TOP DIGITAL STATS:  This week’s Top Digital Stats article from AdWeek is loaded with interesting data.  In particular check out; (#1) the amount Facebook is spending on marketing in the US, (#8) AppleMusic’s worldwide subscription growth to an estimated 27M (compared to 13M a year ago), and (#11) the specs on Google’s updated Header Bidding platform.  But the best is definitely saved for last.  Check out (#13) BrandZ’s annual rankings of the world’s most valuable brands.  This ranker isn’t done on straight market valuation, but a combination of stock value, revenues, and “financial value generated by the brand’s ability to increase purchase volume and charge a premium”.  Based on those metrics Google has now surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable brand, and Amazon has surged to #4.  It’s also interesting to note that Marlborough is still hanging in there at #12, and Tesla isn’t even on the list (yet).  Great stuff to start off the week.

BILLBOARDS BRANDING POWER PLAYERS:  The attached Billboard link provides an insightful look at the top executives shaping music from various sides of the business.  Billboard has compiled the top 57 influencers into a Branding Power Players list.  It’s one of the very few times you’ll see clients who utilize music as a pillar for their brands, alongside the labels, broadcasters and streamers who deliver the music and experiential touchpoints.  If you work in this sector of the business it’s a great reference point list to keep handy.  And for my Pandora peeps out there, check out our very own John Trimble who made the list under the Media section.  Congrats JT!

COULD THE “BROWSER ACT” UPEND DIGITAL LIFE AS WE KNOW IT?:  On Friday Congresswoman Martha Blackburn (R-TN), introduced a bill in the House called the BROWSER Act, which is an acronym for “Balancing the Rights of Web Surfers Equally and Responsibly”.  If passed the bill would require all digital publishers to get opt-in permission from users to track behavioral and location information.  This data is currently used to serve the vast majority of online advertising.  So based on the assumption that most users would not give their consent, this type of law could have a crippling effect on the digital industry.  Since most free publishers rely on ads to runs their businesses and make money, a severe reduction in ad revenue would mean a rise in subscription fees to make up for this loss.  End result . . . get ready to pay for Facebook and other sites, says opponents of the bill.  There’s quite a bit of nuanced political back and forth on either side of this argument which Business Insider deconstructs in the attached link.  My gut says this bill won’t go anywhere, but it’s an eye opener to know that this kind of possibility is out there.

Have a great Monday guys!

TRITON WEBCAST METRICS RATINGS:  Yesterday Triton released its March’17 Webcast Metrics Ratings.  Overall streaming consumption increased 3% from Feb’17, and an impressive 13% YoY.  The biggest story inside the numbers was Pandora’s sharp upturn.  Since Triton doesn’t differentiate between free ad-supported and subscription based streaming listening, the Pandora bump is most likely due to the full rollout of its Premium service on March 14^th.  Keep in mind as you digest these numbers that this is a March reporting period, so it only accounts for Premium in half the month.  So expect Pandora’s 2,137,000 Average Active Session #, which is already its second highest month ever, to grow over the next few months.

FB GOING AFTER TV BUDGETS IN A FRIENDLIER WAY:  Up until now Facebook has generally taken a competitive stance against TV by touting its reach over the individual networks.  But in a change of strategy this week Kantar released a FB-funded study showing the marketing benefits of combining traditional TV and FB on a single media plan.  So why the pivot?  Since FB is beginning to ramp up its TV-like video content offering they’re trying to position themselves as an enhancer to any TV buy.  If successful this will earn FB a seat at the TV budget table, just like any other network.  Positioning TV as more of a frienemy than an adversary is a savvy move given that traditional TV still commands the second largest budget pool in media (just behind digital).  So why not dip a toe in that water too?

WEEKEND INSPIRATION:  It’s relatively easy for managers to look like great leaders when things are going well.  But true leadership is usually revealed when times get tough.  For this Friday’s Weekend Inspiration I’d like to share an article I came across in Inc.com.  The piece includes three examples of leadership under duress from the CEOs of Microsoft, Starbucks, and Amazon.  The common denominator of all three examples is a willingness of these leaders to own the problem (whether it be internal or external), be completely transparent (no sugar coating), and focus on finding a solution (instead of just dwelling on the problem).  It’s also remarkable that all three examples came from org-wide emails directly to their staffs, and not just prettied up press releases.  Together these examples provide a road map for what it takes to be a truly great leader even on the rainy days.  Keep this in mind the next time the clouds start to gather.

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

PANDORA BEATING AMAZON AT ITS OWN STREAMING GAME:  As music consumption continues to grow on IoT connected devices such as voice activated home speakers, there’s more and more data come out on which streaming music services are being listened to.  The early clear winner on this new frontier is Pandora.  According to MusicWatch the streamer commands 43% of total listening time on Amazon Echo/Dot, with all other competitors sharing the other half of the listening.  This stat was punctuated by Pandora’s Tim Westergren in a keynote address during a Music Label conference this week, as covered in the attached CNET link.  Pandora’s lead on Amazon devices underscores the power of music portability, where listeners decide for themselves what to listen to on any particular device.  Despite the fact that Amazon makes it very easy for listeners to use their music service on the Echo/Dot speakers, people are still choosing the Pandora workaround in overwhelming numbers.  This will be a great segment to keep an eye on as listening via connected CE devices continues to surge.

MORE SIGNS OF MOBILE DOMINATION:  PwC is out with its annual business forecast of the Entertainment and Media industries.  This report it a technical monster, so I’ll give you some highlights around digital advertising.  In 2016 there was $72B in digital media spending in the US, and that number is expected to surge to $116B over the next five years  – that’s an impressive 10% CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) for an already-established industry.  Mobile is the chief driver of this growth, accounting for just over 50% of the digital spending in 2016.  By 2021 PwC estimates mobile ad spending will comprise a staggering 75% of digital spending.  Put those two data points together and you have a forecast of $87B in US mobile ad spending by 2021.  Based on those numbers I’d say the days of brands needing a “mobile marketing strategy” are over, because mobile will be the only viable marketing strategy in the very near future!

THE BREWING BROWSER BATTLE:  There are some interesting developments occurring behind the scenes with Apple’s and Google’s browser platforms.  This is complicated but important stuff, so stay with me.  In coincidental moves both companies have announced new restrictions in the type of third party publisher ads they’ll run.  In Apple’s case they’ll now block autoplay video ads and behavioral tracking on its Safari browser.  Google is going one step further by self-policing and blocking what it determines are intrusive ads on its Chrome browser.  By doing this both companies are setting up de facto ad blockers on their platforms.  Why do this?  The public fluff rationale is to improve their UXs with fewer intrusive ads which annoy users and slow page load times.  But the more nuanced explanation is a combination of savvy business moves.  Apple’s play is pretty straightforward – they want to control a limited set of ad formats on its platform and prevent third parties from scraping their users’ behavioral data.  Google’s modus operandi goes one step further – they’re trying to incentivize publishers to use their ad tech specs by downgrading non-compliant ads they deem annoying, and simultaneously make a preemptive strike against third party ad blockers (because why would you need an ad blocker for Chrome if Google polices it for you, right?)  I’ve dug up two articles which explain these moves.  The attached Digiday link explains the basics on both situations, while attached Vox link goes way deep on Google’s plan.  Welcome to the deep end of the digital pool!

Have a great Thursday guys!

MORE THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ON THE SUBJECT OF AUDIO:  I often write about the power of audio as an advertising medium and the transformative moment we’re living in right now when Voice is supplanting Touch as the primary input method in an IoT connected world.  I can now happily say another industry expert, Gary Vaynerchuk, agrees with me.  Mr. Vaynerchuk is the CEO of Vayner Media and is also an accomplished blogger, podcaster and a NYT Bestselling Author.  In the attached Medium link he echoes the argument about the rise of Digital Audio, even beyond what the industry is currently seeing with Digital Video.  Beyond just the music side of streaming, Mr. Vaynerchuk makes the point that original audio content, like podcasts, will become the primary way listeners consume on-demand audio in the very near future.  I especially enjoyed that last paragraph about Voice being the most natural human interface of all, and his call to arms for fellow podcasters to start producing more original audio content.  Inspiring stuff!

SNAP GETTING INTO LOCATION TRACKING:  Late Monday news broke that Snap, Inc. (Snapchat’s parent co) had agreed to acquire the location tracking firm Placed for $200M.  A few years ago Placed was the clear leader in cell-based panels which could loosely tie in-store visits to attribution using lat/long tracking.  Recently the sector has gotten fairly crowded, with even more powerful location platforms like Foursquare starting to lead in the space.  For Snap the acquisition gives them a proprietary AdTech solution for lat/long targeting and measurement.  It fits pretty much in line with their “gingerbread man strategy” of running as fast, fast, fast as they can in several directions at once.  It will be interesting to see if they can successfully weave Placed into their overall strategy and see some ROI on this $200M investment.

“ONE BIG EGG” SYNDROME:  Last month P&G announced it was ending its data management deal with AudienceScience after a seven year relationship, in favor of new deal with DSP competitor Neustar.  For me the Why behind P&G’s decision to end the contract is less important than the lesson it teaches about the value of client diversification.  For the first 10 years of its existence AudienceScience had a relatively diverse base of CPG clients on their roster.  But as the P&G relationship grew they started to shed more and more of their other work, which made them completely dependent on one master client.  The risk associated with this type of setup literally became AudienceScience’s downfall, as explained in the attached AdExchanger link.  Because once P&G pulled their biz it was too late for AudienceScience to pivot into other account pitches to fill the gap.  This left no billable work to do, and therefore no income or value in the company.  Unfortunately the move resulted in the shuttering of the entire company which put over 200 AdTech professionals out of their jobs.  The demise of AudienceScience is a cautionary tale for any company (or even individual sales rep) about always making sure to have several clients of all sizes in your nest, and not put yourself in a feast or famine position with just that one big egg.

Have a great Wednesday guys!

ALL AUDIO IS NOT CREATED EQUAL:  To kick things off today I’d like to share one of the  best articulations of the advantages of Digital Audio over AM/FM Radio I’ve ever read.  It comes from Pandora’s SVP of Agency Partnerships Alan Schanzer, and it’s featured in the attached Diverge link.  For most of the last decade radio broadcasters have screamed about digital audio pureplays like Pandora, Spotify, Apple, etc. not being the same as “Radio” because they were trying to protect their legacy ad revenue.  Well they may have been right all along!  The streamers’ ability to serve audio ads in a one-to-one environment, using first party data to target individual listeners, and guarantee ad delivery makes streaming The Jetson’s compared to Fred Flintstone radio.  Listeners already know digital streaming provides a more personalized experience across a multitude of connected devices, which is why broadcast radio TSL keeps declining as Digital Audio usage increases.  So it’s more important than ever for clients and agencies to understand the differences too, and continue migrating their audio dollars from broadcast to streaming in order to achieve a better ROAS on their audio investment.

APPLE GETS INTO THE HOME SPEAKER GAME:  During yesterday’s kickoff of Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference Tim Cook debuted their long-awaited voice enabled home speaker called HomePod.  The system, which looks similar to an Amazon Echo, will interface with Siri and also a generic “musicologist” who can help navigate song selections.  Households which have Apple’s HomeKit installed can also use the HomePod as the input portal for other non-Apple IoT connected devices.  On the down side HomePods won’t be available until November and are pricy at $349.  By comparison Echos are priced in the $150-200 range and feature Dot extenders for only $49.  Apple is trying to position this device as more of a premium speaker (think of a smart version of Sonos), and less of a voice-enablement platform for your home.  But this position requires listeners to want a better speaker experience then they currently hear from Echo.  Given Amazon’s considerable lead in the space and price advantage you wonder if Apple can be competitive in this sector.  There was a ton of press on this yesterday.  To give you a full spectrum of coverage here’s the TechCrunch link with a general overview, and a more in-depth coverage in this RAIN link.

IT’S OK TO SWIM WITH THE ORCAS, AS LONG AS YOU DON’T FORGET THE PLANKTON:  Finally today, here’s a life lesson in management which was gleaned during an elevator ride the author of this LinkedIn article took many years ago.  We’ve all been in the situation described at some point in our careers.  As young guns at our respective companies we had to work harder and longer than others to get ahead.  The motivation for making this sacrifice was present in our offices – the senior level Orca we would someday like to become.  In staying with the author’s marine life analogy, there’s nothing wrong with being the bottom-rung-on-the-ladder plankton, just like it can be a worthy career goal to become the mighty orca.  But orcahood (yes, that’s a made up word), comes with one responsibility . . . that you never forget where you came from.  Almost all successful executives started off as plankton and swam the same journey as today’s junior employees.  By staying connected to that past, and showing true empathy and appreciation for the bust ass work today’s plankton are doing, leaders will inspire those around them to keep pushing upward.  But the same works in reverse – forget where you came from and risk becoming the loner sea creature everyone is scared of and nobody wants to be.

Have a great Tuesday guys!

TOP DIGITAL STATS:    It’s Monday, so it must be time for another round of AdWeek’s Top Digital Stats from the past week.  While gamification doesn’t always come to mind when thinking about ad revenue, check out the combination of stats #2 and #3.  Pokemon Go is successfully monetizing itself by charging retailers who are featured in the game 15-50 cents per customer visit.  Considering PoGo still commands 20M daily users worldwide, there’s some decent scale to tap into for this rev play.  Also check out Zenith’s stat in #4 about mobile media growth.  The idea that mobile is estimated to make up 26% of all global media spending in 2019 (aka just two years from now), is a pretty startling idea for anyone in the biz.  Good stuff to chomp on first thing this AM!

GOING TO SCHOOL ON AMAZON:  Last week I featured a stat about Amazon’s budding media business, which now makes up 18% of their overall revenue.  Since then I’ve received a few questions about how they’re accomplishing this.  The attached Business Insider link does a solid job of explaining how Amazon sells ads, and then breaks down its competitive strengths along with some unique challenges.  It’s strongest play by far is search (lookout Google), since it gets real time data from customers who are looking to make a purchase.  Challenges include trying to overcome swimlaning, as most clients’ procurement teams (and not marketing teams) are in charge of the Amazon relationship, as well as fears about Amazon’s ability to create another walled garden of self-owned and managed data.  Regardless of the challenges, I’d put my money on Jeff Bezos and team to maximize this new revenue play.

IN ORDER TO STAY RELEVANT YOU NEED TO APPEAR RELEVANT:  This AdExchanger comic is pretty telling about the state of agency-driven programmatic.  With enough effort and resources clients can set up their own programmatic direct operations complete with propriety DMPs.  This is a threat to agencies – because why would you need a middle man if you can handle the transaction yourself?  To counter this trend and stay relevant agencies have set up increasingly-advanced trading desks complete with data integration, measurement, audience verification, and attribution bells and whistles.  The real play here is to create the impression that agencies have mastered a new programmatic wonderland and are living the dream within their next gen buying platform.  This leaves clients with a jarring case of FOMO, and self-perpetuates clients’ dependencies on the agency community.  Not saying some agencies don’t have a legit programmatic offering, because many do.  Regardless, it’s a savvy way for agencies to stay relevant as the buy side of media becomes more automated.

BILLBOARD BONUS COVERAGE:  Finally today, a little bonus coverage.  Did you know the current #1 song on the Billboard Top 100 chart isn’t even in English?  “Despacito” by Luis Fonsi/Daddy Yankee is a Spanish language song and it’s burning up the charts.  I have to admit, when I first heard it on an general market station I did a double take to see what I was listening to.  Just goes to show you the power of Hispanic acculturation across all music genres.

Have a great Monday guys!

SNAP GOES DOWNTOWN FOR AD REV:  Up until the moment it went public Snapchat vigorously pursued a quality over quantity approach to ad sales.  Advertisers were usually limited to national brands who spent $250K+, and typically ran custom creative which felt native to Snapchat’s user experience.  But oh how times have changed in just the three weeks since its inaugural earnings call, where revenue and user growth fell below the Street’s expectation.  Fast forward to June 1^st and it’s a whole new world for Snapchat advertising, thanks to their new self-serve API.  As noted in the attached Digiday article, Snapchat is now being flooded by direct response and app-install ads usually found on publishers who rely on ad networks over their own sales teams.  The euphemistic term for this is “non-premium ads”.  Apparently Snapchat’s need for immediate incremental revenue has lowered the quality bar enough to take these ads.  I’m wondering if this will also water down the UX enough to affect usage.

WILL “FLEXDRIVING” REINVENT THE DEALERSHIP MODEL:  Product sharing is here to stay, no doubt about it.  Whether it be ZipCar for ridesharing or Airbnb for homesharing, the idea of renting or short-term leasing is replacing larger life purchases for many consumers.  Given this trend how will the industries who sell larger durable goods, like car dealerships and real estate agents, adopt to these changes?  One early answer might just be seen in the attached Automotive News link.  The article features a NJ car dealership group, Hollman Automotive, whose strategy is to create a vehicle subscription service called Flexdrive.  The concept is like a dealership-based version of a car rental operation, where consumers can use an app to book a car from dealership inventory for weeks or months at a time.  The ownership stays with the dealership (so no title change), and the pricing is typically a flat fee of a couple hundred dollars per week.  Hollman’s plan is to go nationwide with 500+ Flexdrive dealerships.  Could this be what Car Dealerships 2.0 looks like?

WEEKEND INSPIRATION:  Some of my most widely viewed posts are longer-form weekend reads about things like leadership and business innovation.  Apparently you guys are hungry for inspiration when you have a few moments to disconnect from your in boxes!  To feed this part of your soul I’m going to start providing some Weekend Inspiration on select Fridays.  To kick things off I’d like to feature an amazing LinkedIn article about Thomas Edison.  Obviously the man was a genius . . . he literally invented the light bulb.  But just knowing someone is a genius is less important than understanding how they made the magic happen.  In Edison’s case the How came in the form of reading more because he was mostly deaf, taking power naps when he got stuck on a problem just so he could attack the challenge a different way when he awoke, and failing at something up to 10,000 times just to get to the solution.  Amazing stuff from a world changing mind.  Enjoy when you have some free time!

Have a great Friday (and weekend) guys!

TAKING YOUR WORKOUT MUSIC UP A NOTCH:  Sometimes the best new ideas are as simple as connecting preexisting dots in a new way.  That adage is on display with Pandora’s new branded radio stations featuring on-demand functionality, which is highlighted in the attached AdWeek link.  In 2016 Propel blazed a trail with Pandora by using gyroscopic technology to allow fitness enthusiasts to unlock Sponsored Listening by literally shaking their phones (which works perfectly during mid-workout).  Now Propel is taking things one step further by creating custom stations which are curated by local fitness influencers, and then allowing listeners to hit a “Power Up” button to save the song for on-demand play later.  For those who love listening to music as they work out think about this flow for a minute . . . you get to hear prepackaged playlists from wanna-be-them fitness enthusiasts, and then you have the ability to one tap save those songs to create your own best-of-you workout playlist.  It’s sort of like getting to unleash your own inner fitness instructor while keeping your day job.  So who’s ready to Power Up in their next workout?!?

RIP FM?:  Could the FM dial eventually go the way of 8-tracks or tape decks and become non-existent?  That’s the gist of a provocative guest author article in Billboard magazine.  There’s plenty of evidence to support this theory.  Station valuations are way down – 20 years ago top FMs in major markets could sell for as much as half a billion dollars and now they’re selling for under a hundred mill.  The largest broadcasters, like iHeart and Cumulus, are debt-laden behemoths who bought high during the era of broadcast consolidation in the 90s and are now trapped in a declining legacy business.  As for the product itself, not only is FM radio’s primary content (music) under attack from so many other new technologies, but now the local content side (think news/weather/traffic) are more conveniently accessed on a mobile device than waiting to hear it on the radio.  All of these ingredients are creating a recipe of disaster for a medium that was once considered a state of the art replacement to the AM band.

KEEP YOUR HUSTLE REAL:  Finally today, I LOVE this LinkedIn article on the idea of the False Hustle.  The author’s reference to Cubs’ outfielder Sammy Sosa sprinting out of the dugout to his position only to loaf around in the outfield is the perfect analogy.  Nobody, in sports or business or whatever industry, likes a showboat.  But what’s worse is the showboat who makes a point of humblebragging and then doesn’t back it up with actual work.  To check yourself on any False Hustle tendencies check out the four common traits listed in the piece – so true!  The embedded FedEx commercial is also a funny exaggeration of these personality types.  Bottom line – being a hard worker is good.  But acting like a hard worker and then not backing it up with any actual work is bad to the point of embarrassing.  So is your hustle real or false!?!

Have a great Thursday guys!

KEEPING YOUR FRIENEMIES CLOSE:  If you sell digital audio/video you probably consider broadcasters as Frienemiers, linked by market dynamics which affect all media sellers while still being tooth-and-nail competitors.  So they sort of fall in between that saying from The Godfather about “keeping your friends close and your enemies closer”.  To that end, the attached Inside Radio link provides a deep dive into the state of Broadcast Radio’s revenue position as we near the half way point of 2017.  The results so far have been mixed to slightly down.  Broadcasters are feeling the pinch of declining categories like Retail and Auto, and seeing the ripple effects of Political upheaval impacting Advocacy and Healthcare sectors.  Of all the stats in this lengthy piece the two I latched on to were -7.4% and 613,657.  The -7.4% stat is the drop in National Radio Revenue during Q1’17 vs Q1’16.  This is a bell weather indicator that national brands are fleeing radio for digital and other forms of media, which doesn’t bode well for broadcasters in the long term.  And 613,657 is the number of house ads iHeart ran across all its stations during Q1, which is up 5% over last year.  That stat is telling because broadcasters only run house ads when they have open inventory.  So intuitively iHeart sold 5% less paid ads in Q1 than 2016.  Makes you wonder why they wouldn’t just play more music to get their ratings up?!?  Regardless, this story is a great way to keep your frienemies close.

MAKING THE McAPP MEANINGFUL:  Mobile Apps have been an aspirational goal for most QSRs over the past few years. But just getting consumers to download the app isn’t enough.  Restaurants need to provide better reasons to interact on a mobile device.  Some chains like Starbucks have done a good job of integrating mobile pay at the register but still don’t have other meaningful In-App features.  Others are hopelessly lost in store locators (do you really not know where the nearest QSR is?) or mobile couponing (aka Free Small Drink Hell).  But just when you’re about to give up on QSR mobile apps comes a very interesting breakthrough from McDonald’s, as featured in the attached Motley Fool link.  McD’s in currently testing an order-ahead functionality which combines In-App ordering with lat-long tracking.  The concept is simple – consumers order from their phone, and then the selected McDs location is pinged as that mobile device gets close to the restaurant so they can start making the order.  In theory this will allow diners to skip the line and pay ahead while still enjoying a freshly made meal.  I’m sure the real world application may be a little more challenging (a mile drive time on a surface street in LA takes a little longer than the same distance in Topeka), but the concept seems like an exciting an innovative way for QSRs to deliver a real benefit through their apps.

THE BIG 5, BY THE NUMBERS:  Finally today, I came across this fascinating graphic from Business Insider on the revenue stream compositions from the five largest tech companies.  Each has a very different business model so it’s hard to make an apples to apples comparison between them.  Regardless, there are some notable observations within the media side of these numbers.  Regarding Apple, check out that 11% of revenue from Services.  Their music streaming (Apple Music) lives within this slice and is estimated to be around 10% of the Services total.  So by the power of deductive math Apple Music makes up approximately 1% of their total revenue.  It’s also worth noting Amazon’s Media business now stands at 18% of their total revenue.  Considering ad sales wasn’t even a platform for Amazon four years ago that’s a pretty impressive build rate.  It’s also worth noting Microsoft is almost completely out of the media business with just 7% of revenue coming from Ads, which is in contrast to FB who is almost entirely reliant on ad revenue at 97%.  Nothing to do with this data but good to be aware of.

Have a great Wednesday guys!

TOP (MISSPELLED) DIGITAL STATS:  To shake off the rust after the long holiday weekend I thought I’d get you reacquainted with the top digital stats of the past week, compliments of AdWeek.  While most of the points are rehashes of what I featured last week, there are some quirky misspelling stats towards the end of the piece.  Apparently people are searching for a heck of a lot of deodorant, even though most don’t know how to spell it correctly.  It’s amazing to me that “men deoderant” could be the most expensive CPC word in CPG!  I also got a kick out of #9 – apparently spelling “doughnut” boosts CTRs by 10% over the new skool “donut”.  Somebody better let Dunkin Donuts know about this ahead of National Donut Day on Thursday!

iHEART ON THE ROPES:  There’s more pain in the horizon for iHeart as debtholders continue to balk at the company’s attempts to tender (refinance) over $14B of its $21B in debt.  In iHeart’s latest try only $47M of their tendered offer was accepted by creditors, which is actually down from $86M that was agreed to in their most previous attempt.  Translation . . . fewer and fewer investors are willing to go along with iHeart’s debt restructure and are seemingly willing to let the company fall into bankruptcy, which could happen after the current exchange deadline on June 9^th.  Public companies never want to hear the term “game of chicken” used to describe its relationship with their investors, but that analogy seems to be spot on here.

BROADCAST TV 2.0:  Video’s digital transformation, and the challenges it’s created for the traditional networks, is well documented.  Overall video content consumption is up but viewership is being fragmented across hundreds (even thousands) of digital publishers.  So broadcasters are commanding a smaller slice of a larger pie than ever before.  While much energy has been exerted documenting the problem, less time has been spent on industry-wide solutions.  That’s why the attached HuffPo article is so relevant.  In it they make a simple yet effective set of recommendations for the networks to follow.  First make ratings platform agnostic by embracing uniform measurement, like Nielsen’s TCR, across all platforms.  Then as ratings metrics are standardized take advantage of the programmatic buying wave.  Despite all the hype about video programmatic only 6% of broadcast TV dollars are transacted programmatically.  And finally, sell the consumer and their associated data instead of just network ratings.  By using advances like addressable TV, networks and cable operators have the ability to know who’s watching.  Once networks aggregate this data at scale and bundle viewers into custom audience segs they’ll be able to truly compete for digital dollars and stay relevant in tomorrow’s video landscape.

Have a great Tuesday guys!