TV DOOMSDAY:  First up today is a comprehensive look at the declining trend of traditional “set top” television viewership in the US.  We know video content is migrating to digital distribution channels like DVR, VOD and Connected TV.  We also know Nielsen is scrambling to catch their measurement system up by releasing its Television Total Audience Measurement product next April.  So just how bad is it getting for traditional TV?  Check out the Marketing Charts link below.  The article gets really technical, so I’ve pulled out the money graph.  It shows overall TV viewership decline by demo over the past five years.  Over that period Teen viewership has declined by 36% and 18-24 yos have declined by 39%.  Fair to say traditional TV has a youth problem?  Ouchy! http://www.marketingcharts.com/television/are-young-people-watching-less-tv-24817/

THAT’S ONE HUGE THUMBPRINT:  Spotify has been in the news lately with some copycat stations based on listeners’ playlist curation.  While this makes for a nice headline it doesn’t necessarily equate to usage.  For mainstream adoption of personalized stations look no further than Pandora’s Thumbprint Radio success.  In less than a year since TR’s launch, listeners a have consumed 5.5 billion songs on their Thumbprint stations.  That’s enough music for every human on the Earth 13+ to listen to at least one Thumbprint song.  Now that’s a stat worth covering!  https://www.cnet.com/au/news/pandora-thumbprint-radio-breaks-5-5-billion-spins/

HOW EXTREME ARE YOU?:  Finally this week, I want to share an article which really resonates with me.  As many of you know, I’m a compulsive early bird.  Throughout my career I’ve gotten out of bed before the alarm clock goes off because I’m genuinely excited about the day ahead.  Whether it was beating the morning show guys into the radio station during my 20s, or writing this blog in the wee hours during my 40s, I’ve always used the hour or two before the world gets moving to help get ahead of the day.  Well it turns out I’m not alone!  Check out the early morning routine of these Navy SEALS turned leadership consultants.  They see the benefit of waking up early as more than just extra time to get things done.  It’s a way to build and maintain personal discipline and achieve what they call “Extreme Ownership” of one’s life.  Granted, doing burpees in your hotel room at 5:00a until you vomit might not be for everyone.  But pushing yourself just a little harder can benefit anyone.  Consider that the average American has 230 work days in a year.  If you wake up just 30 minutes earlier each day what could you do with the extra 115 hours per year?  That would be enough time for a hell of a lot of burpees! http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-seals-why-waking-up-early-matters-2016-9

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

ANA LAYS DOWN THE LAW:  There were more fireworks at Ad Week in NY around the topic of agency fee transparency.  This time it was comments from Tony Pace, Chairman of the ANA.  His main point was to dismiss the 4As’ attempt to self-police it’s member agencies by imposing best practice guidelines.  Instead Mr. Pace asserted that agency transparency should be dealt with “on a marketer-to-agency basis versus having a global solution, because of the different perspectives in the membership of 4As”.  Translation – if you work at an agency expect to have your feet held to the fire on fee transparency across all the media services you provide to a client.  So get ready for more agency reviews, invoice audits and general tension in these relationships.  Can we just go back to three martini lunches with Don Draper already?!?  http://adage.com/article/special-report-advertising-week/ana-media-transparency-issues-solved-individually/306068/

DIGITAL AUDIO MOMENTUM:  AdAge and The Trade Desk are out with a very rosy forecast on the future of Digital Audio.  In yesterday’s coauthored release they predicted Digital Audio’s % of “media strategy” will double from 7.5% to 14.8% in just two years.  % of Media Strategy is a loose term based on how often Digital Audio will be included in companies’ marketing plans.  Right now the % of Digital Audio spend is still very nascent – just 1-1.5% of overall media, depending on who you ask.  But even a doubling of this small % would be an amazing growth trajectory for the entire sector.  The latter part of this article focuses on audio programmatic as the vehicle by which Digital Audio will grow.  Given that the Trade Desk (a prominent DSP) helped pen this study, you’ve gotta take this with a grain of salt.  Programmatic buying becoming more widespread for audio . . . yes.  Programmatic the key to all audio sales in the future . . . probably not so much.  http://rainnews.com/digital-audio-advertising-to-double-in-two-years-keyed-to-programmatic-survey/

IN-APP LEADER BOARD:  The following Business Insider article was written to highlight Snapchat’s ascension into the list of top In-App Mobile publishers.  The main takeaway is that the list is utterly dominated by the Big 2 – FB and Google.  And while many want to give Snapchat the 2016 shiny new toy award, it’s worth noting Pandora is still standing strong at #8 on the list.  In fact Pandora is the only publisher in the top 9 which is NOT owned by FB or Google.  In this age of digital consolidation it’s cool there’s still room at the top for independent companies who are focused on their own mission, and not just part of a larger internet juggernaut.  http://www.businessinsider.com/snapchat-top-mobile-apps-chart-2016-9

A VERY MOBILE CHRISTMAS:  And finally today, eMarketer has increased its holiday eCommerce forecast to +17% YoY, for a total of $885B.  That’s an amazing number considering overall holiday spending is only expected to increase 3-4% tops.  The real shocker is inside the numbers though.  eMarketer is predicting more will be purchased via smartphone than tablet this holiday season.  If true, Holiday’17 will be known as the beginning of the mCommerce era.  Who needs old fashioned eCommerce anyways?!?  http://radioink.com/2016/09/27/prediction-holiday-ecommerce-sales-jump-17-2/

Have a great Thursday guys!

iHEART’S NATIONAL DEBT:  Here’s a fun factoid to get your day started . . . . iHeart is asking to borrow more money.  This time it’s another $500M, which will buy them about 18 months of operating time at their current net loss level.  They’ll need to pay senior debt holders $8.6M just for permission to borrow another half a billion.  And you thought your bookie was tough!  If iHeart gets approval to borrow the additional money their total leverage will grow to ~$22.5B.  By comparison, if iHeart were its own country this amount would rank their national debt at #72 on the global debt rankings list.  So basically they’ll be in worse shape financially than Cuba!  Does this make Bob Pittman the Fidel Castro of radio?!?  (sorry)  http://www.insideradio.com/free/iheart-requests-debt-load-increase/article_58523ef0-84f5-11e6-85e8-3b0179c5f322.html

YOUTH MARKETING VIA ENGAGEMENT:  The following is a great showcase article from Mobile Marketer on Pandora’s ability to reach Gen Zers.  In the piece Heidi Browning articulates the importance of engagement as a marketing vehicle to reach youth demos.  The logic trail is sound – Gen Zers and the younger half of Millennials are more cross-connected than ever before.  This interactivity makes them time poor and fragments marketers’ ability to create a brand identity with this group.  The solution is time spent . . . or in another word, engagement.  Marketers can harness the power of publishers who command engagement with younger consumers, and break through the media clutter to effectively story tell and relationship build.  We’ve been beating the engagement drum for a while now, but I’d argue it’s more relevant today than ever before.  http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/news/music/23694.html

INSIDE THE MIND OF IOVINE:  I thought I would leave you today with a fascinating Buzzfeed interview featuring Apple Music’s Jimmy Iovine.  It’s a fairly complex piece, so save it for when you have a quiet 15 minutes.  In it, Jimmy touts the accomplishments of Apple Music (of course), but also gets introspective on the challenges.  The most poignant comments are in the middle of the article, when Jimmy discusses the need to appease artists, labels and consumers – not an easy trifecta to solve for.  He also gets real on the issue of exclusives, and what life could be like for Apple Music in a post-exclusive world.  No real sales point to this article, but good to understand the mindset and motivations of a prominent player in the music ecosystem.  https://www.buzzfeed.com/reggieugwu/inside-apple-musics-second-act?utm_term=.mh7KqLzEx#.xc4BV3ayp

Have a great Wednesday guys!

ANYONE WANT TO BUY A BIRDIE?:  This video link in this article is a little dated from Friday, but I still think it’s worth sharing.  There’s much speculation in the Silicon Valley that a tech services company like Salesforce or a tech biggie like Google, or even an entertainment company like Disney might be looking to acquire Twitter.  This is in line with the “dance partner” theory in the wake of Microsoft’s recent acquisition of LinkedIn.  The Valley and The Street alike know there’s value in Twitter’s existing social network and 100Mish registered user base.  It’s just a matter of who’s willing to pair up at the right price.  It’ll be interesting to watch this one play out.  http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/23/twitter-may-receive-formal-bid-shortly-suitors-said-to-include-salesforce-and-google.html?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWWpWaE1Ua3dOV0l6WVRkbCIsInQiOiJ2MFhGbmVrRnUzOUhWdUx4Z1RmZDRQNU9kQWh0V3ErK1g0VHduSnRLekVueEp6YnZ1VzA5WHEyeG5vTHZkeHNaOGQzK1hYNml3NFR2OUNkT2xoSCsrZjZPWHdKMjRkNjF6N3ZIazFaaGNkST0ifQ%3D%3D

THE STATE OF SOCIAL:  Continuing with today’s Social theme, check out this link from AdAge.  It’s an all-in 101 on today’s Social landscape expressed across nine graphs.  The overall usage graph below shouldn’t be surprising – with 5-6 lead dogs (if you include Pintrest).  Perhaps the most shocking data is that 5^th graph, showing FB’s dominance with ~75% of total Social ad spending in the US.  What’s even crazier is that AdAge’s Datacenter predicts FB’s share of Social rev will even go higher in 2017 and 2018 . . . nice to be the king, eh?  I think graph 7 is also interesting, showing the rapid increase of mobile usage across all Social platforms.  Tons of good info to chomp on here!  http://adage.com/article/news/social-media-poster/305631/

THE POWER OF ADDRESSABILITY:  Over the past few months Pandora has introduced addressability into the audio conversation.  In its simplest form addressability separates overall scale for the portion of an audience advertisers can actually reach.  The following AdWeek article takes the benefits of addressable TV one step further, by espousing advantages in efficiency, ROI tracking, and following viewers across multiple devices.  Of course this all derives from having a registered viewer base, so advertisers can pinpoint who they’re reaching vs. buying a show whose audience fits the demo of their customer.  The argument for addressable TV creates the perfect roadmap for addressable audio, since streamers with registered listeners can target their audience in the same way.  In my mind, addressable advertising isn’t just a “nice to have” part of your sell, it’s table stakes all publishers and broadcaster must bring if they want to compete on tomorrow’s media battlefield.  http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/5-things-you-should-know-about-addressable-ads-more-dollars-shift-digital-173653

Have a great Tuesday guys!

FB VIDEO FIASCO:  It appears the new trend in digital media is to self-admit a mistake you’ve made and hope people will forgive you for the honesty.  Facebook is testing the boundaries of this theory with Friday’s disclosure that they grossly over exaggerated the amount of time users were spending watching video ads OVER THE PAST TWO YEARS.  What?!?  The mistake seems like a pretty crafty one.  In simple terms, average time spent should be the total time watching videos divided by the total number of views.  However, FB was only counting videos watched for more than three seconds in the calculation.  And by only counting the longer view sessions the average time spent went up . . . of course.  Then FB projected that stat across all their video views as they sold video ads, despite the fact that the 1-3 second views were conveniently omitted.  For a company as sophisticated as FB it’s hard to believe this could just happen by mistake.  http://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-overestimated-key-video-metric-for-two-years-1474586951

EVERYBODY’S GETTING IN THE ON-DEMAND SANDBOX:  On Friday the rumors about iHeart’s pending two-tiered on-demand service came to fruition, with a January launch announcement.  This is the ultimate me too move following Pandora, even down to the price points and naming conventions used.  However, one unique wrinkle is the functionality allowing listeners to save a song they’re hearing on an iHeart station directly to their on-demand play list.  This is a smart move since the vast majority of iHeart’s digital audience is just an extension of their broadcast listening.  As for incremental listeners who just want on-demand, iHeart doesn’t have much in the way of competitive differentiation to offer.  So I doubt this will be a game changer in the industry.  http://rainnews.com/iheartmedia-confirms-on-demand-two-flavors-january-launch/

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE #1:  Last week I referenced a MusicWatch study showing that Pandora commands 30% of all the internet music streaming in the United States.  TechTimes has conveniently packaged this data up into a killer article for the P.  The disparity between Pandora’s scale and especially Apple’s is startling.  I think the buying community perceives this to be a much closer horse race than it really is.  Make sure you circulate this to all your buyers and clients!  http://www.techtimes.com/articles/178538/20160921/new-data-shows-pandora-has-fifteen-times-more-u-s-streams-weekly-than-apple-music-which-is-tied-with-soundcloud-and-vevo.htm

Have a great Monday guys!

DENTSU DISCLOSURE:  As a follow up to yesterday’s post on the 4As’ move to create fee transparency standards for its member agencies, Dentsu just self-announced “irregularities” in some of the digital business it’s placed for Toyota.  On the surface this sounds bad, but it’s actually being lauded as a major step in the right direction since it’s one of the few times a HC has proactively admitted to something like this.  What’s more interesting is that the Dentsu disclosure appears to be the first of several similar announcements agencies will make in the coming months.  Moves like this may actually clear the air and lead to a healthy level of fee transparency between agencies and their clients.  More to come on this topic, I’m sure.  http://adage.com/article/agency-news/ana-applauds-dentsu-mum-reports-major-marketer-audits/305981/

CONNECTED CAR BATTLE:  At this week’s NAB Radio Show in Nashville Scott Burnell, an engineering exec from Ford, conducted an interview-style presentation on radio’s position in the connected car head units of the future.  The assessment must have been very sobering for the broadcasters, as it was very positive for the streamers.  In particular check out Mr. Burnell’s responses to questions 4 and 5.  The idea that it’s now a level playing field, where in-car listeners can choose whatever content they want to listen to, is welcome news for any in-dash players who’ve battled radio’s incumbency for years.  And what’s most exciting is Ford’s commitment to place holding between drives.  In other words, if you were listening to Pandora when you turned the car off you’ll hear Pandora when you turn the car back on.  Now that would truly be a level playing field!  http://radioink.com/2016/09/22/radios-place-dash/

TRAVELERS BEWARE:  Recently Forbes polled its readers to determine the 20 worst business travel mistakes you can make.  I thought it might be fun to end the week with a share-and-compare from this list.  I travel almost every week, so I figured it would make sense for me to go first.  From the attached list I have fallen victim to 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 (worst story ever), 7, 9, 10 (I’ll never learn), 14, 15, 16, 17, and 18.  In fact, most of the top 20 mistakes I haven’t made involve international travel, which I normally don’t do.  So I’m guilty on 13 of the 20 top mistakes.  Can anyone top that?!?  http://www.forbes.com/sites/laurabegleybloom/2016/09/21/the-20-worst-mistakes-you-can-make-on-a-business-trip/#47d190b9711f

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

STREAMING TSL:  Yesterday MusicWatch released an interesting data set on US music consumption via the internet.  What’s notable here is that the percentages aren’t just between the pureplays, but also include video music consumption from publishers like YouTube.  The headline is strong for Pandora – with 30% of overall online listening time.  It’s also good to see the gap between ad supported Pandora (27%) and free trial Spotify (11%).  The roughly 2.5-1 ratio is in line with Pandora’s addressability research, which shows 81M addressable listeners on Pandora vs. 33M on Spotify.  Good to know the numbers jive!  http://www.musicwatchinc.com/russ-crupnick/pandora-tops-rapidly-changing-us-music-streaming-market/

PODCASTING’S DOWNLOAD DILEMMA:  At this week’s NAB Radio Show in Nashville it’s safe to say podcasting is THE hot topic.  With more focus on podcasting’s content value, broadcasters and streamers alike are trying to solve the monetization piece of the puzzle.  Not surprisingly, Nielsen is nosing in with a proposed podcast measurement system.  This fits within Nielsen’s goal to measure all things audio, but I believe they’re focusing on the wrong part of the podcasting equation.  As you’ll see in this Radio Ink article, Nielsen is going to great lengths to develop and install SDKs which can track if/when a downloaded podcast is listened to.  They’re doing this to solve clients’ question about actually knowing an ad within a podcast is heard, because downloading doesn’t automatically mean listening to a podcast.  The work around, of course, is streaming.  When a podcast is streamed clients know who is listening and if they actually consumed the podcast.  This level of insight is available today on platforms like Pandora, and it doesn’t even require a Nielsen SDK.  http://radioink.com/2016/09/21/nielsen-measure-podcasts-2017/

THE 4As TAKES MATTERS INTO THEIR OWN HANDS:  And finally, we have another update in the back and forth between the 4As and the ANA on the issue of fee transparency within agencies and holding companies.  As you’ll recall, the ANA (client side) has accused some agencies of burying fees or hidden margins in the newer ad on services holding companies have built over the years.  The 4As (agency side), obviously disagrees.  In its latest move, the 4As is refusing to follow the transparency guidelines proposed by the ANA in July.  Instead, the 4As issued its own guidelines and is telling member agencies if they don’t follow the terms they can be kicked out of the group.  Obviously there’s still a ton of tension around the topic, and I don’t think we’ve heard the last of it.  But at least you have the latest.  http://adexchanger.com/agencies/4as-cracking-transparency-terms/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTUdVeFpXUTFZamMxTkdZdyIsInQiOiJzV25QOU1ua29wSmhiMkVxUTJxbEhcL1VXdlNneDhReFc1TjVud0tOb3B1aWdTeEkzK1NYYUhxMWtIU3laWGVkVlwvWkJacVNRbWlnSEczOE9qVll2QzFySG9VRFZ0Q3ZBOTJqME5aNjZPanRBPSJ9

Have a great Thursday guys!

THE POWER OF IXI:  First up today, some great press around Pandora’s newly onboarded IXI data capabilities.  Because IXI is owned by Equifax it possess detailed information on every credit card purchase and almost half of the wealth savings data in the United States (sort of creepy, I know).  By matching IXI to registered user data, Pandora can surgically target consumers down to the street they live on, and yield extremely advanced FS audience segments.  Our very own Jordan Bick does a nice job of laying out IXI’s benefits to advertisers in this article.  The entire FS team (and their pods) have been trained in accessing this data for MPs.  So if you need help with IXI don’t hesitate to phone a FS friend!  http://adexchanger.com/data-exchanges/ad-platforms-onboard-equifaxs-ixi-attract-financial-services-advertisers/

STREAMING KEEPING THE LIGHTS ON:  Over the past month we’ve seen positive 1H earnings from the record labels on the strength of increased streaming royalties.  Now the RIAA is weighing in with the industry’s aggregated data.  In a word, streamings impact on the labels and their artists is MASSIVE!  The combination of on-demand royalties from pureplays like Spotify and Apple, combined with Pandora’s complusory royalty payments through SoundExchange, climbed to $1.6B for just the first six months of 2016.  That amount now represents 47% of the US record industry’s total revenue.  Over the coming quarters expect this percentage to go even higher.  http://rainnews.com/riaa-subscription-streaming-revenue-doubled-in-u-s-for-h1-2016/

STATE OF THE STATE:  And finally, yesterday I attended the RAIN conference in Nashville.  RAIN’s Editor, Kurt Hanson, kicked off the day with a keynote on the state of the streaming industry.  Perhaps the most interesting assurtion Kurt made is that by 2020 more total hours of music will be consumed via stream than broadcast in the US.  Maybe Kurt is being a little aggressive on the four-year timetable.  But it’s safe to say this could happen by 2022-23.  Inside Radio does a nice job of summarizing Kurt’s presentation in the link below.  Give it a read!  http://www.insideradio.com/free/rain-s-hanson-sees-positives-in-streaming-growth/article_a8613032-7f72-11e6-a37f-3fc67d89693d.html

Have a great Wednesday guys!

TV RATINGS UNIFICATION?:  Big news out of the Nielsen camp yesterday, as they gave a firm timetable for the release of their Television Total Audience Measurement product.  Over the past few years Nielsen has been trying to unify the video measurement landscape to create apples-to-apples ratings across TV, DVR, VOD and Connected TV.  All the while the TV networks have been screaming for this as their content consumption is getting more and more fragmented across the new technologies.  Nielsen is also trying to unify the Audio side with its still-in-the-works Digital Audio Measurement Platform.  Given that TV moves about a decade ahead of Radio with most tech advances, the radio broadcasters shouldn’t be holding their breath just yet.  http://www.adweek.com/news/television/nielsen-will-complete-its-total-audience-measurement-rollout-march-173586

IHEART TRIES COPYCATTING:  This morning the NY Post is reporting that iHeart is plans to announce the creation of new on-demand streaming options at (surprise) $5 and $10 per month.  If this happens it’ll be a direct reaction to last week’s announcements by Pandora.  The only thing which doesn’t really add up in the report is the fact that iHeart still needs to sign it’s label-direct licensing deals, yet they plan on announcing this week.  Those babies usually take weeks, if not months, to negotiate – so the timing seems off. I guess we shall see.  http://nypost.com/2016/09/20/iheartmedia-to-launch-spotify-music-streaming-competitor/

SWIMMING IN A DATA LAKE:  Warning on this last article – it’s like the double black diamond of data topics.  In it, the author lays out the case for “Data Laking” as the next progression in AdTech evolution.  In its simplest form a Data Lake is an anonymized collection of user data that’s derived from first party audience data and third party segment matches, and then optimized through usage.  A filled Data Lake can be extremely valuable to advertisers who want to buy prepackaged audience segments from the lake, and run those segments on any publisher or ad network they choose.  While it takes much more than the first party publisher to make Data Laking work, the whole ecosystem puts tremendous value on the originating publisher.  So publishers with scale, registered users, and a heavy mobile footprint (for the Device IDs) become even more essential in this model.  Thinking this is a good trend for the Mighty P . . .  should we have a naming contest for Pandora’s Data Lake?!?  http://adexchanger.com/the-sell-sider/first-party-data-lake/?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWkRCalltSXdNemt4TUdJNSIsInQiOiJrT3Yzenh3MWd4UTFlNE40MFQyS2VhMWx2bXU1KzNmUzVFZ096SHI2NVFDb1ErdDhGSnpPdytONzZ0dElCY2lFOTFBRDMrXC9jcnA5dGVYaDR3Z0JsOWNtZ3NnOUtuT0xmWWczU2hHbklaT2M9In0%3D

Have a great Tuesday guys!

BE A DATA REFINER:  To kick things off I’d like to share an interview I saw over the weekend featuring Publicis Chief Strategy Officer Rishad Tobaccowala.  This is an example of thought leadership 101 on the impact smart phones are having on our industry.  Mr. Tobaccowala puts forth two provocative points in the interview.  First, we’re only at the dawn of the Age of Empowerment – with consumers feeling the full impact of mobile technology over just the last 1,000 days.  And second, that data unto itself isn’t valuable – those who refine the data are the key to making it meaningful to marketers.  The way he compares data refining to the oil industry is spot on.  Good stuff to warm up the brain cells for the work week!  http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/publicis-chief-strategist-outsize-impact-mobile-phones-have-had-advertising-173518

MORE LICENSING PRESSURE:  It looks like all of Pandora’s label deals from the past week have relit the fire under Spotify to get their licensing house in order.  The following Bloomberg article accurately lays out the mousetrap they’re in.  Spotify says it needs to give listeners free trials in order to drive new subscription growth.  But labels hate the freemium model, and want to charge more in royalties per song than Spotify is willing or able to pay.  While this standoff ensues Spotify burns through cash and is unable to mounts a successful IPO.  It’ll be interesting to see who blinks first.  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-15/spotify-is-said-to-seek-reset-in-negotiations-with-record-labels

STREAMING GOES MAINSTREAM:  And finally, Nielsen is out with their annual Music 360 report, which includes stats on what percent of time Americans spend with the different music platforms.  This report is slightly different from Edison’s Share of Ear study, since it also includes Music Video consumption.  One interesting stat from Nielsen is that 80% of music listeners engage in streaming over the course of the year – ladies and gentlemen, we’ve officially hit critical mass!  The other cool tidbit is how relatively close the combination of Streaming Programmed Audio (aka Pandora) at 11%, and Streaming On-Demand Audio (aka Spotify/Apple) at 12%, are to Radio’s 27%.  So music consumption from the pureplays is at 23% compared to 27% from broadcast radio?  Thank you for the sales ammo Nielsen!  http://rainnews.com/nielsen-80-of-americans-stream-audio/

Have a great Monday guys!