Ray Martin delivers this bomb - and boy is it true.
The below is from the Andrew Olle lecture which Martin took. Definitely worth reading the whole thing (link below)
Television is no longer a window on the world – it’s now a mirror.
Incidentally, Max Uetchtritz, who now runs Nine MSN News, cites Australian surveys which reveal more than half of our viewers also regularly watch TV with a computer on their lap.
The big difference is WE don’t give them anything to do which CONNECTS them to our news programs.
By way of contrast, the American networks are NOT waiting for the audience to come to them. They’re going after the audience – feverishly.
In fact, the boss of CBS said recently: ‘CBS is no longer a television company. No longer a radio company. It’s not an on-line company. It’s an AUDIENCE company.’
An ‘audience’ company.
The best newspapers are counter-punching much more effectively.
The New York Times, for example , has become ‘ ubiquitous’- on the web and the mobile. As well as its newspaper network.
You log onto NYT dot com and… let’s say… press ‘Humour.’
That gives you all the television nightly talk show jokes about the Presidential election. Or ‘Saturday Night Live’ skits. And Emmy-award winning political comedy like The John Stewart Show and the Colbert Report. Heaps more.
They’ve got nothing to do with newspapers. But , everything to do with audiences. The internet now brings the New York Times 300 million dollars a year, 10 percent of the company’s revenue. It’s growing at an astonishing rate.
We all know that Australians are confirmed ‘junkies’- when it comes to ‘new tech toys’. But our ‘internet cravings’ are simply not being satisfied.
Young Australians love – and live with – MUSIC.
It’s an integral part of their daily lives.
On their i-pods, their mobiles, their mp3’s and in the car.
So, where’s the music on prime time television? There isn’t any.
Not even music videos ‘to stream’.
Where are the innovative I.T shows for young Australians? Same answer.
How’s that for breeding a new generation of TV viewers? So far there’s been little attempt to ‘connect’ with them. That has to change.
Within a few years everything will be mobile.
The Australian TV networks’ integration still muddles along – without vision or publicity,
without equipment or serious financial backing. On the proverbial ‘smell of an oily rag. ’
Despite such deficiencies Nine MSN now streams ELEVEN million videos a month.
Finance Guru Ross Greenwood’s live coverage of the RBA’s recent ‘ONE PERCENT RATE CUT’ got almost as many hits on the website, as it had Channel 9 viewers.
We need vision. We need innovation. And we certainly need investment. What we’re getting instead is ‘benign neglect.’
Benign neglect …on-line and on-television.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24513977-7582,00.html
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4 comments:
The fact that NY Times gets 10% revenue from online is not a surprise. I think that digital and mobile advertising will become pervasive in times to come. In 5 years, As audiences become younger, new marketing will become dominant. www.econfirm.com.au is an excellent example of this.
bravo.
hit the nail right on the head.
Where audiences go advertisers follow - Aussie TV either gets with the program and takes a leadership position or fades out into irrelevance - where you and I as media consumers seek other streams.
What I found interesting about this was Ray's understanding and articulation of the issues, challenges and opportunities. Yet despite this he was unable to use his influence and profile within the mainstream networks to turn this into anything as much as a pilot. Goes to show that celebrity and audience-pulling power only goes so far in business -- especially when your message is unpalatable.
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