Davis ThinkingPoor CNN. The network is trying to be everything to everyone and, as is usually the case with such efforts, pleasing no one. Ratings are in the toilet and in every corner -- from the plush offices of Vanity Fair to the hallowed halls of NYU to the ash-covered continent -- one hears the jarring thumps of unsolicited advice. It's enough to make an executive producer drink more heavily than he already does.
It always stops me in my tracks when a television anchor utters a phrase that somehow references the real world as separate from the world of television journalism. As in: "Well, I guess out there in the real world...." Say what? As if they forget, for a second, that the sets aren't real and the stories are. So it's probably not surprising that, in the latest CNN Opinion Research poll, 70% of the respondents answered "yes" to the question "Are the media out of touch with average Americans?"
CNN and sister network HLN face a difficult brand challenge. As Teri Schindler noted in her recent post on the branding of broadcast networks, CNN is caught between a rock and a hard place with MSNBC’s liberal bent and Fox News’ right-wing “reality."
It’s a hard time to tackle branding if you are a television channel. What with the mishmash of shows, the plethora of “talent,” the multitude of distribution platforms, the unrelenting pressure on retaining audience and the changing media landscape, distinguishing the distributor is a difficult and possibly thankless chore. So many egos and properties, so many fragmented audiences, so little room for a clear, identifiable position. So little opportunity for a relationship with the public.
Oh that’s a trick question – you MUST have seen it because I watched it on your air.
I subscribed to satellite radio for the programming. Little did I know that with my paid subscription they would throw in a Walmart-worthy makeover.
Comedians throughout history have pushed the limits of the cultural dialogue surrounding race. From Lenny Bruce, Red Foxx and Richard Pryor to Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock, comedians help shove honest conversations, warts and all, to the forefront of debate.
The BBC, Sky News and CNN are trying to figure out how to make Twitter play nicely with traditional newsrooms. Sky News and the BBC released new social media guidelines this week, while CNN has suspended an analyst for controversial tweets.
Social media and the power of peer-to-peer recommendation can boost revenue streams and brand loyalty, according to a new survey from CNN. The results of a CNN inaugural study into the power of news and recommendation (POWNAR), showed a "halo effect,” with substantially higher engagement around recommended content compared with randomly consumed content, said Didier Mormesse, senior VP of R&D and audience insight at CNN International.
We are working in times of exponential growth in the media landscape. To the marketer, it seems as though new media channels for reaching/ engaging audiences are emerging in near real-time. The diffusion of innovation curve for digital/mobile innovation is no longer bell-shaped, it's practically vertical. We move from a glimmer of an idea to mass consumption in no longer than a few CPG purchase cycles.
The news is in the news yet again. People familiar with the situation are throwing cold water on an online report from New York magazine that suggests CNN and CBS News are once again on the cusp of a partnership -- although there are plenty of reasons why a deal could make sense for either side.
Facebook Inc. announced an ambitious plan to get its tentacles further out into the Internet by better linking people, places and things, as it looks to turn a massive audience into a pool of well-understood consumers.
Here's a new twist in the world of product placement. Most of the time it's a movie or a TV character, say, opening up a laptop with a clean shot of the Apple logo right there on it. The twist today is product placement during the ads where the product is the programming. CNN has been trying it out with one of its new shows. The camera keeps on rolling right through the commercial breaks.
TV viewers by now are accustomed to seeing product placement in their favorite shows. But how will they react upon seeing "program placement" in their commercials?
CNN continued what has become a precipitous decline in ratings for its prime-time programs in the first quarter of 2010, with its main hosts losing almost half their viewers in a year. The trend in news ratings for the first three months of this year is all up for one network, the Fox News Channel, which enjoyed its best quarter ever in ratings, and down for both MSNBC and CNN.
CNN.com is investing in Outside.In, a start-up that feeds neighborhood blogs and other local news and information to the Web sites of newspapers, TV stations and other media. The investment, whose size the Time Warner Inc. Web site declined to disclose, comes as news organizations seek more local information about high school sports, eateries and social events, in which they see an untapped market.
As you likely know, Tiger Woods was in an accident under apparently mysterious circumstances early Friday morning. Predictably, the reports and reactions thereto pertaining varied somewhat in quality and timeliness, and predictably, this has led to paroxysms of futurist glee in some and sullen condemnation by others. Now that the smoke has cleared, we can examine the event, which is certainly worth a little inspection despite its obvious triviality, with a little perspective. I’m not going to speculate on Woods’ injuries, the cause of the crash, or rumors of fights and affairs. I don’t care, personally. But how the information proliferated makes for interesting dissection. And the fun part is that there’s something for everybody’s agenda! Many will choose to ignore or emphasize unduly one party’s role in this drama, but the fact is that it very neatly exposes both the strengths and weaknesses of both traditional and so-called new media. I hope you’re sitting comfortably.
Every trend requires a spark, an event that serves as a catalyst to galvanize a series of actions that reverberate throughout society. Twitter has surely experienced its share of incremental touchstones that continually propels the service across deeper oceans of users and followers. One such instance would ultimately represent the bridge for “crossing the chasm” into the teen demographic. The celebrity adoption of Twitter, en masse, may indeed symbolize the stimulus necessary to reach and recruit the youth onto Twitter. At it’s forefront was a much publicized race between Ashton Kutcher and CNN. Kutcher, either intentionally or unknowingly, would become was the accidental Pied Piper for attracting America’s youth to Twitter.
CNN.com on Monday unveils a major overhaul designed to make the site more visual, socially oriented and content rich. Using language such as “reiminaging” “beautiful” and “visually arresting,” CNN.com svp and general manager K.C. Estenson presented the new look to reporters and advertisers during a press event held at Time Warner Center on Thursday night. “This is a revolution for us,” he said. To date, CNN has been a “largely text-driven site” that in the eyes of consumers is “a machine that spits out breaking news. We challenged ourselves to change,” he said.
Balloon Boy, Kanye West and Lady Gaga Walk into a bar. Bartender says, "Hey, wait a second -- how old is that kid? You can't bring a kid in here!" Lady Gaga says nothing and just tries to keep a poker face, but you can tell she's pissed that the kid is getting all the attention. Kanye West says, "Yo Bartender, Imma let you finish, but ..." -- but then the bartender, fumbling with his cellphone, says, "Actually, hold that thought, I've gotta get a TwitPic of this!" First, though, he starts to tweet "Balloon Boy, Kanye West and La" -- but before he can finish, I grab the phone out of his hands and smash it to the ground while screaming, "Stop it!! For the love of God, just STOP IT!!" On Monday, I published a column about how the rapid dissemination of misinformation through Twitter and other real-time social media is increasingly causing a "general derangement of reality" that's "becoming more and more endemic to the way we consume information and communicate -- and think -- now." And that that social-media-enabled nonsense filtered back "through the prism of the worst of the old media -- particularly cable news channels and talk radio" -- is making us all a little bit nuts.
Although a bit late to the party, CNN has made a decisive entry into the mobile news space with a well-designed iPhone app with that costs $2 to download, nothing to use and makes it easier for citizen journalists to file their own video news reports from the field. And in choosing a middle ground in the free/fee debate CNN is carving out a niche that extends their free online offerings to the fast-growing mobile platform while charging something for the work that goes in to developing for the iPhone platform — and there are ads too.
This past weekend the Twitterverse spoke-out in exasperation and opposition against traditional media networks (CNN specifically) and the absence of instantaneous coverage of the Iranian election and the resulting fallout. “We the people” wanted real-time information regarding the violent protests that erupted on the streets of Iran and the stories probing potential foul play in the results. We took to Twitter to express discontent and to also uncover the real story as it was unfolding live through citizen journalism. The world was watching…and it did so on Twitter and not CNN or any other news network.
It all started at 10:40 p.m. on an otherwise quiet Sunday night. After talking about the Iranian election on and off for several hours, I saw a tweet in my Twitter feed that pointed out CNN's failure to cover the story. As an obviously rigged election in one of the world's most important countries was being perpetrated, America's oldest 24-hour news network was reporting primarily on consumers' problems in this country with digital TVs.
Separate incidents involving CNN, Amazon and Domino's Pizza reveal that fluency in the evolving language of digital public relations comes easier to some companies than others.
Every day, with everything they do, the key question for journalists and news organizations in these tight - that is, more efficient - times must be: Are you adding value? And if you’re not, why are you doing whatever you’re doing? Sitting in a hotel room, cruising by CNN the other day, I caught a behind-the-scenes segment that wanted to show us just how cool it is to be a reporter dashing from story to story. It did the opposite for me. I was disturbed at the waste.
Citizen journalism has become tightly integrated with many cable news programs, whether it’s simply soliciting the audience for tweets or more robust projects like CNN’s iReport or Fox News’ uReport. The latter is now getting on MySpace (also owned by Fox News parent company News Corp), giving the cable channel another big medium to get submissions from potential uReporters.
It started as a simple and seemingly harmless contest. Who would be the first person on Twitter to reach 1,000,000 followers? This wasn’t yet another follower push open to just anyone on Twitter however, not even the Weblebrities who helped propel the popular micro community to an emerging, iconic pop culture status; it was (and at the moment, still is) a race between the world’s most visible celebrities and prominent media brands. It started when Ashton Kutcher, a television and movie star who’s also keenly astute and observant to the promise of new media challenged CNN and its founder, Ted Turner to the race. It was the match heard round the blogosphere, twitterverse and statusphere.
CNN.com and Facebook on Feb. 24 will attempt to replicate their wildly successful live streaming/commenting collaboration as seen during President Barack Obama’s inauguration, as the site ramps up coverage of the new president’s much-anticipated State of the Union Address.
K. C. Estenson, the new general manager of CNN.com, has a thought or two about most news sites on the Web: they’re predictable and homogeneous. Seen one, seen ’em all. Even his own site, he says, could use more of a “unique signature.”
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