Being Punked: CNBC, Fox, Reuters

Yesterday, Fox, CNBC as well as the Washington Post (which deleted its report) and The New York Times via Reuters, all went forward with a news release stating the U.S. Chamber of Commerce had reversed its position on climate change.

The fraudulent news release, issued by The Yes Men, was part of an elaborate hoax to draw attention to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's environmental position. The hoax included a fake press conference that was disrupted when real representatives of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce showed up.


While The Yes Men claim to be activists known for posing as corporate executives in order to reveal how corporate greed negatively influences public policy, they have also used the opportunity to plug their documentary film, The Yes Men Fix the World, which opens at the Avalon Theater in NW Washington this Friday, Oct. 23. According to their site, they collaborated with BeyondTalk.net and DC Climate Action Factory, a semi-autonomous group sponsored by Avaaz.org.

Since, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has issued a statement that it intends to ask "law enforcement authorities to investigate this event." However, the statement smartly seems to stop short of pressing for legal action or a civil suit.

The post-hoax reviews are mostly positive. The San Francisco Chronicle lamented that the release was not real. Grist called it brilliant. Bloomberg reported the facts. And The Hill pointed out how various organizations might have been keener on recognizing the release was a hoax.

While hoaxes are hard to condone, this one certainly reinforces a weakness in modern reporting. The acceleration of communication continues to undermine reliable information and the public is increasingly fickle in which side it might take. The Balloon Boy hoax was billed as pathetic while The Yes Men are made media heroes, at least for a day.

Shifting Concepts: Newspapers Need To Look At TV

And so it begins. The Christian Science Monitor has become the first national newspaper to abandon print and move its daily content online. While the publication will print a weekend magazine, the move represents a shift that many other national dailies will eventually follow.

“Everybody’s talking about new models,” John Yemma, editor of The Monitor said. “This is a new model.”

According to The New York Times, smaller papers have already made the transition, including The Capital Times in Madison, Wis. and The Daily Telegram in Superior, Wis., which will only publish a print edition two days a week.

The downside, as most newspapers know, is that such moves cannot replace the revenue gap between print and online ads. It will not, at least not as long as newspapers continue to look at the new space like print. Instead, they might consider entirely new constructs.

One of the better examples some newspapers might follow is Hulu, which offers free, ad-supported videos of TV shows and movies from NBC, FOX, and other networks. The joint project has been successful enough to beat YouTube hands down.

Within a few months, Hulu has grown to 142 million streams with 6.3 million unique viewers, according to Nielsen Online. It is now the sixth-most-popular online video brand in the United States, surpassing ESPN, CNN, MTV, and Disney.

Part of the success is related to its advertising approach. Fewer advertisements means fewer program interruptions for viewers and less competition for advertisers. It's a win-win, with some additional twists that include viewer rated commercials, ad selection, and interactive games.

“The notion that less is more is absolutely playing out on Hulu,” Jason Kilar, the chief executive of Hulu, told The New York Times. “This is benefiting advertisers as much as it is benefiting users.”

It only makes sense that broadcast would weather convergence a little easier than print, which is why it might be time for print to give up traditional modeling all together. It needs to think more like broadcast and I don't just mean arming journalists with video cameras.

What I mean is: newspapers that are migrating more content online need to quickly develop better advertising vehicles than banner ads to stay viable. The only alternative is to continually cut staff to match shrinking circulations, which no one can really afford to do anymore. Why?

Journalists are already overtaxed on time. The result is that many newspapers have given up on digging deeper and vetting facts in favor of "he said, she said" reporting. "He said, she said" reporting only resembles objective reporting in that it leaves readers to sort out which "he" or "she" might be right or telling the truth. Unless newspapers hold a higher standard and provide trusted content, it seems to me they will risk losing even more readers in a space where content is still king.

Making Everyone Famous: YouTube On TiVo

Innovation doesn’t wait. It happens.

As major networks consider how they are going to bridge the content gap between broadcast and the Internet, the Internet is coming to some televisions.

TiVo Inc., largely responsible for the creation and popularization of digital video recorders (DVRs), will be adding direct access to YouTube videos via TiVo later this year. TiVo users will be able to search, browse, and watch videos on their television sets through their broadband connected TiVo DVRs.

“TiVo’s strategy is to bridge the gap between Web video and television and make as much content available as possible for our subscribers,” Tara Maitra, vice president and general manager for content services for TiVo, told The New York Times.

While this only represents single step toward convergence, there are some significant long-term outcomes.

• Marketers who are already establishing a YouTube presence can direct prospects to clips on TiVo television, increasing the pressure on networks to retain engaged fans.
• Amateur content creators will be able to expand their reach into a distribution platform that was once reserved for cable and broadcast channels. Well-produced content could find product placement and sponsors.
• A major overhaul of the rating system needs to keep up with changes as YouTube content creators could feasibly demonstrate better analytics against Nielsen reliance.
• Producers of network-cancelled shows may have an opportunity to consider going it alone if they believe strongly enough in their fan bases.

The move completely bypasses the concept of embedded advertising needed by networks. The move is bold, but there will be a need to step up consumer accessibility. There are 4 million TiVo owners nationwide; only 800,000 have the necessary broadband connection.

From TiVo’s perspective, it’s a smart move to stay viable as more cable distributors are offering DVR boxes as part of their services. TiVo’s other competitor in this space is Apple TV. However, there is more than one way to access television shows and movies from Apple iTunes and place it on the big screen. This cable will do it too.

There isn’t much room to argue the direction of television. If YouTube can find its way onto television screens, then why not Hulu.com? Why not? That small step — and the ability to download Hulu content to other devices along with a better full screen picture quality — is all that is missing. Hmmm. Looks like convergence isn’t happening. It’s happened. All that’s left are the details.

It will happen. That’s how innovation works.

Coming Soon: Broadcast-Broadband Convergence

While some people still look to the rating system, others already see the future: one in four Internet users have watched a full-length show online in the last three months. These aren’t just young people: 39 percent were ages 18-34 and 25 percent were 35-54.

Some people are surprised by these numbers, which are growing exponentially. All I can wonder is where have these ‘surprised’ folks been? There are reams of data that demonstrate everybody is online, with only those in the 65+ age group dropping off. Even then, half of those ages 65+ are online too.

What that means is a show like The Office on NBC last September drew a broadcast audience of 9.7 million, but also streamed 2.7 million views on the Web. Twelve million viewers is enough to break into the top 20 shows.

What that might mean for Jericho on CBS is third season survival.

Jericho fans are not taking any chances. They’ve already launched a preemptive campaign to save Jericho again. This campaign started shortly after CBS released numbers that confirm the show plays impressively online: adding 1.5 million views on some episodes, according to CBS Interactive Research. This does not count all other data like DirectTV, iTunes, etc. And, those numbers are still growing.

In fact, it is these kinds of numbers that are prompting networks to turn toward new media rather than away from it. Television and the Internet are closer than ever to total convergence.

“Oh come on, Rich, you don’t really believe that, do you?”

Yes, I do. You see, NBC Universal and Fox would not be testing their joint venture, Hulu.com, if it wasn’t true. Hulu opens to the public tomorrow with many live shows and limited commercial interruptions.

CBS did the same thing with vintage programming like Star Trek online. Except in this case, the network has been doing an especially good job with its presentation while retaining its brand advantage by not spinning off its programming to another site. That’s smart. Very smart.

Even better, convergence seems to have created solutions for its own monetization challenges. Smarter networks are seeing the natural development of a tiered system: You can pay for commercial-free programs via iTunes or watch the ad-embedded programs on a browser. It’s a win-win-win for everyone.

Equally important, there seems to be no shortage of advertisers willing to buy time on live streaming video — an idea that naysayers said would never happen six months ago. Yet, there it is in living color: a show developed in 1966 has suddenly discovered renewed advertising revenue.

“We would love to have more inventory,” Patrick Keane, chief marketing officer at CBS Interactive, told reporters last week. “The advertisers are raring to go.”

Perhaps there is some irony that the success of the original Star Trek is largely based on the same reason Jericho scored its truncated second season: fans that were not on the Nielsen radar. So it seems, once again, that we might be asking the same question.

Is the future of the television based solely on less than 2 percent of the viewing public? Or is there a better way?

“Forty years ago, new technology changed what people watched on TV as it migrated to color,” Seth MacFarlane, creator of another fan-saved show, Family Guy, told The New York Times. “Now new technology is changing where people watch TV, literally omitting the actual television set.”

With a better budget that takes the cast and new characters of Jericho: Season 3 to different locations across their alternate universe, the show could potentially grow into another dedicated fan franchise success story. But that all depends on CBS. It can play the numbers two ways and come up with different answers.

While I cannot speak for CBS, I know what my answer would be. Do what Star Trek did. Go boldly.

Covering Hot Topics: Second Quarter 2007

Every quarter, we publish a recap of our five most popular communication-related posts, based on the frequency and the immediacy of hits after they were posted. While we base this on individual posts, some are related to larger case studies.

Jericho Fans Make Television History

When CBS executives cancelled Jericho over Nielsen ratings, fans of this post- nuclear terrorist attack/small town survival drama went nuts, literally. Using the Internet and social media as their point of organization, they launched the largest cancellation protest in history: sending 40,000 pounds of nuts (from just one store); rallied almost 120,000 petition signers; cancelled CBS related-cable subscriptions; boycotted network premieres; sold network stock; sent in countless letters, postcards, and e-mails; captured media attention in every major newspaper and tabloid; and flooded the network with phone calls. Within a few weeks, CBS reversed its decision in record time, heading off what was quickly becoming an exercise in crisis communication. Of all the posts, pointing out the error in CBS’ marketing of Jericho took top honors with over 10,000 hits.

Link: Jericho

Wal-Mart Strikes Back Against Julie Roehm

If networks are looking for a new made-for-television docudrama, the ongoing Julie Roehm story continues to turn heads (and maybe stomachs). Filled with twists, turns, sex, back room deals, character defamation, lawsuits, countersuits, media bias, allegories, and more spin than the planet Jupiter (which rotates once every 10 hours), this story demonstrates the pitfalls of second-tier executives becoming public figures and the companies that keep them. In the end, if she has any credibility left, Roehm’s personal brand will always be linked to the short-lived, um, alleged Wal-Mart funded affair with a subordinate, her master-class ability to spin herself into another lawsuit and, according to the Chicago Sun-Times, being more indestructible than a cockroach.

Links: Julie Roehm, Wal-Mart

Digital Media Will Change Everything

While some might say it was the very loose Jericho link, we like to think it is related to the increasing interest in the future of digital media, specifically how old media is becoming new media. When we gave some attention to how News Corporation and NBC Universal are speeding ahead with the addition of FUEL TV, Oxygen, SPEED, Sundance Channel, and TV Guide as content partners committed to bringing programming to Web video consumers, people wanted to know what it might mean. To us, it means that one day very soon, broadcast news and entertainment will be forever fused with the Internet, people will access it all via versatile technologies like the iPhone, independents will have the potential to break into the big leagues overnight, and businesses will fully develop what we sometimes call income marketing.

Links: Digital Media, NBC Universal, FOX

Paris Hilton Splits Public Interest

We don’t know about you, but Mika Brzezinski of MNSBC perfectly captured the public’s sentiment over Paris Hilton. In a YouTube clip, Brzezinski refuses to lead the news with Hilton, but then goes on and on about how she refuses to cover it, making her refusal to cover Hilton carry on probably three times longer than if she would have just read the script. Love her, hate her, love to hate her, or hate to love her, we’re not buying that you’re not interested because if we post about her, we always see spikes even though we generally only cover communication side items like blaming publicists, marketing humor, and overly long media statements from jail. Hmmm… maybe that’s why Hilton took second against Roehm in terms of most read public figure.

Link: Paris Hilton

The Office Parodies A Public Relations Nightmare

Although some follow-up stories to JetBlue and Jobster came close, NBC Universal's 2006 Emmy Award-winning show, The Office, proved fictional crisis communication is sometimes more fun than real life. For our part, we wrote up how The Office episode "Product Recall” mirrors how executives sometimes allow a crisis to run away from them by applying “tried and true” communication strategies. In the show, Michael Scott (Steve Carell), regional manager of Dunder-Mifflin, applies the practice of “always running to the crisis and never away from it” after a disgruntled employee at the paper mill put an obscene watermark on one of their most popular paper products. The operative word in this case is “always.” Crisis communication rules are only guidelines, silly.

Link: The Office

It’s very promising to see non-bad news posts starting to give bad news posts a run for their money. We're still hoping good news and educational posts might one day dominate the top five (admittedly doubtful). For example, when it comes to social media, we’d love to see more attention given to our underpinning concept that strategic communication is best suited to drive social media despite the fact that most companies seems to be trying to do it the other way around.

Anyway, while those were the top five posts (and related case studies) for the second quarter, several others came close (and almost all of them beat out last quarter). Runners up (no order): Fans of the The Black Donnellys lobby for HBO to save the canceled NBC show; PR bloggers made a non-issue into an issue over Nikon; JetBlue proved you really can overapologize in a crisis; Jason Goldberg of Jobster goes a whole week or so before behaving badly again; and our sum-up of Harris Interactive mobile advertising research despite my initial skepticism, mostly fueled by a not-so-great Webinar release.

So there you have it, except for one very, very important ingredient: thank you all for dropping by, adding comments, promoting several stories, and continuing to bring communication issues to our attention so we may offer up our sometimes serious, sometimes silly take on them. Whether you agree or disagree, all of it lends well to the discussion and I appreciate those who remember to target the topic and not each other in providing input.

Inking Deals: News Corporation / NBC Universal

While CBS seeems to have slowed under the sheer weight of nuts sent by fans over the cancellation of Jericho, News Corporation and NBC Universal are speeding ahead with the addition of FUEL TV, Oxygen, SPEED, Sundance Channel, and TV Guide as content partners committed to bring programming to Web video consumers. The new deal was announced last Wednesday.

"Each of our new content partners have a reputation for creating premium entertainment experiences designed to fulfill television viewers' more eclectic needs," said George Kliavkoff, chief digital officer, NBC Universal and interim CEO of the joint venture. "We are delighted they have all agreed to contribute their compelling content to our venture, which will help ensure our ability to satisfy the more personalized demands of the growing number of Web video consumers."

Their plans are smart, very smart. FUEL TV and SPEED will distribute both partners' short-form content across the distribution network and host their programming on its destination site. The venture's distribution network currently consists of AOL, MSN, MySpace, Yahoo, Comcast, and CNET. The strategy seems a stark contrast to Joost, which looks great, but has come under increasing criticism that it is the slow road to developing Web television.

According to ReportOnBusiness.com, Joost has been further slowed by Viacom Inc.'s billion-dollar lawsuit with Google Inc. for "not doing enough to prevent copyright-protected content."

The slowdown was also made apparent a few weeks ago, when the new chief Internet strategist at CBS Corp. quipped to the Wall Street Journal that the network's ambitious Innertube project launched in 2006 should be renamed "CBS.com/nobodycomeshere." (Ironically, one of Innertube's most watched shows was Jericho and those fans aren't likely to come back until CBS gives the series another shot.)

The lesson to be learned practically flies out of the pages of Laurence Haughton's book, as recently summed at Recruiting Bloggers, "speed is the ultimate customer turn on." Don't obsess about perfection. Good enough is good enough.

Speed seems to be on the side of News Corporation and NBC Universal with their plans to feature thousands of hours of full-length TV programming, clips and movies, representing premium content from close to 20 networks and television and film studios. With the addition of CNET and Comcast, the new venture will include E!, Style, G4, Versus, and Golf Channel. The joint venture, NBCU/News Corp., will have offices in Los Angeles and New York.

We first alluded to some major changes in television back in August 2006. Now, in a little less than a year, the entire entertainment landscape is gearing up for major changes. When you add better content to the new technology due out this year, devices that allow people to watch programming whenever and wherever they want, it seems to me that TV will never be the same.

As NBC Universal's Beth Comstock said in April: “If you have great content … you’re always going to find distribution platforms.“ Of course, that assumes you don't cancel content people want.

Getting Nuts: CBS Over Jericho

What would you do with 22,000 pounds of nuts? That's what CBS executives might have to ask themselves if even half of the Jericho fans who have already signed an online petition make good on a grassroots effort that calls for viewers to send in “nuts.”

According to some fans, sending nuts is the best response to the show’s cancellation because it originates with character Jake Green (Skeet Ulrich) borrowing the historic phrase in response to a final offer of surrender from a hostile neighboring town. Of course, the response, “nuts,” is tied to General Anthony C. McAuliffe’s answer to a German demand for surrender in World War II.

According to various accounts, when McAuliffe was told of the German demand for surrender he said "Aw, nuts". At a loss for an official reply, Lt. Col. Kinnard suggested that his first remark summed the situation up well, which was agreed to by the others. The official reply: "To the German Commander, NUTS!, The American Commander" was typed and delivered by Colonel Harper to the German delegation. Harper had to explain the meaning of the word to the Germans.

Some fans say they feel the same way, cut off by CBS because they blame the company’s executives for the show’s lackluster ratings. As pointed out by Showbuzz , many viewers abandoned the show only after it went on a long midseason hiatus, much like "Lost" on ABC and "Heroes" on NBC.

This is not the first time CBS has garnered negative reactions related to the show. Fans were upset when CBS did not deliver on its promise to fully produce side stories online and when it removed a fan-generated Wikipedia entry to retain control over what details they wanted fans to remember. Now, some fans have accused CBS of deleting posts in the CBS-hosted Jericho forum.

Since, discussions of the show’s cancellation have spilled onto the main CBS discussion area, which is dominated by fan complaints and pleas at various times. Not to be outdone, fans of other shows on CBS, which were also cancelled, are following suit, creating an interesting statement about social media.

With growing fervor, networks are hearing louder and louder protests over show cancellations that would have barely received mention 20 years ago. Now, due to increased consumer buy-in with rich online content, forums, and deleted scenes, broadcasters might find it more difficult to make decisions without consumer consent. In sum, fans become more vested than ever.

Public outcry is also linked to the knowledge that some shows can be saved. One of the most famous cases was Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy. FOX reversed its cancellation after Cartoon Network reruns revived interest and consumers bought 2.2 million DVDs. Of course, it’s always easier to revive a show with animated characters than a large ensemble cast like Jericho. Nuts.

Talking Transparency: Fox News

On Friday, the Nevada Democratic Party backed out of a FOX News-sponsored presidential debate after Roger Ailes, president of FOX, made some remarks, jokingly comparing Democratic Senator Barack Obama to al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

As written up by the The Huffington Post the remarks prompted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Tom Collins, the head of the Nevada Democratic Party, to cancel the debate. The letter read:

"A month ago, the Nevada Democratic Party entered into a good faith agreement with FOX News to co-sponsor a presidential debate in August,'' Reid and Collins said in the letter. "This was done because the Nevada Democratic Party is reaching out to new voters and we strongly believe that a Democrat will not win Nevada unless we find new ways to talk to new people. To say the least, this was not a popular decision. But it is one that the Democratic Party stood by.''

"However, comments made last night by FOX News President Roger Ailes in reference to one of our presidential candidates went too far,'' the letter went on. "We cannot, as good Democrats, put our party in a position to defend such comments. In light of his comments, we have concluded that it is not possible to hold a Presidential debate that will focus on our candidates and are therefore canceling our August debate. We take no pleasure in this, but it is the only course of action.''

Politics aside, this living case study brushes up against the concept of transparency in business. Just how much is too much? For Ailes, his political leanings obviously have real life consequences, if nothing else, giving Democratic leaders the excuse they needed to cancel under pressure from the more than 265,000 people who signed a petition calling Fox "a mouthpiece for the Republican Party, not a legitimate news channel." At the same dinner where Ailes made the controversial remarks, he also offered a warning about a growing trend.

"Pressure groups are forcing candidates to conclude that the best strategy for journalists is divide and conquer, to only appear on those networks and venues that give them favorable coverage...This pressure must be resisted, as it has been in the past," Ailes said. "Any candidate for high office of either party who believes he can blacklist any news organization is making a terrible mistake."

While Ailes is right, it seems he was equally wrong by being, perhaps, too transparent in his remarks, reinforcing a growing belief that today's media, particularly broadcast media, is biased toward one party or another. Clearly, it seems over the last ten years, traditional media has shifted from reporting the news to setting an agenda to having an agenda.

In part, it is for this reason businesses are looking (or will be looking) for new ways to create more open and direct dialogue with their consumers by employing, among other vehicles, social media. The question that remains unanswered, however, is whether traditional company presidents and CEOs have the skill sets required to get the job done. In many cases, there is growing evidence that suggests they do not.

In their quest to be more transparent, presidents and CEOs tend to be either too tight or too loose with their lips. A few days ago (thanks for the tip Amitai Givertz ... your new "blog-enabled" Web site is looking up!), The Melcrum Blog highlighted an article in the Financial Times UK edition that reminds us of some recent CEO gaffes...

"I don't borrow on credit cards because it's too expensive." — Matt Barrett, CEO of Barclays.

"People say how can you sell this for such a low price. I say because it is total crap." — Gerard Ratner, CEO of Ratners

"Assets like [Sainsbury] don't come on the market very often. Your shareholders would think you were an idiot if you didn't consider it. Watch this space." — Stuart Rose from Marks & Spencer, uttered over a "glass of wine," which was followed by an 'official announcement' declaring that the board of Marks & Spencer had decided it did not intend to make an offer.

For the best CEO practitioners of transparency, the rewards of mastering this double-edged sword are pretty great. According to the International Association of Business Communicators, 72 percent of consumers say reputation influences their buying decisions, 80 percent of employees will accept less money to work with a company that has an excellent reputation, and 82 percent of consumers say reputation is the tie-breaker between equal choices.

Case in point, recently I entertained a relatively gruff recruiter who wanted to establish a "relationship" in case my career goals might change in a few years (probably not, but whatever). It didn't take long to deduce that she only wanted to fill one job (that wouldn't have been challenging for me) and rob my contacts to do it. Even more perplexing was her insistence that strategic communication had something to do with how big your media contact Rolodex is (what's a Rolodex nowadays, anyway?) I've decided against publicly chastising her ignorance out of respect to my friend who referred her, but it fits within the context of mastering transparency basics to remember:

• You are never off the record (you're being interviewed even when conducting an interview).
• You cannot buy it (creating a flog, making false promises, or shifting agendas midstream).
• You cannot fake transparency and hope to retain your reputation over time.
• How you react to a mistakes will have greater weight than the original blunder.

The bottom line is that corporate transparency is not all that different from recognizing that you are in the public all the time (even when you don't think you are). Some people are good at it. Some are not. For starters, however, you have to have a message that is aligned with your business objectives, sensitive to the audience you are communicating to, and not insensitive to other publics who are likely to hear what you said anyway.

For Ailes, whom I generally like, unless his objective was to have the debate canceled, he only considered one of these three elements. Sure, what he said might convey how he really feels, but it always helps to remember that being honest and overly opinionated are two different things.