broadcast television revenues are definitely improving, judging by the anecdotal evidence from our stations and the preliminary numbers we've seen." Network TV posted a 3.3% gain for the fourth quarter of 2009 (and a 7.2% decline for the year); syndicated TV was down 10.7% for the quarter (and down 4.9% for the year), and local broadcast television was down 13.8% for the quarter (and was down 23.6% for the year). Among local broadcast's top ten individual advertisers, No. 1 Chrysler Group LLC was up 28.0% in the fourth quarter, No. 2 AT&T was up 20.6%, No. 3 Toyota Motor Dealers Association was up 16.1%, No. 4 Ford Motor Co Dealers Association was up 33.4%, No. 5 Verizon Communications was down 14.2%, No. 6 General Mills was down 16.4%, No. 7 Honda Motor Co was down 33.8%, No. 8 General Motors Corp. was down 5.6%, No. 9 Comcast was down 25.7%, and No. 10 McDonalds Corp. was up 34.0%.
Beginning next year, tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer money will flow to doctors and hospitals to help them buy computerized medical record systems as part of the economic stimulus package.
Most forecasters have expected broadcast ad revenues to experience a nice recovery as the recession eases, but Bernstein Research analyst Michael Nathanson expects a TV advertising to see a rebound that could bring stations back to their healthier 2007 levels.
While the major station owners took a big hit on revenue declines last year, margins remained fairly strong. But he also warns about the possibility that the Federal Communications Commission might levy spectrum fees or ask stations to give up parts of the spectrum in exchange for auction proceeds. The best hope for broadcasters is that retransmission fees from their local cable MSOs. Broadcasters can't have it both ways anymore, Nathanson writes, saying that stations' arguments boil down to: "Please pay us for our channel but allow us to keep all this free (and valuable) broadcast spectrum for ourselves. Given that less than 10 percent of the nation's household watches TV over the air, it is likely time to reclaim this spectrum over the next decade."
[Commentary] The day when commercials are indistinguishable from the programs they support finally arrived on March 11. That's when an ad for Dr Pepper ran after NBC's insider-y sitcom "30 Rock," making use of recurring character Dr. Spaceman, played by comic Chris Parnell.
In the spot, which was paired with a more-traditional TV commercial for the soda, Mr. Parnell's fictional medical practitioner decried boredom and told viewers how drinking Dr Pepper could banish it. A few moments later, viewers saw the credits roll for "30 Rock." Ho-hum, you might say. And sure, we've seen this kind of stuff before. Yes, we're aware that NBC has run ads from American Express during "Heroes" that showed Beyoncé in cartoon format, and then told viewers to stick around for more of the program. Or ads from Honda during "Chuck" that used that show's characters to talk up the then-coming Winter Olympics. But these types of ads, typically at least, also promote the program from which the characters are borrowed. Astute viewers may also have noticed recent ads on ABC from Nestle's Stouffers in which the casts of "Ugly Betty" and "The Middle" were depicted eating the marketer's meals. But those were basically commercials that featured characters from ABC shows. Now we're seeing stuff like this Dr Pepper spot, which looks like it's part of "30 Rock," as if it's a skit featuring the Dr. Parnell character. It appropriated the show at hand much more directly than the Stouffers spots did but does not return the favor with any overt promotion of the program or NBC.
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