Impact Of Writers' Strike: Prime-Time (Advertising) Prices Plummeted (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch?)

AS THE WRITERS' STRIKE CAUSED upheaval early this year, the average cost of a prime-time spot dropped 12%, while even "American Idol" couldn't prevent a notable slide at Fox.

For the Big Four networks, the average spot in the first quarter--melding prices from the upfront and scatter markets--cost $125,634. That's compared to $142,824 a year ago, accounting for the 12% decrease, according to a new report.

The research comes from independent media agency TargetCast tcm, which culled the data from NetCosts, a service run by SQAD that receives reports on spending from some 390 advertisers and agencies. (SQAD says NetCosts represents 40% of all national TV ad expenditures in the $42.8 billion U.S. market.)

Looking at individual networks in the first quarter, Fox saw its average unit cost drop 9.2% to $237,237. That's more than double CBS ($112,641); nearly double ABC ($122,509); and more than three times as high as NBC's $77,893. The figures do include the Super Bowl, which aired Feb. 5 on Fox.

In percentage terms, Fox was down the least in the first quarter versus 2007, followed by ABC at a 9.5% decrease. CBS fell 11.9%, and NBC dropped 24.7%.

With the writers' strike running through mid-February, networks were left without new episodes of scripted hits, such as "Grey's Anatomy" and "CSI," leading to double-digit ratings drops in the first quarter.

Those ratings dips, in turn, led to networks having to dole out makegoods, which caused a spike in scatter prices so severe that marketers opted to shift dollars elsewhere. That prompted a trickle-down effect contributing to the drop in unit pricing, according to TargetCast findings.

"Clearly, the writers' strike caused uncertainty with viewers and advertisers, which impacted ratings and actual prices paid," said Gary Carr, senior vice president, director of broadcast services at TargetCast.

Before fresh scripted fare was in short supply, networks were able to post moderate pricing increases last fall. Advertisers have no options to pull out of their upfront commitments in the fourth quarter. The increases were likely due to the strong upfront pricing several months before. The increases came even as ratings were down significantly in the fourth quarter (save Fox).

In the October through December period, ABC saw its average unit price increase 7.3% to $159,008 -- both marketplace highs. Fox and CBS had near-parity pricing at $139,529 and $139,414, good for respective year-over-year increases of 1.5% and .4%. NBC saw a notable percentage increase--up 3.4%--but still lagged in average unit cost at $121,314.

Another DeathWatch™ story.

http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1849

The Platform: The Newsroom Morale Crisis
Peter Osnos, The Century Foundation, 4/1/2008
The business downturn at America’s newspapers is very serious. The Newspaper Association of America reported last week that, in 2007, the industry had its sharpest drop in advertising revenue—9.4 percent—since the association began measuring these numbers in 1950. On-line revenues are up—they now represent 7.5 percent of newspaper ad revenue—but that increase doesn’t nearly offset the print plunge.

The average pre-tax profit margin of newspapers was still 18.5 percent in 2007, but that compares to about 30 percent in the early years of the decade, according to the annual media survey conducted by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ).

What all these numbers do not convey, however, is a problem at least as serious as declining revenues. It is the crisis of morale in newsrooms. As a reporter abroad, I always mocked pundits who passed through my territory and wrote with confidence that “most people believe etc.” So my conclusion, based on scores of conversations and what I read, may be an exaggeration. But my distinct impression is that reporters, particularly at metropolitan newspapers in places such as Baltimore, Dallas, San Jose, Boston, and Hartford, are increasingly and understandably discouraged about what is happening around them.

The cutbacks, buyouts, and elimination of specialty beats are the cause, of course. The increasing emphasis on wire-service-style breaking news and snap judgments of the Web makes reporters wince. But the real problem is something deeper, I sense. It is a belief that no matter how good your work, how thoroughly reported and influential, it isn’t going to matter in protecting your newspaper. Because of the revenue declines and cutbacks, the mood of proprietors and managers, on the whole, is near panic. Outstanding work by their staffs, the newsroom has become convinced, isn’t going to make a difference in the outcome of their institution. The effort at morale-building in the stream of front office memos announcing departures, the cheerful exhortations to survivors to do great work, only adds to the cynicism that pervades.

News people are by nature skeptics, and given to grumbling. One of their missions is to find fault. Self-criticism in newsrooms is standard, and so is defensiveness when the criticism comes from outsiders. None of these characteristics are at issue. The problem is that the prevailing mood of a declining and deteriorating industry is so pervasive and so discouraging that it reinforces itself. “What’s the point?” is a debilitating attitude, and it is very difficult to reverse.

The opening line of the PEJ report on newspapers in 2007 summed it up this way: “Newspapers are still far from dead, but the language of obituaries is creeping in.” The energy and relative glamour of Web sites and the job opportunities they represent are an important off-setting trend. But as has been said countless times now by all who follow the field, commentary and opinion and the rise of the blogosphere are no substitute for real reporting, even if they are cheaper and faster to produce.

This is the prize season for newspapers, and the work being honored is an annual affirmation of the profound effect newspapers at their best have on the nation. Reporters do what no one else can in documenting wrongdoing and negligence. By definition, what they choose to write about is what becomes news and determines how the rest of us are informed. If advertising and circulation will not support reporting in the years ahead, other ways to do it will have to be found; think of publicly supported radio, no longer dependent on the federal government because of underwriting and individual contributors.

The launch of ProPublica, the investigative project funded mainly by philanthropists Herb and Marion Sandler and led by Paul Steiger, is a start. So is Global News Enterprises, a Web start-up based in Boston that will have stringers around the world and has financing from people who seem to know what they are doing. According to PEJ, there are a variety of locally based startups emphasizing community news. The tradition of entrepreneurship in the news business is strong.

In the meantime though, the idea that newspapers are in inexorable decline really hurts. The people in the newsrooms and the constituencies they serve need to be persuaded that this crisis will end. A respected elected state official whose capitol newspaper has eliminated its environmental and legal beats, among others, asked me the other day whether newspapers will be around in ten years, with the underlying assumption of the question being that they will not be, at least not in their present form. The question is not really about the format—the paper they are printed on—but rather about the indispensable role they play in our society.

Peter Osnos is Senior Fellow for Media at The Century Foundation. Sign-up to receive Osnos’ columns weekly by email here. Read past columns here.

But as has been said countless times now by all who follow the field, commentary and opinion and the rise of the blogosphere are no substitute for real reporting, even if they are cheaper and faster to produce.

as has been said
Dopey Chomsky-speak causes loss of brain cells.

On with the show:

News Without Reporters

Unnecessary?

Reporters are a dying breed, says Steve Boriss, and that's a good thing. America got along fine without them once before.

by Steve Boriss

One of journalists' recurring put-downs of bloggers is that they are simply recycling someone else's news - that there will always be a need for reporters to produce it. Yet, America had a reporterless past and will likely have a reporterless future. And, news will be better for it.

...

Now, the Internet is eliminating the reporter as middleman by connecting audiences directly with the real sources of news - politicians' offices, PR firms, whistleblowers, think tanks, courts, police departments, and everyone else with a news ax to grind. These entities have always been capable of writing their own stories in a usable form, but have previously needed reporters to get their stories distributed. Nor will we miss investigative reporters, who had always been dangerously untrained in the skills needed to do their job properly (e.g. forensics, law) and often unfairly destroyed the reputations of innocents. Society has many alternative, more responsible ways to right wrongs, and the blogosphere can easily fill this void.

...

(excerpt)

(reposted due to fix broken link)

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