PR Back Talk

MarketWatch Validates Our Prediction on Top Media Stories in 2010

2010-03-19T10:40:00.003-04:00

Another validation of our prediction of the top media stories that "reporters are sure to be working on this year. First was the Wall St. Journal, which validated (as reported here yesterday) our pick that the media would cover competition between Google vs. Apple vs. Microsoft and EMC vs. H-P vs. Oracle Now MarketWatch (also owned by the WSJ), which wrote, "H-P, Cisco face-off highlights rival CEOs' contrasting styles; New rivalry pits an operations maestro against a charismatic...

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WSJ Validates Our Prediction on Top Media Stories in 2010

2010-03-18T10:07:00.005-04:00

Earlier this year. we issued a dozen predictions, and have seen a number of them quickly validated. One of the predictions listed what we think will be top media stories that "reporters are sure to be working on this year (though not necessarily in the order)" we presented them. We picked Google vs. Apple vs. Microsoft and EMC vs. H-P vs. Oracle -- shorthand for intense competition across a range of traditional and new battleground technologies. For example, Google Android and Nexus One vs....

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Does Social Media Really Pay Off for Big Companies?

2010-03-17T10:15:00.006-04:00

As part of the new normal, we're seeing increased need for ROI. That's a challenge with social media because the right metrics may well be different for each company. In "Turning tweets into sales: Twitter’s allure is tough to translate into dollars, though Dunkin’ Donuts is tracking results," The Boston Business Journal wrote an interesting story that provided some details about how Dunkin' Donuts, Staples and other companies approach social media. Here are some interesting facts: 35...

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TheDeal Validates Our Prediction About Online Subscriptions

2010-03-09T10:53:00.004-05:00

Last month, we issued our annual list of predictions, and posted more details on Feb. 2, Prediction #3: 2010 will be the year of online subscriptions. The New York Times has already validated our prediction in an article last month. Now, TheDeal has validated the prediction, too. In an article, "Creeping Towards Ubiquity: the Pay-for-Play Traditional Media is Striking Back, Winning Some Small Victories Over Digital Free-Content Rivals," Richard Morgan, who covers the media for TheDeal,...

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Wall St. Journal to Launch NY-Metro Edtion

2010-03-05T09:36:00.003-05:00

The Wall St. Journal has announced another front in its battle against the New York Times: a local section for New York, to be launched in April. The new section has been an open secret for months now, but the WSJ announced it officially this week, here. The new section will appear six days a week, include 16 pages of content and ads, and cover state and local politics, business, culture, sports and real estate. About 35 reporters and editors will be assigned the new section, which will be...

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Another Prediction Appears to be Correct: Viacom Drops Daily Show & Colbert Report...

2010-03-03T20:21:00.002-05:00

We predicted that 2010 would be the year of online subscriptions, and today's news from the Wall St. Journal report, "Hulu Loses Stewart, Colbert," appears to support that. According to the Journal, the reason Viacom, which owns Comedy Central, which produces The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, is pulling those programs from Hulu.com is that it was not seeing enough revenue from Hulu.com. Hulu.com, which is advertising supported, shares a percentage of the advertising dollars with content...

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Is ABC Killing the Brand Known as "Network News"? -- Part Two

2010-02-26T09:40:00.002-05:00

The cuts at the network news divisions is going to have an impact on the brand, as I mentioned in yesterday's article. What I didn't mention then is the impact digital journalism may have on PR functions. With fewer resources, journalists will need to rely more on PR functions (departments, agencies) to get information, B-roll, etc. There will be two challenges Reaching these already too-busy reporters.Getting them to trust that the content you're providing is of a high quality and...

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Dilbert's take on PowerPoint

2010-02-25T11:20:00.002-05:00

It's like those people who say, "The plan is self-explanatory, but I'd like to walk you through it anyway."

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Is ABC Killing the Brand Known as "Network News"?

2010-02-25T09:22:00.002-05:00

According to the New York Times, "ABC News to Cut Hundreds of Staff Members," ABC will cut about 25% of its news staff or roughly 300 to 400 jobs. The Times' Brian Stetler reported, "The cuts at ABC, a unit of the Walt Disney Company, are among the steepest ever conducted by a network news division, and are likely to be seen as a further erosion of the company’s news-gathering arm." That's part of why I think ABC is killing the brand experience of Network News. I've seen Network News teams...

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Is the Use of a Pseudonym Reason to Fire a Blogger?

2010-02-24T09:07:00.003-05:00

The Wall St. Journal's Nick Wingfield wrote about Randall Kennedy, an InfoWorld blogger who used a pseudonym when interviewing sources for his blog. It's an interesting article, "The Second Life of a Tech Blogger." Famous writers throughout history have used pseudonyms, including Benjamin Franklin, Walt Whitman and Samuel L. Clemens, to name a few. There's a grand tradition. Stephen King has published books using a pseudonym. Of course, some of those named above are known for their...

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Customer Service in the Social Media Age

2010-02-22T07:11:00.008-05:00

Traditionally, many companies looked at customer service as a cost center, a necessary expense that had a negative impact on margins. They saw it as an obligation, and tended to underfund the fuction. Key metrics for customer service included: how quickly customer service representatives could resolve an issue (i.e., get a customer off the phone), and how inexpensively could the company train and pay its reps. Those sort of metrics aren't designed to deliver customer service. They're designed...

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Online CT Newsroom Shuts Down

2010-02-18T13:20:00.005-05:00

Last year, we predicted that Online Sites Will Not be Immune to Advertising Slowdown. We saw some bumps over the past year. And today's New York Times had an interesting article about the role of local nonprofit political and news sites. Check out: It Won’t Line a Bird Cage, but It’s Still News.

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Our Track Record on 2009 Predictions

2010-02-18T11:33:00.002-05:00

A lot of organizations issue predictions without looking back to see what they got right and what they, um, didn't. We decided to take a look at the predictions we issued in Jan. 2009, Top 14+ Media Trends for 2009. We did pretty well with those predictions: We were right in saying we need a new term for newspaper once they stop printing on paper. However, our designated term "newssites" has not taken off.We were (sadly) correct that a lot of print newspapers and...

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What's the impact of the Leno-Letterman commercial

2010-02-10T16:11:00.004-05:00

It was a great move by Letterman/CBS & Leno/NBC to run the commercial during the Super Bowl. The ad was the funniest aired during the Super Bowl, and was one of the funniest things Leno has down in sometime. Inside baseball, sure -- my kids didn't get it -- but they're not the target audience for late night TV, yet. It showed they both could laugh at themselves, and it generated buzz, not a bad thing for either show. It won't stop the audience erosion that all network TV is experiencing,...

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WSJ parody: Interview with an Person Experiencing iPhone/iPad Withdrawal

2010-02-10T10:58:00.002-05:00

Actually pretty funny.

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2010 Predictions, 1 through 12

2010-02-08T11:33:00.004-05:00

Each year, Birnbach Communications compiles an annual list of media trends for our clients, helping them to work more effectively with the media, both at traditional and online outlets, including blogs and social networking sites. Here's a list of some of our top trends in one place, to make it easier to review them all; let us know if you agree or disagree with what we've said. Traditional print journalism will continue to be important. Even as the resources allocated to practicing it...

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Prediction #12: Online Credibility Will Continue To Be Important,

2010-02-08T10:15:00.000-05:00

Online credibility will continue to be important, but new FTC rules requiring bloggers to disclose the receipt of free samples, gifts and cash payments will get confusing because many who don't blog are not required to make similar disclosures. Currently, tech reviewers at newspapers get free samples but don't need to disclose that fact (though Walt Mossberg and others do…on their websites and blogs). Theater reviewers often get free tickets while many freelance travel writers get all their...

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Prediction #11: The Intersection of Social Media and Traditional Journalism Will Be Increasingly Busy

2010-02-08T08:12:00.002-05:00

For example, while the Super Bowl continues to be the biggest non-holiday event for which Americans gather together, and while people comment on the ads as much as the games, advertisers themselves are looking beyond the ads, often offering websites with extended versions of some ads, driving viewers to their sites. Another example: Olympic sponsors are changing their approach this year -- rather than having social media simply an add-on to advertising and their PR activities- they are...

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Prediction #10: Live Integrated Real-time Interactive Multimedia Web Events Will Become More Common in 2010

2010-02-05T10:11:00.002-05:00

Live integrated real-time interactive multimedia web events, which combine live video, and offering the ability to post and read comments on Twitter and Facebook windows, will become more common in 2010. Last year, Bill Cosby conducted the first-ever interactive townhall to introduce Cosnarati, a socially conscious hip hop group that he produces (http://www.ustream.tv/billcosby), offering a live videostream with a real-time Q&A function and the ability to post comments on Twitter and...

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Prediction #9: Social Media Platforms will Survive the Recovery.

2010-02-05T08:08:00.001-05:00

Some critics have said that Twitter and Facebook did well during the downturn because people had available time, either because they had less to do or because they had lost their jobs. People will continue to use Twitter, Facebook and other social media services but they might not be updating their pages quite as often. Social media sites will consider rolling out new ways for users to post and engage via multimedia (audio and video).

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Prediction #8: The Decline and Fall of TV Networks...Won't Happen in 2010...

2010-02-04T10:05:00.001-05:00

But networks are definitely on the decline. Case in point: "The Jay Leno Show" vs. "The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien." In the end, NBC has been shedding viewers, and no change of hosts or programs may bring them back. It's not as though those viewers were sticking around for drama at 10 p.m. on other networks. Most likely they were turning to cable programs or on-demand offerings, TiVo, Hulu.com or the Internet.

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Forbes & Times Validate Prediction #5 by Writing about 3-D TV

2010-02-04T09:12:00.001-05:00

Another day, another validation of our predictions. This time: Forbes, in an article, What's Better Than 3-D TV? 3-D TV And Beer! And the New York Times: The Pluses, and Oddities, of 3-D TV. Last month, we issued a set of predictions that included top business story angles (available here). And very quickly, we're seeing those predictions validated by new reports and articles. In its article, which appeared yesterday, Forbes took the approach that most others will take: That network TV is...

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Prediction #7: Video May Have Killed the Radio Star but Radio Will Continue to Survive -- For Now

2010-02-04T08:02:00.002-05:00

But in two years, we may not be making the same prediction. Today's kids do not listen to radio as much as previous generations did. They listen to iPods and soon, iPads. We believe that radio continues to be important, especially during drive-time commutes. We think record companies should continue to support radio stations because people still listen to radio to discover new songs and then decide to download songs (or buy CDs, if they're boomers) based on what they hear on the radio. But...

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NYTimes Quickly Validates Our Prediction about Online Subscriptions

2010-02-03T11:43:00.005-05:00

Last month, we issued our annual list of predictions, and posted more details on Feb. 2, Prediction #3: 2010 will be the year of online subscriptions. In today's New York Times, blog favorite Richard Perez-Pena wrote, "Some News Outlets Ready to Try Charging Online Readers." It's nice to be validated -- so quickly.

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Prediction #6: In-flight Internet Access Will Take Off

2010-02-03T10:59:00.000-05:00

We will see more in-flight Internet access in 2010 – by 2011; it won’t even be something airlines tout as another reason to fly with them. Lufthansa rolled out new service: web surfing from 30,000 ft at $3/min. (What does it cost for tech support?) We can expect more conference calls and emails, and flying cross country no longer means being unable to respond to email. But battery life, additional sockets, and headphones will be boom businesses. The rise of business videoconference calls may...

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