curnow.org http://www.curnow.org musings with no witty tag line Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:03:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 links for 2010-09-02 http://www.curnow.org/2010/09/links-for-2010-09-02/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/09/links-for-2010-09-02/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 18:03:21 +0000 del http://www.curnow.org/2010/09/links-for-2010-09-02/

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]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-26/feed/ 0 Curns’ Ad Links for 24 August 2010 http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-24/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-24/#comments Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:03:59 +0000 del http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-24/

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-24/feed/ 0 Last Week In Digital Advertising #3 http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising-3/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising-3/#comments Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:00:57 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=3285

I have to admit to being a fan of Grandma’s House, the new Simon Amstell comedy vehicle currently airing on Mondays on BBC2. It appears to polarise views, but I’ve enjoyed watching it alongside the Twitter-chat. Apart from the comedy genius, the other thing that I notice about the show is that it’s about the only programme I’m watching as it’s broadcast on television. Increasingly people are watching time-shifted television and this was highlighted this week as ComScore reported 84.9% of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video, and the notable shift was away from video clips to full length programming. For the advertising business, CommScore reported “Americans viewed nearly 3.6 billion video ads in July, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at 783 million”. Yes, Hulu – the channel aggregator, is – as Strategy Eye put it – showing more than three times as many video ads than YouTube. And in the UK where’s our equivalent? I think we killed the Kangaroo, don’t you?

If we weren’t busy enough trying to digest all the statistics that are floating around at the moment then Oftcom jumped in to offer us more. They released their seventh annual Communication Market report. I haven’t read the other six, who did? To be honest, I haven’t read this one either but I don’t let that worry me as everybody else has reported on it. Handily, the report goes on to put some UK context to my time-shifted TV comments in the previous paragraph, “The proportion of time-shifted television viewing has more than tripled since 2006, from 1.7 per cent to 5.9 per cent” while Thinkbroadband took a look at the UK on-demand marketplace:

Catch-up TV services such as BBC iPlayer and ITV Player grew by a third to include 31% of Internet users in Q1 2010. The most prominent growth is unsurprisingly in the 15-24 age group and men consume 34% of catch-up TV in comparison to women at 29%

Timed to perfection, Mel Carson, of Microsoft Advertising, pointed us to a story from the US showing that traditional television audiences are ageing:  ”broadcasters’ audience has aged at twice the rate of the general population during the past two decades”, which suggested the younger catch-up demographic is not just a UK phenomenon. So, how do we address advertising in the on-demand world? Who’s innovating with new ad formats? I’m not seeing a lot; everybody seems remarkably comfortable with transferring the existing television models.

Not so in mobile, huh? Opinion appears terribly divided but Apple is out to shake up the market. And let’s face it, why not? We all knew the potential but the lack of a decent platform to kick-start it all (both in terms of consumer devices and the ad platform) meant growth was slow. Last week I reported on some positive signs for the platform, but then came the opposite views. If I was cynical I’d say The Wall Street Journal doesn’t like any form of digital advertising. But no, we’ll just assume they believe the iAd had a bumpy start. Greg Sterling looked at both sides and concluded that Apple’s platform “will result in better more creatively engaging ads for all”.  Indeed. Apple will ensure standards and that will facilitate innovation. Which is why I was sad to read New Media age worrying about the impact on agencies under the headline “iAd will complicate mobile ad planning“. Give the platform a break.

As web usage via a phone rockets in the UK we’d better have an engaging advertising experience and quickly. iAd maybe the route to that. And with Quattro Wireless moving to focus only on iAd, all the better. Now, if only those retailers would catch up and allow us to buy via our phones …

For the mobile advertising industry, location will be an increasingly important factor. Which is why this week’s launch of Facebook Places is going to be interesting to watch when it hits the UK. By now we can predict the privacy stories that will make the pages of our newspapers, but unlike some of the pieces on ad tracking I think there is a case for ensuring people know what it means for them and that means the industry is ensuring proper disclosure of how location is both used and distributed. The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss wrote an interesting piece titled “Does technology pose a threat to our private life?” in which Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg suggests,

You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly

Christian Payne’s car crash anecdote in that piece shows the power of the connected world where more is shared. But privacy discussions will continue until there is some clarity, even Disney has been dragged into it. I believe I’ve been highlighting some of the sillier arguments in these weekly writings but I am getting frustrated with the discussion being positioned as privacy vs. technology companies, particularly when it comes to advertising.  Let’s face it, it’s the advertisers and agencies who want to use the data and the tech companies who are the facilitators – although I agree it’s the tech companies that need to ensure disclosure.

That Ofcom report said we’re all now multi-tasking, but I know we’ve got things to do, so I’d like to end with positive market signs. Record internet advertising spends have been seen in Australia, with revenues passing A$2bn. Last week we noted Facebook’s predicted revenues, this week eMarketer found “6.7% of all US online ad spending to go toward social networks this year”. And, as the social networks grow, we find new digital advertising markets we never knew about. If you’re not watching Grandma’s House, live or time-shifted, perhaps you’re playing FarmVille. That’s the new daytime TV, apparently.

I’ll be back next week after I’ve helped my friends build a storage shed in FrontierVille and worked out who has collected 148 Shovels on FarmVille. In the meantime, news at it happens is @curns on Twitter, the most interesting of those links (and some of the ones that don’t make the feed) are collected in the About Advertising links, the Digital Advertising Daily is experimental but updated each day, and Last Week In Digital Advertising can be emailed to you. No excuse not to catch-up next week, have you?

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising-3/feed/ 0 Curns’ Ad Links for 19 August 2010 http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-19/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-19/#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 18:02:51 +0000 del http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-19/

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-19/feed/ 0 Curns’ Ad Links For 18 August 2010 http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-18/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-18/#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 18:03:35 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-18/

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/links-for-2010-08-18/feed/ 0 Last Week In Digital Advertising #2 http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising-2/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising-2/#comments Mon, 16 Aug 2010 07:45:09 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=3150

One week in, and I’m already moving things around – but you don’t want to know about that, do you? It’s just to confuse you a little. I’m taking my cue from Inception: create something that everybody thinks they understand and then throw in the curve ball.  Suffice to say the ‘product’ guy in me was thinking that my little review of the week is best located somewhere that allowed me to do more than just write this weekly missive which is why it’s moved here.  I have no idea what the ‘do more’ bit actually is – so you’ll have to hang around (or, I imagine, you could ask Mystic Meg).

So, where did we leave off?  Well, it really does seem like a the conversation was broken mid-stream as we find ourselves more-or-less at the same point we finished on. There remains considerable discussion around the Wall Street Journal’s ‘investigations’ into advertising tracking. As @exchangewire asked, “When is this hysteria going to cease”? Here they are, asking it. ClickZ asked, perhaps a little hysterically (but only in a journalistic sense, you understand) if this was the end of behavioural targeting and challenged everybody – including consumers – to be aware and modify behaviours where necessary. Sage advice.

USA Today claimed in what,  sadly, will not be the last of the cookie puns, “these ‘cookies’ aren’t tasty; you’re left hungry for privacy” but at least published an opinion piece, in which Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the US Interactive Advertising Bureau, asked people not to fall for the “wild debate” about websites using “tracking tools” to “spy” on people. And he has a point. A quick hop across to a site called Web Design Resources and you’ll find a piece suggesting digital advertisers “invented advertising technology that would scour through the cookies on your personal machine”.  Such language is neither an accurate portrayal of what’s happening nor helpful in explaining exactly what is going on, so the challenge is to move on from this kind of language to better education.

The Wall Street Journal, of course, printed other opinions too. Jim Harper published an interesting counter-argument, reminding those who need such reminders that cookie debates have been running for, more-or-less, as long as the web has been a major route to media consumption and it was considered an advertising channel. He tried to put some of the extremes of the ‘the cookie monster is coming’ argument into perspective:

“Surreptitious” use of cookies is one of the weaker complaints. Cookies have been integral to Web browsing since the beginning, and their privacy consequences have been a subject of public discussion for over a decade. Cookies are a surreptitious threat to privacy the way smoking is a surreptitious threat to health. If you don’t know about it, you haven’t been paying attention.

He even ventured as far as to suggest that we need to consider the trade off: think about what you get back from allowing cookies to be set but I am not seeing much mainstream media pick up on this. Now, where is all this going? New Media Age, quoted a TNS survey which is may be helpful (although I suspect not) in suggesting 65% of people see targeted ads as an abuse of their privacy, even though 64% welcome more relevant ads. Go figure how we’ll make that work. It’s all in the asking, huh? Obviously, much more discussion – and a lot of work – to come.  And as Tech firms come out to be clear that their data is anonymous, non-personal information, perhaps Bizo Blog, quoted on an AdMosters forum, said it best, “there are no monsters hiding under the bed”.

What else did we learn last week? How about the – not so shocking – information that “Canadians spend more time on the Internet than they do watching TV, listening to the radio or reading newspapers” yet advertisers are not allocating budgets to reflect that? Still, digital ad revenues in Canada got to $1.82B in 2009. Which, if reporting is to believed, is only marginally ahead of predictions for Facebook’s advertising revenues this year (at $1.3B). And yes, I am well aware those two stories are - probably - quoting different versions of the dollar, but it’s a much nicer segue to leave it like that. Facebook is, according to unnamed sources quoted by Net Imperative (in turn, quoting unnamed sources in the New York Times – gee, I can see how these rumours start), planning a strategic alliance with AOL, whose revenue, from subscriptions and advertising, in 2009 was four-times that of the predicted Facebook revenue (at $4.2B) but heading full pace off the end of that pier.

The enormous rise of Facebook was, amongst others, a reason ClickZ posed the question “Social: The Next Frontier of Behavioral Targeting?”. Really, as I noted on Twitter, you do not need the question mark there. Yes, it won’t come as a shock to anybody.

In other snippets, I thought it worth noting BrightRoll’s launch a self-service ad exchange for trading video inventory, as an indicator that online video will need the same sophisticated optimisation, trading and data tools as more ‘traditional’ formats have today. And need them quickly. eMarketer reported that almost 59% of US adults had watched full length TV shows online, “reflecting a shift in the content mix from short user-generated clips to full-length professional content”.

Not much mention of mobile this week, although ClickZ (who must get an award for being my favourite source of news this week), reported that, as mobile advertising becomes something agencies use more and more,  ”companies in the space are continuing to attract investment” and cited Apple’s iAd as giving a boost to the market. My little 3 tweets we learnt about iAd (1, 2, 3) was sourced for an LA Times article on the topic but I think those tweets said it all and don’t need repeating.

So, did we reach the end of the week more informed or more confused? I’d love to extend Scott Portugal’s “confused sea condition” metaphor and ramble on about lifeboats and the like. But I can’t extend it any more than I did in a tweet on Friday – so I, sort of, blew that. His article was about ad technologies and how to survive changing market conditions and is worth a read (no Mae West needed). One thing I did want to follow-up on was a report suggesting that “One cannot be confident whether the findings of most IAE [internet ad effectiveness] studies are right or wrong” which is, perhaps, something to think about.

Now, why not comment and follow all this week’s industry news at @curns or even send me your ideas for digital advertising news? Go on, you know you want to.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising-2/feed/ 0 Last Week In Digital Advertising http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising/#comments Mon, 09 Aug 2010 08:00:10 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising/

Apologies for the uninspiring title of this first entry. What can I say, inspiration has left me and run off into the night. Still, it’s probably going to be the only post with images so look at the pretty pictures and ignore the banality of the title. Unless the title becomes a regular feature, in which case I should note, somewhere, that last week began on 2nd August 2010 (Yes, my week starts on a Monday. Hey, I’m nothing but a traditionalist in that sense).

The aim behind this space is to allow a little more commentary on links that I posted via Twitter. 140 characters is great at making you think of ways not to use ‘text speak’ but not a great amount of space to say why you think something is important. And that’s the point of this place – to try to add some context around why I considered last week’s work-related tweets important. Fortunately, I decided not to attempt to justify the personal ones in my tweet feed and, as this week didn’t have a Grand Prix, of the Formula One variety, I don’t have to justify my opinions on that either. 

I started the week by moving into a new office (hence the pictures) and being the subject of a press release. I’m only linking to the version without a picture (misplaced vanity?) but I’m incredibly excited to be at aiMatch, I think what’s coming will appeal to many of the biggest digital publishers. However, that’s not the purpose of writing here but, if you’re interested, check us out. And, for clarity, anything I comment herein is my view, I don’t pretend to be representing the views of any of my colleagues (who I know are capable of talking for themselves).

Oh, and the drawing of the rabbit in the hat: there’s a little more information on that on the original Flickr picture (although I am very impressed, I don’t own stock in the company so the review is true!).

But onto the main business of the day. What stories did I link to that need a little explanation about why I considered them important. Well, although I didn’t mention it directly, The Wall Street Journal’s piece entitled “The Web’s New Gold Mine: Your Secrets” influenced much comment around the web throughout the week. There’s a great deal of validity to the piece but, as with many articles about digital privacy, I think, by grouping many of the different tracking stories together without the space for full explanation simply serves to scare more than inform. On Friday, I did link to George Simpson’s amusing rebuttal on MediaPost which attempted to point out the WSJ’s apparent hypocrisy as they, according to George, happily say they’ll link the personal data they store to online data they collect along with their “64 third party partners”.  Privacy is something that this industry does take very seriously and I’m all for a more informed discussion because, as I have pointed out before, data is going to be increasingly important in the digital advertising ecosystem to get relevant advertising in front of people. Finally, on this topic, I linked to a video interview the very same WSJ did with Sir Martin Sorrell where he addressed this issue and it was good to hear that, he too, believes hidden tracking to be a problem and that transparency is a good thing.

If reports are to be believed then, according to netimperative, audience targeting – which is what most of the data is used for –  is now the “cornerstone of most online ad campaigns, helping to boost revenue for both branding and direct response” so I handily linked (thank me later) to their 4 steps to avoid behavioural targeting pitfalls. The quoted survey (as @exchangewire pointed out) was based on US figures but, to me, the useful nugget was the confirmation of the higher publisher returns for properly managed audience targeting.

At the start of the week I also linked to the Financial Times’ opinion of digital advertising tracking and note that their editorial acknowledges the advantages of targeted advertising,

There is nothing wrong in principle with advertisers using data about people based on their browsing habits. Such information enables them to place more relevant adverts – ones that are more likely to be of interest – on the sites that people visit. If executed correctly, that can benefit not only publishers but their customers (link)

Sadly, most of the FT’s piece is behind their paywall so I didn’t get to the meat. I hope the extract reflects the content. In the aforementioned WSJ interview, Sir Martin also discussed paywalls, something many digital publishers are paying close attention to, and stated a belief that the ability for advertising to finance media, as has been done in the past, is going away because of industry fragmentation. Nothing new there but timely as Rupert Murdoch was reported to have said that the paywall model was going well (“encouraging” was the word he used, as reported in New Media Age on Friday).

There has been much encouraging news of late about increased ad spend. This week it was the turn of the Irish to announce that in 2009 online advertising in Ireland approached the €100m threshold. To shamelessly steal the other headlines from the IAB’s piece, the online ad sector achieved 10% of Irish ad spend 2009 and 75% of study participants predict growth or strong growth for 2010. There’s much more than those headlines in the original article. I like good industry news, so enjoyed quoting Businessweek’s interview with Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, that, on Facebook, “some advertisers have increased spending by as much as 20-fold or more”. Pretty impressive numbers, huh?

It won’t come as a revelation to hear that much ad spend, for the sake of an easy link I’m guessing in Ireland and on Facebook  as everywhere else, is shifting to mobile.Commsdealer reported that ad agencies are increasingly going mobile with TV losing ground quickly and telecoms.com noted ”that competition in the mobile advertising space is getting heated, with Amobee on Wednesday announcing a major European deal with publishing house Gruner and Jahr”. As an industry we have been saying for the last ten years that ‘this is the year of mobile advertising’ but we may be at a tipping point, partly thanks to the popularity of the iPhone. Friday saw the news that UK iPhone users would total 6.4m this year or, to see it another way, the number of iPhones in UK will grow 200% during 2010. One Friday tweet said that I thought Dave Morgan was bold to suggest that mobile’s personal nature, scale, ease of use and great person-to-person-to-place connectivity would lead to location based services devastating local media. I have a feeling his prediction that 25% of their revenue base will be lost by 2014 may not be far wrong. As another of my tweets said this week, “4Sq may (or may not) be a fad right now but localisation & geo-awareness isn’t”. Still, to add some balance The Wall Street Journal (very popular this week, I’ll admit), suggested that some advertisers were still a little skittish about using cellphones for advertising and so were turning more and more to “immersive—and possibly intrusive—mobile ads”.  More at Newest Cellphone Ads Crave Entire Screen.

Now, why not follow all this week’s industry news at @curns or even send me your ideas for digital advertising news.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/08/last-week-in-digital-advertising/feed/ 0 Who Might Market Digital Radio? http://www.curnow.org/2010/07/who-might-market-digital-radio/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/07/who-might-market-digital-radio/#comments Fri, 16 Jul 2010 17:59:01 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=3124

I don’t write about radio very much, which is probably a good thing. I tend to leave it to people who are actively involved in the business and are up on the workings of today’s radio industry. Admittedly, when it came to posting this I re-published some of my older radio memories that I pulled in from a blog that died years go.

Anyway, radio remains to me the best of all the media: intimate, personal and accessible yet ultimately shared, social and everywhere. I once wrote – and now re-posted – about my passion for radio but, looking at it now, I don’t think it does the medium justice.

Occasionally, however, I do get to bash my keyboard and crank out the occasional comment – the last one being on Matt Degan’s excellent radio-related blog (and reproduced here) where I tried to say that, for an entertainment industry, commercial radio is woefully bad at presenting itself well. Reading last week’s Daily Express article on the great FM switch-off just goes to show how bad the industry is at marketing itself. Somebody, other than the radio industry, is setting the radio agenda. And I do believe that matters. Some internal industry bickering about the digital switch-over quickly turns, via little lobbying, into another government white paper and the news industry gets to bash Ministers in bold headlines and swirling TV graphics.

So, in scanning the papers earlier I noticed a Guardian piece on News International’s closure of SunTalk. Now, I’ve never listened to it so I can’t comment on the programming but John Gaunt is an excellent broadcaster (you certainly don’t have to agree with his opinions to think that) and I am sure it was cleverly positioned. Relaying on FM to some ex-pats in Spain is a stroke of marketing genius that still makes me smile.

And therein lies the root of my disappointment. News International would have breathed some fresh marketing air into a medium that I regard above others and would have been bold, brash and – I’m sure – would have unsettled many. Regardless of what you may think about their cross-media ownership, NI’s reach in the press and on television would have given digital radio the profile boost it needs (to say nothing of how it might have impacted programming). They poured money to create the satellite television market and they could have, similarly, helped the digital radio cause. For those concerned about the increasing power of News International well, in radio, they would not have controlled the platform or access to it, but they might have had money to spend to add programming diversity and build audience awareness.

If digital radio is to grow and be accepted in the UK then something big – and I think it’s got to be enormous – needs to happen. Yes, the BBC will play its part but, while I am happy for the BBC to tell me about their services, I don’t want my licence fee spent on advertising for commercial businesses. The market may a little unfair but it’s the one we have; it’s been here for decades because it’s better than most alternatives and – generally – drives great programming, but I do not pay my licence fee to subsidise privately-held companies or increase the share value of a plc. And I say this as somebody who, podcasts aside, almost exclusively listens to UK commercial radio (with a bit of international Jack FM thrown in).

So where is the business with the marketing savvy, financial muscle and experience in creating compelling, must-see/hear programming (or content)? Well, News International was one such business and it appears to be saying it’s not interested any more.

I think it’s an opportunity missed.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/07/who-might-market-digital-radio/feed/ 0 Does The Pay Wall Emphasize The Role Advertising Plays In Supporting Content? http://www.curnow.org/2010/04/supporting_content/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/04/supporting_content/#comments Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:26:51 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=3087

I didn’t see the whole Peter & Kerry thing coming. My predictions were clearly off, my tea leaves were not telling truths and my crystal ball was cloudy. Still, some things from my 2010 futureology (is that even a word?) moment are true. Digital advertising revenues are up and a few people seem happy about that. But I am not going to tick-off my successes because it only makes you highlight the nonsense I talk at other times. So we continue as if nothing happened. Deal?

Rupert (Murdoch, not The Bear) is pushing ahead with his pay wall idea. I’ve written before about how I see pay walls are good (and not necessarily in the way that you think) and I have discussed why they’re good for advertising. But, thinking today, I realise there’s a key advantage I missed in my previous musings on this matter (my use of the word musings makes my previous posts seem more considered, don’t you think?)

To summarise, I suggested that pay walls will rise and fall for most mainstream publications within a twelve month period. Sites that put up pay walls have an opportunity to understand their users a little more – market research if you will – through the subscriber data they are collecting. Advertisers will like pay walls because the users behind them both value the content they are reading and will be generally more engaged with it.

But I didn’t really talk about us users who sit on the wrong side of the pay wall. Of course, we have options and can go somewhere else for some of the news; and we probably will. But, and this is the key advantage I’m interested in exploring, does the rise of the pay wall re-emphasize the role advertising plays in supporting content? In turn, will that make us more likely to share data with publishers (given proper controls, transparency and disclosure) in a more explicit deal: data supported advertising for free access to content. And not just unobtrusive advertising but premium, targeted advertising that’s sold at a value publisher’s can use to invest in content (and, yes, make their profit margins).

Controlling my identity – and the data (preferences & behaviours) associated with it – is a key stage in delivering the above. Targeted advertising should carry a premium as it’s more likely to be put in front of people interested and responsive. Targeting can take many forms, and is probably the subject of another piece of writing, but targeting based on what I tell you as a publisher and/or advertiser (by allowing you to track my behaviour or by telling you directly) should be the most valuable and I would consider trading it for valuable content (again, as long as you had proper controls and were transparent in your use of it). But who do I trust?

Truthfully, I am not wholly convinced by my previous paragraphs. By which I mean I’m not clear if pay walls will re-emphasise the value of advertising in supporting content nor if that will make us more likely to trade data for content. I am not sure if I would trade (but I might). But I do wonder if it will happen and if the so-called advertising eco-system will become so complex that the value is lost.

We have many twists and turns on this road ahead. Publishers (and I mean all content producers here) need to scale their businesses for the new market which for many once large organisations means shrinking. You can’t even begin to talk about profit margins until that point. I’m not sure what that might mean for on-going coverage of Peter & Kerry but I’m sure somebody will have a cheque book for the wedding pictures. I’m hoping for an invite.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/04/supporting_content/feed/ 0 Specials On The Streets Of San Francisco http://www.curnow.org/2010/03/specials-on-the-streets-of-san-francisco/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/03/specials-on-the-streets-of-san-francisco/#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 22:50:45 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=3026

It may be jetlag or hallucinations brought on by an overdose of blue cheese dressing but my visit to San Francisco during the last week has convinced me of two things: there are some very smart people in the online ad business and they’d better have a location-aware ad play by the time you’ve finished reading this. If they haven’t got one soon then my first point was wrong.

My predications landed on your screen on 1st January, didn’t they? Well 109,440 minutes later (or 17th March as some know it), I’ve seen my three key thoughts in action. If they can get mass market penetration then there’ll be substantial new advertising revenues around. Having seen the pieces come together now I can really forsee huge opportunities for companies that can get scale and reach on mobile devices. And although I am in the spiritual home of internet start-ups, the tool that proved my point was created in New York and I’ve been using it in London for some time believing there was something in it. It’s the tool that made me unelected mayor of two coffee shops (who should read what I have to say and get me a fee coffee): Foursquare.

Foursquare is a location-aware social network mobile game (just count those buzz words and cash your VC cheque now). In a nutshell, tell your friends where you are, collect points and leave tips about great things to do. Check-in (identify your current location) on your mobile phone wherever you are (my check-in stats are here). The game element; points, value and status adds to the fun. Wikipedia says there are 450,000 members/players as I write this.

As I wandered San Francisco I’d check in occasionally. You get more points the first time you check-in so, as I hadn’t been in town for 10 years, every check-in was a stack of points in my own personal game. But here I saw something new. A little ‘Special Nearby’ flag would appear. Check the special and you’ll discover offers on places nearby: $1 drinks, a frozen yogurt discount or something for the mayor. Visit the location; check-in and show your mobile phone to the retailer to claim your discount or freebie. Simple, elegant and it really works. There should be no reason why London is not offering as many specials right now but, if it is, I’m going to the wrong places. In Frisco I just kept coming across them in the central area.

This all ticks at least three of my prediction boxes just 10 weeks after I wrote them down (I’m not claiming to be Mystic Meg just that the collision of these ideas proved themselves to me a little sooner that I thought they would)! Tick one: it is location based and the specials are near where you are now. Tick two: most specials are, effectively, coupons which you show to redeem. Tick three: it’s real time (by which I mean the offers are available near you now: I haven’t determined if the venues offering the reward are always open when you see the ‘Special’). Tick, tick, tick.

I have no idea if it will be Foursquare that’ll go big with this (they need more people in more places to be playing) but it is showing what a world of location-aware advertising could be like and that’ll be a very appealing world to a lot of retailers. As the number of advertisers grows a little user targeting (to ensure, of all the offers here, it’s the right one for me) will be needed but generally the people who will see your advertisement will be in the right place at the right time. It’s an ad proposition with less wastage and great measurability and that’s the special most business would like.

Now, I’m checking-in at the airport to head home to try a check in at Paul A Young Fine Chocolates who are, apparently offering get free award winning chocolate truffles if you prove you’ve checked-in.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/03/specials-on-the-streets-of-san-francisco/feed/ 0 Pay Walls Will Save Newspapers http://www.curnow.org/2010/03/pay-walls-will-save-newspapers/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/03/pay-walls-will-save-newspapers/#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 23:42:42 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=2988

Every man and his dog, if he works in digital media, has an opinion on this one. Pay walls will, or will not, save newspapers, magazines, books and any other form of printed word. E-readers, iPads and digital paper is, or is not, the saviour of the free press. So, why shouldn’t I wade in here? I may as well be shouted down by those who think that paper has, or hasn’t, got a future.

And so as not to be sidetracked, I’ll repeat my first prediction that pay walls will lead newspapers and magazines into a better digital world (which may, or may not, save their business models in the long run).

My second prediction is that pay walls will be removed after – for arguments sake – twelve months.

In my end of year predictions I suggested pay walls would be good for advertising because an engaged, paying audience is, generally, attractive to advertisers. And it’s far too early in the year to be retracting such suggestions so I’ll be sticking with it. But, upon further reflection, I think there will be a second advantage to short term pay walls and it’s not the pay bit that’s useful but the wall itself; the act of registration and identification that will aid newspapers’ business models.

The subscription money may – or may not – be insignificant. But in a world where advertising is highly targeted to us as people, be that by our tracked behaviours or the things we write – or the games we play – in social media, knowing more about audiences is becoming a necessity to deliver advertising online. But most media organisations don’t know much about me as a user at all. I read anonymously with only an ip-address acting as a proxy for who I am.

But look at the market they are playing in. According to Hitwise, getting on for 6% of all UK web visits are to Facebook. And Facebook knows lots about me because I tell them in all my interactions on a daily basis. Google accounts for nearly 9% of all visits which, while admittedly being search-based (i.e en route to somewhere else) is still giving them tremendous insight into my behaviours.

Pay walls will start to give newspapers a better insight into their audiences and with that data they’ll start to be able to attract much more highly targeted media. Once that data is put to use newspaper will realise they need to tear down the walls to grab a big audience but those people will start to be given reason to identify themselves so that advertising can be targeted properly. And then another of my predictions will come true: it’ll be all about the data.

It is for that reason that I think pay walls may save newspapers and magazines.

I also predict personal jet packs are the future of transportation by 2011.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/03/pay-walls-will-save-newspapers/feed/ 1 Crystal Ball Or Tea Leaves? http://www.curnow.org/2010/01/crystal-ball-or-tea-leaves/ http://www.curnow.org/2010/01/crystal-ball-or-tea-leaves/#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:28:29 +0000 admin http://www.curnow.org/?p=2965

And so, with the bells of Big Ben still ringing in my ears (via the television, do you think I am mad enough to have ventured into central London?) I’m back to follow up on yesterday’s predictions for digital advertising in 2010. Yesterday, I suggested money will come back in a fragmented way to digital media. Thus, there’s not enough money to pay for anything and as a result paywalls rise and, I suggested, that paywalls might actually lead to a rise in CPM rates for some publishers. Is it a crystal ball or in the tea leaves? I don’t know but here’s another vision – or two – for the coming year.

And I don’t see why we should change the habit of a decade and so I may as well announce that 2010 will be the year that mobile advertising will become mainstream. You know, like it did last year. And the year before. I guess you could argue that 2009 was the year mobile ‘Apps’ pointed us in a direction. My humble opinion is that mobile advertising will transform its brand into ‘location based advertising’ and the world will think it’s all new. Rather like a Marathon became Snickers. All new and yet reassuringly the same.

I think you can see this mobile re-brand trend already. But location based advertising should be big sometime. The company that gets mass adoption alongside location based mobile coupons (to come good on the ‘I’m passing the coffee shop give me 50p of a latte’ idea) will be very successful. I’ve mentioned mobile coupons a few times in 2009 and I think the value of them is yet to be properly exploited.

Look, here’s a passing bandwagon. Let’s jump on. I think real-time is an interesting trend but digital advertising has always managed to exploit the more immediate nature of its existence (in comparison to offline media) so, apart from the introduction of some new trading methods and – perhaps – some new formats, real-time won’t impact advertising. Of course, if Twitter comes up with an advertising business model I may regret that statement but I don’t think it will be the real-time nature of Twitter that will form the basis of the ad model; it will be the Twitter communication platform itself.

However, Twitter & Facebook will transform digital advertising in 2010 even more than they did in 2009. New formats and new ways of engagement will be mean the both the banner/display and the text/search models will have something new to compete against. And if I knew what that ‘new’ thing was, I would be busy reaping my rewards from that and not writing this.

Location-based advertising alongside social media engagement (Local Social, if you will) is really an emerging feature of the media landscape. I predict growth and innovation in that space this year. I’m not convinced we’re at the point Local Social will be mainstream but I am prepared for my friends from Local Social Lab to convince me otherwise (hopefully, over a tasty brew).

I do think one key element ties location-based, real-time and social media advertising together and that is data. Advertising, especially digital advertising, has always had a great deal of data with which to work. Audience measurement, action/reaction-based metrics, opinion and behavioural data often come into play. But I think we will see the rise of user-powered data in advertising by which I mean I, as a user of digital content, will actively share information with advertisers in a more open transaction in order to receive a service. I predict we will all take more control over what data we allow to be exploited and we will be more aware of who is benefiting. We will insist on greater transparency over data sharing but also will be more aware of what data sharing is allowing us to do. The trade off between sharing and getting something in return will become clear in the next twelve months.

There are challenges with using data. The online advertising industry has surrounded itself with data (click rates, acquisition rates, impressions, views, behavioural segmentation, hits, users, sessions etc. etc.) which did not align to ‘old’ media. As a result, the industry spends more time explaining what it is talking about than anything else. That issue need to be addressed. Then I wonder if it’s possible to have too much data? As an industry we sold ourselves on that data – the ultimate measurable medium – but perhaps we lost our creativity, our gut instinct and a lot of money while drowning in data. And then, of course, there’s security. If I am to share data I have to trust you with it and I am not convinced anybody trusts anybody else with their personal information which, I think, is the second digital dilemma I’ve presented to you in two days.

I am going to write my story of 2009 in personal data terms in the next few days but how the system to trade data will manifest itself will, to me, be one of the interesting stories of this year.

I’ve not written about the dramatic change to television viewing because of on-demand digital viewing (you’d have to be asleep to miss that change) and I haven’t talked about how the radio industry is imploding because it can’t agree on what a sensible route to digital actually is, but regardless, I think there is another interesting year ahead.

But until I tell you how many minutes I spent in a cinema in 2009 – or something similarly riveting with data – may I wish you a very happy and prosperous new year. Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter in the year as I track if any of these predictions have any validity at all.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2010/01/crystal-ball-or-tea-leaves/feed/ 1 It’s Time To Gaze Into The Future http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/its-time-to-gaze-into-the-future/ http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/its-time-to-gaze-into-the-future/#comments Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:28:24 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=2962

The world is awash with Christmas songs. But very few ever get around to singing about the New Year. Abba did it. And then there was that song from that Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, I’m sure it has something about it being a new year in the lyrics. I was wondering why there are so few new year songs and it occurred to me that between Christmas and the New Year everybody is busy predicting things and hasn’t the time to pen a song about how we’re all going to keep our resolutions until Tuesday.

And it is in that spirit that I am not writing a New Year’s tune but instead looking ahead to 2010 in Digital Advertising. I could, of course, have picked any topic but I thought one that I worked in might give me some credibility and, more importantly, means I can return to work on Monday morning with a plan for the year.

Let’s start with the predictable. There will be a storm in a teacup over use of cookies in Europe. And, of course, by the time everybody has agreed the technology will have moved on. Still, the industry will talk about it a lot and there’ll be pictures of biscuits (the chocolate chip variety) as the industry news sites run out of new ways to spin an old tale. Possibly a good excuse to hit the gym in January.

Almost as predictable is the second statement. Money will start to come back into advertising and that’ll make a lot of people feel better. However, the switch to digital advertising will continue, traditional media will remain at sea wondering what to do and how it’s all going to be paid for. And so-called paywalls will rise. I don’t think I need a crystal ball for this. I can smugly say that I previously said we had to stop thinking that advertising can pay for every thing; but smug is not a good way to enter into a new year so I’ll move on. A fragmented media market may be good for choice but diffused ad spending means nobody has any money to create anything. So, we as the consumer of content are going to have to start paying upfront for things.

It’s the last sentence that brings me to a digital age dilemma. If we’re going to have to start paying for content will we remain happy to consume advertising alongside it? Historically, we did in newspapers and in the cinema, for example. But we didn’t with books and don’t have our movie’s interrupted with advertising on the premium movie channels. I suspect newspapers in particular will hear a lot from users who won’t pay and download a banner style advertisement at the same time. There will be a fascinating follow-on impact for the advertising industry but I can’t read that from the cards.

As a quick aside I think there could be an interesting side story to the rise of required payments. For too long advertising rates, CPMs if you will, have been dropping and you have to believe it will come to a point where they can’t get any lower. I suspect the rise of paywalls for publishers which, if even vaguely successfully, will also force a rise in CPM rates (if the dilemma of the previous paragraph can be solved). The act of a customer paying for content proves the value of that content and suggests an engaged audience (and an audience with money). That must be an attractive place for advertisers to be.

And I think that’s enough crystal-ball gazing for today. Leave a comment if you think I’m right or wrong. Perhaps I will pen a ‘Happy New Year’ ditty while celebrating this evening or, more likely, I’ll have a glass of something sparkling and try to be in a state to finish my predictions tomorrow. One thing I can say with certainty, if I do write more tomorrow it will feature the word Twitter.

So look out for my Happy New Year tweet around midnight. So long 2009!

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/its-time-to-gaze-into-the-future/feed/ 1 Looking For Innovation http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/innovation/ http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/innovation/#comments Fri, 25 Dec 2009 22:18:56 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=2957

Christmas

This is the day that we should be saying Happy Christmas to one and all. Season of good will and all that. Of course, I shouldn’t forget that you could also think of today as a birthday too. So Happy Birthday, er, BBC iPlayer. I wonder what the iPlayer team are wishing for as they blow out the two birthday candles?

For a good period of the last two years I worked with other organisations that are looking to put television onto the internet. My work in digital advertising has meant that I have been, naturally, working with companies who wish to place advertisements around that television content. As I noted here in 2008, I was involved in the launch of Microsoft’s ad-serving capabilities into their Mediaroom IPTV product and with others on over –the-web content.

The iPlayer was really the platform that pushed on-demand viewing across the internet in the UK. You wouldn’t expect anything less from an organisation with the resources (in monetary terms, in talent and engineering terms and in marketing and reach terms) that the BBC can bring. It’s still the iPlayer that comes to mind when most people think of watching TV via the web and the iPlayer was certainly the talk of other European broadcasters (at least it was when I was regularly speaking to them). It’s a shame as other on-demand services are equally as good, ITV in particular have made great leaps. The Sky Player has been made to work with their proven business model which can only be a good thing for the space.

Because the iPlayer is not commercially driven, however, there has been little discussion of advertising in on-demand platforms. For the commercial providers it has always been the advertising that pays for the content. ITV has always been great at ensuring you get similar experience online as you would watching the show on television: why would they show programming without advertisements and commercial breaks? At last, most organisations have reached the point of being able to replicate the linear television commercial break experience. Sadly, however, we’re not seeing a great deal of innovation in this space which intrigues me even more now I’m less directly involved in the technologies that power this advertising. It’s an area ripe for new ideas. I know people in organisations I worked for have ideas by the truck-load but, for some reason, they’re not sharing them right now.

The economic climate and resulting downturn in advertising spend can be used as an excuse for the lack of in-production experimentation and, for commercial television companies struggling with smaller audiences and reduced ad revenues, this may be valid. But where are the innovative tech companies pioneering new ways of advertising around on-demand television? They must be there somewhere.

So, my Christmas/Birthday wish, point me to the innovators. I’m @curns on Twitter and I’d be interested to read about something genuinely innovative in the way in which advertising content is presented to consumers of on-demand content.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/innovation/feed/ 0 Looking Back 10 Years http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/looking-back-10-years/ http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/looking-back-10-years/#comments Thu, 24 Dec 2009 20:00:57 +0000 admin http://www.curnow.org/?p=2953

It’s not unknown for me to state the obvious, so here goes. This was/is that last working day before Christmas. And for many, including me, it was the last working day of the year. It has also dawned on me that it’s the last working day of the decade. I guess, therefore, that I’ll play the looking backwards game. You know, the one where we all try to find something interesting to say about the last year, or in this case, decade. So, what have I learnt about working in the twenty-first century? Firstly, it isn’t different to my working life at the end of the last decade/century but I’ll skip that marvellous observation and present the top five things I’ve seen change – or not – in my last ten working years.

Internet Access Is Ubiquitous In The Workplace

I ended the last decade having just left an organisation where you had to have special permission to have online access. Ironically, I was part of the team building their web content. And, although my world view is biased because of the industry I work in, I think access if fairly ubiquitous. Of course that’s lead to the rise of personal blogging, Facebook, instant messaging and shopping in your working day. I do see a trend the opposite way: corporate filters and blockers are in place in more and more organisations to restrict access. Sorry chaps, it’s a losing battle. You should trust your employees more.

Digital Connectivity Hasn’t Cut Travel

I’ve spend a decade in industries supposedly working in ‘new’ media with organisations you would hope would embrace virtual conferencing to reduce the carbon footprint of their employees. It simply wasn’t the case because the need to actually sit face-to-face with prospects – for them to shake your hand and know if they can trust a word that you’re saying – remains. It’s only the economic climate that’s cut travel budgets but I don’t believe it has cut the need. In fact, digital connectivity may have facilitated more travel because you can be connected everywhere so why not send somebody off to cement the deal?

Business Travel Still Sucks

Business travel has an air of glamour. Lunch in Amsterdam, dinner in Milan sounds fun. How wonderful it could be. Generally, it isn’t. Unless you’re the boss, you’re on cheap tickets at the last minute with early starts and late finishes. Fly in, taxi to an office, meeting, taxi to airport and home by midnight to do it all again tomorrow. It’s generally bad for your sleep patterns, bad for a social life and it’s really, really bad for your waistline. In the last ten years the relative reduction in the cost of flying has meant business meetings abroad are really more affordable than they were. But, as long as you know it sucks, then it’s still a great deal of fun. I’ve been lucky enough to travel to a lot of places over the last ten years that I probably wouldn’t have gone to if my boss hadn’t sent me. And I would not have changed that opportunity for anything. I’ve eaten cuisines of the world and seen – albeit often from a taxi window – many amazing places. It may be unpleasant but it’s unpleasantness worth enduring.

Constant Connections Means No Off Time

This is one that I think most employees find themselves powerless to fight. Now that the last ten years have connected us, we’re always connected and so we’re always at work. Wasn’t the digital future meant to give us all more leisure time? But now, we’re answering emails when we get home and on the train heading into the office in the morning. We can answer calls from the boss while waiting in the doctor’s surgery and speak to an overseas office while sat in the pub (I don’t recommend that). Digital connections and a mobile infrastructure mean we have an expectation of immediacy and I, for one, remain to be convinced that it’s a good thing.

Companies Haven’t Embraced Remote Working Opportunities

I’ve established that the last ten years has connected us and thus allowed us to work all the time from anywhere. But I think employers as a whole – large and small – are failing to embrace remote working. There are many jobs – and I know it’s a long way from being all jobs – that are not so time sensitive that the 9-to-5 has to apply. There are few jobs that need to be done in the same office in those hours. But organisations – or maybe it’s the boss – fail to embrace the flexibility this could offer them. With many of the companies I have worked with (rather than for) I hear tales of how working from home is frowned upon and the thought of working from a holiday villa for a week is a no go zone. Now, I believe workplace culture is important because employees need to belong and interact with colleagues. But, we don’t need to be there all the time and we can work from 7-3 or 12-8 and be just as productive. We can work from our houses, a friend’s house, the local coffee shop and, in some cases, at 35,000 feet above the planet and still reply to your email. Remember, it’s results that count.

And so, that’s my random five observations. I could have noted how tools like Twitter are changing the way we interact with customer or how they’re replacing industry-centric publications by connecting you directly to people. I could have noted how smart phones mean office workers aren’t carrying laptops quite so much but you still see far too many laptop bags on those overcrowded commuting trains (why haven’t we solved that dilemma?).

If I am lucky enough to remain employed for the next ten years, I wonder what changes will appear? I suspect that the idea of remote working will be embraced by more and more offices where there are huge overheads in central office space that could be removed if people spend part of their time working remotely. I know it doesn’t apply to everybody but I suspect increasing broadband penetration and cloud computing means it’s becoming more and more feasible. I’m looking forward to the next decade. In technology terms, I really believe it will be the decade of the cloud.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/looking-back-10-years/feed/ 0 Another Radio Era Ends http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/another-radio-era-ends/ http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/another-radio-era-ends/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 23:44:49 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=2946

I haven’t written about radio for quite a while, unless you count my comments – on Matt Degan’s excellent site – about Commercial Radio blaming its woes on the BBC, and I don’t think that counts.

As I look back I see I wrote about The End of A Radio Era in December 2002 when Jimmy Young left Radio 2. And I find myself wanting to use that self same title today as Sir Terry Wogan leaves his top-rated breakfast show. Throughout my childhood I was aware of Jimmy Young but, as a family, we actually listened to Terry Wogan.

The news people say it’s 27 years, of course, we know that the number represents years actually talking on the breakfast show. There were years off for good behaviour (when he did that television thing) meaning that it’s really four decades that Terry’s been an intricate part of our lives.

Many people have written elsewhere about what a remarkable broadcaster Terry Wogan is and I wouldn’t say anything different. It’s a special talent to be able to talk, cross-generational, to such a large audience and yet make it seem like you’re sharing in a small, intimate – and thoroughly entertaining – dinner (breakfast) party. And that, to me, is what marks out great radio broadcasters from average and poor ones: people who can really ‘do’ radio make it seem like your part of the conversation. The rest shout at you.

I do believe today marks a bigger transition than the end of a much loved breakfast show. Radio 2 has been able to call out Wake Up To Wogan as a shining example of its difference: there’s isn’t a commercial broadcaster in the land who would have done that show and I find it unlikely would any would have let it go on so long (although for that audience …). But from today Radio 2 can not point to Sir Terry as a difference that helps validate its existence.

I hope Chris Evans is given a chance (the BBC will but I wonder about the rest of the media). He too is different and I find it frustrating to read the many views that assume he is still a 30-year old Radio 1 breakfast host and not the consummate, radio-loving, professional broadcaster that he clearly is. But Wogan came from a different era. It wasn’t his physical age that helped secure Radio 2’s difference, it was the fact he started a career different broadcasting era, an era when broadcasters felt like your friends. And he was able to become part of our breakfast routine before we, as a nation, took to the sport of shooting down our celebrities quite as quickly as we do today and before the radio industry replaced presenters after a bad ratings quarter or two. I hope the new host will be different enough allow the BBC to continue to point to Radio 2 as something that can’t be heard elsewhere. I think it’s going to be a challenge: not because Chris is not unique but because the broadcasting landscape has changed and Chris has played his part in today’s tabloid celebrity fascination. Will we be able separate his history from his present?

But I don’t want to end pondering about Radio 2’s future. I find myself looking back on the words I wrote about Jimmy Young and realise that many of them can be applied to Terry Wogan. It was an interactive show from early on. Letters about the Poison Dwarf and the M1 cones may have been replaced by emails but the audience has always been integral to a large amount of the content. As a style it is decades old but it still appears to work. Making you feel part of show is important. Making you feel like a friend is, surely, a gift.

Perhaps it was something about Radio 2 in the 1970s that remains underappreciated because the flares distracted us. A generation of broadcasters deeply integrated audience participation into their shows long before anybody knew what they were doing. While all radio uses input from listeners very few shows are actually built around that input. I wonder if radio should look backwards to understand its value because, in the rush to work out what a digital future means for it, I sometimes think it’s losing sight of how powerful a medium it really is. Surely, if Sir Terry and his 8 millions TOGs are to leave a legacy it should be to remind us of the power of the audience contribution when making unmissable radio.

Thank you for being a friend. Indeed.

Update: 22 December
Celebrity broadcasters pay tribute to Sir Terry Wogan | Terry Wogan signs off from Radio 2 breakfast with a crack in the voice

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2009/12/another-radio-era-ends/feed/ 0 Commercial Radio Should Shut Up http://www.curnow.org/2009/09/commercial-radio-should-shut-up/ http://www.curnow.org/2009/09/commercial-radio-should-shut-up/#comments Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:44:07 +0000 Jon http://www.curnow.org/?p=1321

In response to http://www.mattdeegan.com/2009/09/08/commercial-radio-bleating/

A great considered piece. The points you make could be debated endlessly, and probably will as long as we have BBC radio which we all pay something towards.

Even as a commercial radio fanboy (because I think that’s what I am) I have ‘tweated’ many times along the same lines as Nicky Campbell this week (and the clock’s only just moved to Wednesday). But my reason to get the ‘bleaters’ to shut up is that the commercial radio industry is coming across so poorly it would be better saying nothing. Seriously, tell your colleagues to shut up.

It’s a shame I’m saying that because this much radio chatter hasn’t been in the news for years. But Commercial Radio is a commercial business and it’s killing itself every time it’s quoted somewhere. It doesn’t need the BBC, Wogan, Moyles or Evans to do it; it’s doing it to itself.

The week started with Richard Park effectively suggesting that he’d love to take Jamie & Harriet national at breakfast but can’t and that blasted BBC etc. etc. If you’re a listener to Heart in, say, Norwich, what did that suggest to you that the boss of your local radio station thinks about the shows he’s putting on for you? If you’re a local advertiser in Norwich what impression does it give of the radio station you’re thinking about spending some of your limited marketing budget on? If you’re an agency-type in London you now think you should stick your cash on Heart London and forget the network (because it’s not as good as the London programme, is it?). And if you’re The City aren’t you glad Global Radio isn’t traded because your investment might have just tanked.

Then we have the Moyles longest-innings, Wogan going, they-won’t-like Evans stories. Commercial Radio continues to complain about BBC salaries, changing targets of Radios 1 & 2 and how Moyles v Evans is bad for ‘the listener’. Nick Farrari sat on Newsnight last night moaning about the BBC; going as far as to suggest the BBC would show a promo for one of their stations after the programme which wasn’t very fair, competition wise. If I was any of those listeners, advertisers or agency people I would have come away thinking commercial radio can’t be very good can it? Ferrari’s a talk radio broadcaster used to twisting the point to say what he has to say and he had a prime(ish)-time national slot. He should have been championing the fantastic programming on commercial radio and how it was brilliant that all this great programming cost the listener nothing.

Now you may argue that this is really a lobbying exercise. Listeners & advertisers won’t take these words to heart (excuse the pun) but the government may hear. But Commercial Radio is leaving the impression (intended or otherwise) to 5 million Evans listeners and 7 million Moyles listeners that they shouldn’t have those shows. That could be 12 million people who don’t listen to Commercial Radio hearing somebody suggesting the programmes they love shouldn’t be there. Commercial Radio won’t be helped by alienating 12 million people, many of whom may come out saying to their MP – possibly in an election year – that Radios 1 & 2 should be kept as they are.

By its very nature Commercial Radio is a business and no business has a right to exist. It has to prove itself worthy of its customers. It has to show it provides something somebody wants. And, moreover, Commercial Radio is a media business. Any forward-thinking business, when faced with a glut of news about its industry would be spinning the positives; proving why we should be sampling their product and selling themselves. But, as Nicky Campbell said, Commercial Radio is bleating about how unfair the world is.

Lobby in private. In public shout about great Commercial Radio is.

]]> http://www.curnow.org/2009/09/commercial-radio-should-shut-up/feed/ 0