blogs

Hi there, I'm a new member here, and i went to the Network Chiefs Lunch last week. I posted about it on my Hollywood Leadership Blog here: 

The Elephant in the Room

So far this year, the HRTS has presented luncheons featuring hitmaking producers, broadcast network presidents, reality producers and programmers, cable network chiefs, and the estimable NBC News anchor Brian Williams.   Conversation amongst these panels of industry leaders broached a vast array of topics of interest to the many members of the HRTS in attendance.  Throughout all these luncheons however, looming in the corner of the room, was an inescapable “elephant� that continuously touches us all.  That elephant is the spectre of increased regulation from the federal government in the area of indecency.   Throughout our Newsmaker season the topic came up whether the question was asked or not.  In the latest issue of Society Views, our quarterly newsletter you can see the theme recurring, both in the event recaps as well as our POV letters.

This Business Week Article is very interesting.

What blogging is doing is creating a 'real' conversation between businesses and their customers.. Professional PR and Marketing will have to revamp the way they've always created 'super steril' messages in the past. The public is now too informed to not know any better or simply just believe company press.

April 27, 2004 Welcome to HRTS On-line. This blog is being established to discuss the various ways that you can maximize your HRTS on-line experience. Periodically, we will start a new discussion on a different aspect of the new HRTS site. The following is excerpted from the winning Perfect Corporate Weblog Pitch Competition by Lee LeFever with some additional comments from Matthew Phillips, the HRTS's web design consultant, and resident expert on on-line social networking in general!

So what is this Blog I keep hearing about?

One of the most exciting and innovative ways to use the Web is found in the blogging ("Web logging") phenomenon. While bloggers chronicle the news, they also chronicle their own lives. Some bloggers use their sites to post personal journals and diaries. The difference with blogs, of course, is their public nature. What's fascinating is how many people want to make the most personal and private details of their life public.

BLOGS: First, think about the value of the Wall Street Journal to business leaders. The value it provides is context — the Journal allows readers to see themselves in the context of the financial world each day, which enables more informed decision making.

With this in mind, think about HRTS as a microcosm of the financial world. Can the HRTS members see themselves in the context of the whole HRTS membership? Would more informed decisions be made industry wide if members had access to internal news sources?

Weblogs serve this need. By making internal websites simple to update, weblogs allow individuals/members and teams to maintain online journals that chronicle projects inside the Industry. These professional journals make it easy to produce and access internal news, providing context to the Industry — context that can profoundly affect decision making. In this way, weblogs allow members and leaders to make more informed decisions through increasing their awareness of internal news and events.

The Simpsons was created in December of 1989 and will continue through at least the 2005 season, as a popular show I might add. It's not considered 'intelligent TV, but based upon the Nielsen numbers it is entertaining to many.' I think it's rather amazing to consider where we all were in 1989... MOST, if not everyone reading this blog had NO CLUE what the Internet was let alone online community or interactivity. And many in Hollywood wonder why the young, affluent, well educated audience is no longer addicted to prime time broadcasts. Can someone (other than me) articulate the fact that the basic concept of TV has not changed since 1941 (63 years ago). Whereas, society is undergoing a massive restructering of information digestion unequaled in human history.

It's no longer about the newspapers, or radio, or TV, or gathering gossip at the country store, it's all about how the Internet is converging all of these and becoming the most powerful mass media, personal advisor ever.

I agree with this research and article below completely. eBay is great from a national even international standpoint, but traditional print and local broadcasting continue to dominate the local scene. It will be very interesting when those that SHOULD own the Internet step forward and claim rightful ownership. Namely traditional media businesses.

Searching closer to home

By Bambi Francisco, CBS.MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 11:30 AM ET Feb 12, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Consumers are increasingly using search engines to find local information to buy products or services.

That's quite an expansion of search engine use from just checking on the weather, directions to a neighborhood restaurant or movie listings.

A new survey of more than 5,000 online buyers conducted by The Kelsey Group and BizRate.com shows that local searches with the intent to buy represented a quarter of all searches performed by online buyers.

I would prefer not seeing a movie at all rather than having it censored. Inserting faux words for the original profanity is self-defeating as the viewer will automatically figure out or substitute another profanity. Either way it distracts from the story. A "bleep" is just as bad.

Just don't screen the goddamn thing if you can't screen it in its entirety.

http://news.com.com/2009-1043-5116866.html As the fall TV season kicked off this year, media companies got an unwelcome surprise: According to an influential ratings report, key parts of prime-time audiences--young men in particular--seemed to be deserting in unprecedented numbers.

Media moguls, loath to concede that such an important group of viewers was being drawn to other entertainment media, immediately blamed bad data and programming miscues. But analysts pointed to a far more troubling culprit in the form of growing competition from newer technologies such as the Internet, DVDs and video game consoles.

"Groupthink Revisited"... The Abstract reads... "This paper revisits Irving Janis’ theory of groupthink in the light of the ongoing debate on legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice. We argue for a movement in perception from the linear development of community formation to a multi-dimensional model based upon the inter-relationship of the domains of community, practice, meaning, and identity. Janis’ theory of groupthink is outlined and communities of practice defined. From these definitions, we go on to examine the significance of in-groups and out-groups, applying

Study: Share of 18-34 viewers crossed over

By A.J. Livsey http://69.20.6.242/news2004/jan04/jan26/2_tues/news3tuesday.html

Ever since the huge losses among the broadcast networks among adults 18-34 became apparent earlier this year, the suspicion has been that many of those young people were exiting to cable.
Now there's some evidence to support that suspicion.
In the first half of the season, overall ratings for broadcast networks are off 11.6 percent among 18-34s from 2002, to a 12.9 rating, while cable is up 4.8 percent, to a 13.0 rating.
That’s based on Magna Global USA analysis of Nielsen Media numbers for the first 17 weeks of the 2003-04 season.

Surprise Winner Huge TV Money-Maker

January 17, 2004
By MEG JAMES, Los Angeles Times http://www.ctnow.com/business/hc-ameridol.artjan17,1,6261952,print.story?coll=hc-headlines-business

"American Idol" unfolds with youthful innocence as wide-eyed, underdog contestants try to beat the odds - and a snarling judge - to make it big.

The concept behind the hit show, which begins its third season on Fox Broadcasting Co. next week, has minted more than $2 billion worldwide. But initially, "Idol" wasn't even going to be on TV.

Five years ago, British entrepreneur Simon Fuller thought of tailoring a talent show for the Internet, where computer users could discover and vote for their new favorites. Back then, though, the Internet wasn't taking off fast enough for Fuller.

Network Campaign Coverage Increasingly Fails to Hit the Target By Daisy Whitney

A recent study on campaign news consumption sheds some light on where young men and women get their news.

Its conclusion: Cable is the leading source, and late-night talk shows and the Internet are also among the best ways to serve news to a young audience.

"Young people, by far the hardest-to-reach segment of the political news audience, are abandoning mainstream sources of election news and increasingly citing alternative outlets, including comedy shows such as the 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart' and 'Saturday Night Live,' as their source for election news," according to the Pew Research Center report, released Jan. 11.