American’s Time Watching TV Hits a Record High
People may say that there’s nothing to watch on TV, but they still end up spending more time watching TV. The latest “Three Screen” report from Nielsen says that Americans have set a new record watching TV and have also increased their time online, watched more video online and increased time spent watching video on mobile devices.
According to the report the average U.S. home had their TV on 8 hours and 18 minutes per day, a record high since Nielsen began measuring TV in the 1950’s. The report doesn’t say how much of that time there was someone watching that TV.
More Info:
LA Times here
Nielsen Blog here
Nielsen Three Screen Report here
Guns N’ Roses Deal Send Fans Only to Best Buy
Another exclusivity deal hit over the weekend as Axle Rose released the first new Guns N’ Roses product in 17 years only at Best Buy Stores and on iTunes. At a time when retailers and economists are doing their rock-paper-scissors evaluations to guess what this year’s holiday sales will be like, this cd will no doubt drive customers to Best Buy.
The long delayed release called “Chinese Democracy” reportedly cost 13 million to produce. This is one of a string “available only at” deals that we’ve seen such as The Eagle’s & AC/DC at Wal-Mart, and Christina Aguilera at Target.
Don’t be fooled by all of the hype though, the upfront money is important to the performers and the traffic is important to the retailers. PopMatters.com reported that to get the exclusive deal with the Eagles last year, Wal-Mart paid the band a nonrefundable $30 million upfront for 3 million copies of its comeback CD “Long Road out of Eden.” There have been no reports of what Axle Rose may have pocketed from the Best Buy deal and he has been strangely quiet during the time leading up to the cd’s release.
The idea of course is to turn the release into an event and to hope that the exclusivity gives it the stamp of “better hurry out and buy it” in the mind of the consumers and fans. I don’t know if I’d go as far as the Best Buy PR however, who might want to watch just how much importance they put on this releases before they loose any credibility they may have. The Best Buy press release posted on MarketWatch.com calls the GN’R release “One of the most anticipated albums of all time.”
Really, of all time?
Gary Arnold, Best Buy’s senior entertainment officer gave a more down to earth statement. Arnold told the Pioneer Press, “It’s a logical step, given the challenges of breaking out from all the noise that exists in the marketplace. I think artists are trying to look for ways they can be as successful as possible.”
GN’R does have a large fan base and 17 years is quite a bit of time between releases, but if a retailer didn’t make an event out of the cd it could easily get lost in the shuffle. These “events” try to point out that the band still matters whether it does or not.
These big box deals do cut out an important group, the Independent Music Retailer. The fact that they have to sit on the sidelines as the big dollar deals are made and even resort to buying the cd’s from the big box stores to make sure they have them in stock sell them to customers is a shame. The bands can be brushed aside the second they are deemed to be not “hot” by the big box stores, but the independent reseller will be pushing their music far past the holiday shopping spree.
In a related note, the Guardian reports that The Global Times, a Chinese newspaper published by the country’s ruling Communist party, has furiously condemned Guns N’ Roses over the title of their latest album “Chinese Democracy” claiming it is an attack on their nation. The Guardian goes on to say that the article ran under the headline “American band releases album venomously attacking China” and said it was part of a western plot to “grasp and control the world using democracy as a pawn”.
Perhaps they missed the Best Buy press release…
More Info:
Reuters article here
LA Times Music Blog here
Greg Kot review here
Best Buy Press Release here
Live Commercials Make a Comeback… So You Won’t Skip Them
They’re back! Live commercials, are making a comeback on television. Now if you’re thinking this is just the television industry going retro or just wanting to show young viewers what things were like in the golden era of television, you would be wrong. The live commercial is making a comeback in a move to stop DVR owners from skipping over the spots… the TiVo effect.
The David Letterman show was the latest show to join the live commercial club last week when a live spot for the Mazda 6 was included in the show. TV Week reported that the commercial was produced by Letterman’s Worldwide Pants, using a script from Mazda. Live spots have also been incorporated into most of the late night talk shows including “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” and “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.”
Knowing that viewers can’t automatically recognize them to skip over and may even watch after they discover it is a commercial will lead to more of these live spots. Definitely look for an increase in the number of these spots as the year winds down.
The New York Times reported on a live three minute commercial broadcast in Britain earlier this year by Honda in which skydivers spelled out the word Honda… yes live. The idea the article said was to turn advertisements into events. We’ve discussed the trends of commercials here before with the web series type ads, but the idea is really to make sure viewers watch.
Last year Garmin aired a live spot on the “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” the show’s first in 14 years. In a Reuters article about the spot Steve Lovell, media sponsorship marketing manager at Garmin said, “Probably most people had no idea they were being pitched a commercial, it looked like a skit.”
Now that’s dangerous. Nothing can hold a grudge like a viewer who suddenly realizes he’s been duped into watching a commercial. That’s why Kimmel’s spots work so well. There’s no hiding the fact that it’s a commercial; there’s energy, awkwardness and you want to see what will happen.
These days when many of the talk shows and morning news interviews are no more than commercials for new shows and movies or a celebrity hawking a product, trying to pull off live commercials under any premise other than it being a commercial is asking for the viewers to find a way to skip those too.
More Info:
TV Week article here
NY Times article here
Kimmel live spots here
Honda Skydivers article here
Reuters article here
