Category: New Media

Big Layoffs at NBC

The Washington Post had an article yesterday discussing the seismic shifts at 30 Rock:

NBC Universal announced sweeping cuts to its television operations yesterday, demonstrating just how far a once-unrivaled network must now go to stay competitive with YouTube, social networks, video games and other upstart media.

The media giant said it will shed up to 700 jobs — 5 percent of its workforce — and slash $750 million from its budget by the end of 2008. The changes will be felt from Secaucus, N.J., where MSNBC will shutter its headquarters, to television sets around the country, which will soon begin tuning to game shows and reality programming in the 8 p.m. time slot. NBC said it plans to phase out costly scripted dramas and comedies during the first hour of prime time.

Network television, for half a century the unquestioned leader in media profitability and viewership, is wrestling with the same challenge facing newspapers, news magazines, radio and other traditional media properties: how to manage costs while converting to digital delivery in an increasingly splintered media landscape. Although the promise of revenue in the new era is great, actual revenues from Internet and mobile media services still are not.

Viewers have noticed that things in TV land have been changing bit by bit in recent years, now that they can get their favorite shows on their PCs, cellphones and iPods. Yesterday’s announcement by NBC Universal, however, is an indisputable signal that — at least for one network — the television-as-family-hearth era is dying.
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NBC News President Steve Capus starkly illustrated the new landscape, which must include all forms of delivery that consumers demand: “We’ve been a TV business that dabbles in digital. Now, we’re positioning as a news content-production center going forward that happens to do television.”

Jeff Jarvis has an interesting take on the NY Times’ version of the story, too.

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ALI Conference: Wrap-Up

Key learnings mentioned by people who attended:

Podcasting needs to be episodic.

Blogging isn’t just corporate messaging. It needs to have a human perspective.

Time commitment for blogging can be significant, but it depends. Blogs are a new tool for CEOs that can be better in some respects than other tools…so it may mean less time spent in other areas.

Moderation for a blog will make it easier to get these launched. It will keep out the spammers, and also give some comfort to those who are resistant.

Wikis for policy development, an internal LinkedIn and Whirlpool’s interview format for podcasts were interesting to Lara from Charles Schwab.

Jen mentioned Twiki as a good resource for Wiki implementation.

Blogging as a damage control tool was a revelation for one participant, because of the openness and transparency.

If you are considering getting into the blogosphere, start by reading blogs, subscribing to feeds, commenting on other blogs and then start your own.

Blogging – Beyond the Hype

Jason Cieslak and Inesa Figueroa from Siegel+Gale gave the final presentation, in which they sorted through the hype about blogging and other highly hyped technology trends.

Inesa says it’s difficult for corporations to exploit the phenomenal growth of blogs. The linking structure of blogs and that sub-culture doesn’t fit with the typical corporate culture.

Corporations aren’t super nimble. “If you aren’t updating your blog all the time, you don’t have a blog. You have a web site.” They also have legal and prudential obligations to consider.

Religious, political and social affiliations drive a lot of the growth in blogs. People blog because they get excited about a topic (like religion and politics) and controversial issues, which isn’t the kind of environment in which broad-based corporations want to become entangled.

She questions whether bloggers are going to think it’s still cool to blog once the corporations get into it. I think the answer to that is “Absolutely!” They won’t necessarily interact with the corporate blogs, but people are still going to want to express themselves and group into their own sub-cultures.

She says Dell’s blog doesn’t really capitalize on the medium. The publishing and approval processes are really cumbersome for a corporation. The lack of transparency also is an issue, as with the Edelman/Wal-Mart controversy.

She cites GM and the blog post about the letter the NY Times refused to publish as a good example of good use of blogging, and IBM is another best-practice organization, as we heard yesterday.

Being part of the blogosphere is about contributing to other people’s blogs, not just having your own. And it’s possible to be engaged in the conversation even without a blog of your own.

If you’re going to blog, you need to have a strategy. How does it meet an institutional objective? One might be dealing with issues or crises.

Jason says his company works with Yahoo, which has 500 million users, while a billion wireless phones will be sold worldwide. Companies like Yahoo are working to port their applications and rich media to mobile devices, including cell phones.

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My Lunch Meeting Yesterday

To show just how simple and easy it is to post to a blog, I’m doing this one in the middle of my presentation at the ALI Conference in San Francisco.

I had planned to connect with Tom Grams of TVGrams Digital Media when I came to San Francisco. Tom has an extensive background in cable TV, including launch of the Discovery Channel and several others. He’s a pro who understands the cable industry and has connections, so he is consulting with various organizations on how they can best use video.

Now he’s working primarily on non-linear video channels. A linear channel is one like ESPN or The Weather Channel that feeds a continuous stream of content. Sirius and XM satellite radio are other examples of linear models of content delivery, in the audio realm.

Here’s an example of including an image from the web.

ESPN

The problem with linear channels is the demand for content is insatiable. When a channel is 24/7, the amount of content needed is immense.

The other reality is that to have a channel like that on a cable system or even on a satellite radio or TV system, you need to have a minimum critical mass of viewers or listeners in order to be economically viable. A few hundred or a few thousand viewers can’t pay for the “shelf space.”

With non-linear delivery methods, such as podcasts, vlogs, blogs, broadband video channels or cable VOD (video on demand), a smaller niche audience is OK. And instead of dumbing down the content to reach a mass audience, it’s actually better to be more technical, because the people seeking out this content have an interest.

Now in a gratuitous use of video for no particular purpose (except to show how easy it is), I will incorporate a video segment from our lunch that I uploaded to YouTube earlier in this presentation.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7ngwjpF4Jw]

Blogging Myself

During the pre-conference seminars and the first day of this conference, I have been blogging the presentations other people have been making for three reasons: as my personal note-taking device, to give my Mayo Clinic colleagues a reference resource on these topics, and to make the information available to my fellow conference attendees and any others who might find it valuable.

So now, given the fact that I’m doing the presentation, it’s kind of difficult to blog it contemporaneously. That’s why I did it in advance. Here’s my prediction of what I will be discussing. And if I’m wrong, this should be a good resource anyway. That would be the best of both worlds, because it would mean what we discussed was more valuable than what I had planned.

I define new media broadly, as anything that doesn’t require an FCC license or buying ink by the barrel.

As Shel Holtz says, new media do not replace old media. They are supplementary and complementary. And given the relative audience sizes, traditional media are still more important than new media, and should be the primary focus. Rocketboom, for instance, has a worldwide audience about the same size as what WCCO TV has in the Minneapolis-St.Paul DMA alone. But if we can pursue new media in a way that opens opportunities for mainstream media, that’s the smartest way to go.

New media (audio and video files on the web) have led to significant traditional media stories, such as this one:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaaAYVUWP0I]

Just as important is being smart about production, to get as many media applications out of a single video shoot as possible.

I talked with Shel just now about how to get “Add to Del.icio.us” and “Digg This!” added to my posts, and he suggested that FeedFlare, which is available through feedburner.com (also free).

Even though they are not technically blogging or podcasting, innovative use of the web relating to a big story can help facilitate major news coverage while minimizing the burden on the people involved in the story. Here’s one example of a web update site used in this way, and here’s another.

Here’s the big wrap-up:

Everyone who is here today has already invested significant time (2+ days) and money (travel, lodging, conference fees) to learn about new media. It would be a shame

  • Get a FREE RSS reader and subscribe to some feeds (like this one)
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