commentary

“Access journalism” takes the media to dangerous places when one side of the aisle is turning against democracy.

As the audience for traditional television has gotten older, broadcast and cable sales and research executives have argued that Madison Avenue’s fixation on younger viewers is costing them money by devaluing the majority of their audiences. They also argue that by ignoring mature viewers, marketers are ignoring consumers with wealth and purchasing power. In a guest blog  Monday, Nielsen VP Sue Tremblay argues that including people 55 to 64 would incorporate half of the Baby Boomer generation and all Gen Xers.

Joe Ferullo: “It’s time to eliminate television coverage from Supreme Court confirmation hearings. These Senate proceedings continue to devolve into an opportunity for politicians to play to the cameras, mollify their political bases, and create soundbites that will make effective campaign commercials for the next election cycle.”

A cloud transition enables numerous cost-saving areas and benefits around data security, making a compelling case for the move.

Confirmation bias is our propensity to cherry-pick information that confirms our existing beliefs or ideas. It’s how two people with opposing views on a topic can see the same evidence and come away feeling validated by it. Failing to interpret information in an unbiased way can lead to serious misjudgments, but by understanding this tendency, we can learn to identify it in ourselves and others — and to face our fears around it.

Jim Tricarico: “As we approach this year’s Upfront, audiences will be top of mind for buyers, and therefore so should automation. Why? To realize the promise of data-driven TV — finding your audience no matter how or where they are watching — we need automation. Automation helps you find sports audiences. Automation helps you find children’s audiences. Essentially, automation helps you find audiences beyond the 18-to-54 demographic and create campaigns that meet today’s business objectives.”

It’s pure hell for the journalists who are there covering the war. But we will all be worse off if they are forced to leave.

Being a GM is a complex job that requires balancing many competing interests to reach a few common goals. For those who seek it, the best groundwork is laid by learning every role at the station.

It looks like exhausted news consumers — battered by polarized cable channels that elevate opinion over facts — are finally being heard. Piece by piece, a post-Trump media world is starting to take shape. It looks something like a universe where resentment and resistance are pushed to the side and straight news steps back into the spotlight. In just the past few weeks, several high-profile developments point to an emerging correction in journalism:

TV networks delivering single advertiser spot optimization campaigns are often missing out on the benefits of addressable advertising over concerns they’ll breach competitive separation agreements. The right tech stacks can ensure they won’t break a deal.

Look for smart glasses to join the arsenal of screens that are moving in both size directions fueled by innovations like LCD, LED and more processing power.

There’s nothing simple in adopting ATSC 3.0, where a reasonable, breakeven deployment remains cloudy. But failing to get an early seat on a lighthouse may also prove disastrous later.

Secure Reliable Transport has already had several inflection points from a technology standpoint, so what’s next for the open-source video transport protocol?

As Russia continues its attack on Ukraine, the suffering of its citizens and damage to the concept of democracy is playing out via broadcast and the internet. The media industry has joined much of the world in its response to Russia’s bullying, with media and tech companies throughout the U.S. stepping up and enforcing a variety of sanctions and taking other actions against the superpower in an effort to stop a madman.

The past several years have seen a worrisome increase in libel lawsuits brought by a broad array of political candidates, elected officials and domestic corporate titans, not to mention foreign autocrats and oligarchs. And despite this torrent of litigation, the Supreme Court might be poised to weaken constitutional protections for the news media — “opening up the libel laws,” as Donald Trump once urged.

What viewers are seeing now — and what Vladimir Putin probably did not think about — is what happens when television journalists are not tied down by equipment, relying on bulky satellite phones and trunk-sized microwave dishes. Now, a professional LiveU unit — and others like it — fits in a backpack and costs about $1,500. For another $45 a month, you have constant contact with a cloud-based internet connection anywhere in the world. It works with a small portable high-grade camera, or with the camera on a smartphone. All of this makes it extremely difficult for any government to control the narrative anymore.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has brought something cable viewers too-rarely see: Real journalists covering a real story, free of frantic hyperbole and driven by facts on the ground. Reporting on the war could be an inflection point. It offers cable news — especially CNN — a chance to rethink their programming focus and move away from obsessive political coverage. But two hurdles block the path forward: television news economics and the addictive nature of polarization.

Margaret Sullivan: His ugly defense of Vladimir Putin should be seen in the light of his employer’s argument that no one should take him seriously.

The temptation to get a leg up on rivals by trying to trademark a URL seems like a more solid gamble these days, thanks to a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision. While one well-known online travel company single-handedly turned the tide, it might be a trickier proposition for media companies looking to do the same.

As Vladimir Putin commenced his slow-walking invasion of Ukraine under the guise of recognizing the “independence“ of Donetsk and Luhansk, only one major media commentator provided intellectual cover for the Russian leader’s adventure: Fox News Channel’s preeminent star, Tucker Carlson.

Hedge fund investor Soo Kim takes a long-sought prize in Tegna’s sale to Standard General and Apollo Global Management. The deal has many layers to tease out and potential regulatory headwinds, along with questions about the new regime’s depth of commitment to news.

Smart TVs may be growing their own ad-supported channels, but streaming viewers are flocking to better-entrenched AVOD and SVOD apps. Smart marketers must assemble a diverse media plan incorporating not only CTV, but third-party streaming platforms to capture enough eyeballs.

ViacomCBS — now Paramount — President-CEO Bob Bakish’s two-and-a-half-hour presentation on Tuesday was heavy on talk of streaming but lacking any noticeable discussion of CBS News. Could this foreshadow the company getting out of the news business?

Between legalized sports betting, political advertising, retransmission fees and an overall economic bump and as the U.S. emerges from the nearly two-year-old pandemic, television and radio broadcasters will both regain lost momentum — though at different rates and for different reasons. It’s all cause for optimism.

Hank Price: Multimedia journalism was born out of financial considerations, and now that MMJs are widespread, TV news owners and management have an obligation to better ensure their safety. It’s time for news directors to step up at the station level.

The rapid-fire removal of Jeff Zucker as CNN’s president last week has led to a sustained backlash inside the organization. Anchors and reporters discussed their confusion on air; others confronted Warner Media chief Jason Kilar directly at a meeting inside the cable channel’s Washington bureau. Maybe what needs to change at CNN, then, is not the top person but the way their corporate chieftans deal with workplace romantic relationships at all levels.

Many questions still swirl around Wednesday’s startling announcement that, after nine years, Jeff Zucker’s reign as CNN president was over. It will all eventually be revealed — teams of reporters are racing to dig into one of the biggest media stories in recent memory. But we already know one thing: When the dust settles, Zucker’s relationship with Donald Trump will define his legacy.

Many streaming services have struggled to keep up with the increase of their user base in terms of protection, leaving them open to attacks like credential stuffing and underscoring the need for investing in content protection.

The legalization of marijuana in several states has sparked a brand-new genre of mainstream media feature reporting: in-depth exploration of all the fun things readers can do while under the influence.

TV’s very currency is in crisis, fueled by deepening questions of Nielsen’s accuracy. As the industry shifts its focus toward attribution, the company needs to pull itself out of its insular shell if it wants to create the future advertising currency and secure its own future.

Have you just been promoted, or likely to be soon? You might be surprised to suddenly feel like you’re not capable of handling the move. But a very specific set of steps can relieve the feeling that you’re faking it when you step into a higher position.

David Bloom: A study suggests that Netflix has become a must-have utility, and it raised prices not because it needed to … but because it could.

Sports betting will continue its meteoric rise in spot TV, Nielsen’s measurement footing will remain shaky and NextGen TV may finally deliver on new revenue streams for broadcasters in another challenging year ahead.

Margaret Sullivan: The veteran host used a “truth sandwich” approach to counter the former president’s election lies. The idea is to avoid magnifying lies; and the technique is to surround false statements with established truths before and after, thus blunting the effect of what can amount to propaganda.

As the new year gets underway, financial managers in broadcasting should look at building — or solidifying — their relationships with their business unit heads. Becoming a trusted adviser to your unit head can be critical to the business’s success, as well as your own.

When SEC football moves from CBS to ABC in the fall of 2024, CBS affiliates across the conference will lose the single most advertiser-friendly venue in their arsenals. Millions of dollars will move en masse to ABC affiliates, turning station budgets and revenue audits upside down. The halo CBS affiliates have enjoyed will move right along with those dollars.

In his first blog post as NAB President-CEO, Curtis LeGeyt pledges NAB’s continued advocacy for policies ensuring a level playing field that allows broadcasters to compete against Big Tech platforms and preserve local journalism.

Margaret Sullivan: “In the year since the Jan. 6 insurrection, mainstream journalists have done a lot of things right. And yet, something crucial is missing. For the most part, news organizations are not making democracy-under-siege a central focus of the work they present to the public.”