digital

Tim Burke and Eric Myers will oversee newspaper and digital strategy across the group. 

The digital divide isn’t just evident in the media choices people are making these days. It’s also notable in agencies. A new report from Smith & Beta, a talent firm focused on agencies, finds that not only do most agencies feel they’re ill-prepared to give their clients the digital solutions they need, but employees also worry they’re not getting the right training to improve in these areas. Smith & Beta’s Allison Kent-Smith talks about how agencies are preparing (or not) for the digital age.

In many Hispanic homes in the United States, Univision is a constant TV presence and a huge influence. Last week, though, Univision made news with a purchase far afield from that core: It bought Gawker Media’s sites — English-language, not especially concerned with Latino culture and oriented toward a young audience that is glued not to TV sets but to smartphones. What’s going on here? “The future is young, digital and diverse,” the company’s news and digital chief, Isaac Lee, said in his first interview since the successful bid at auction last week.

Anna Clark goes in-depth on WCPO, the Scripps-owned CBS affiliate in Cincinnati that several executives described as a “petri dish” of digital experimentation. The idea, Clark writes, “is less to demonstrate an entire model that can be replicated elsewhere than to test a variety of editorial, technological, and marketing strategies.”

NBC is turning to social influencers to corral TV-averse viewers to its upcoming Olympics coverage. It’s devoting a chunk of its marketing spending to two dozen digital stars with 120 million collective followers across all of social’s major platforms. The effort is being buttressed by its deal with BuzzFeed, which is producing content for a dedicated Olympics Snapchat channel for the network.

A new report from the Pew Research Center depicts a news-consuming public that’s increasingly using smartphones to access its information with two-thirds of Facebook users turning to news there — a particularly chilling number given the social platform’s algorithm shift last week devaluing news in its feed. Among numerous other takeaways, the study finds 75% of Americans think news organizations are biased. 

Marc DeBevoise is taking a step up from his previous role as EVP and GM of CBS Digital Media. His new job, which also adds COO to his title, entails heading up strategy and operations for all of CBS Interactive’s 25-plus brands and CNET.

Move over, Upfronts and NewFronts: Al Roker wants to make room for one more pitch stage for live video. His Roker Media wants to provide a content showcase for producers on Facebook Live, Periscope and other platforms, and it’s doing so in an event scheduled for October in New York.

Digital still makes up a sliver of Scripps’ revenues, but the company is making big investments in podcasts.

Ellen DeGeneres will launch a new digital network with an initial production slate of six original shows, it was announced Wednesday at the 2016 Digital Content NewFronts. The Ellen Digital Network will curate all aspects of the Ellen brand combined with original programming and user-generated content.

Digital fraud and viewability issues are leading advertisers to shift their money back to television in a growing trend according to a report from the Standard Media Index. Bill Cromwell looks at the slowdown in digital growth reflected in the report and the depth of advertisers’ concerns.

In a move many in the industry expected, Univision took sole ownership Thursday of Fusion, which launched in 2013 as a joint venture with ABC. In doing so, Univision found a home for some of its recent English-language acquisitions including satirical news site The Onion and the African-American skewing The Root. The two properties will be under The Fusion Media Group. Mark López, EVP of Univision Digital, explains Univision’s English-language strategy.

“The biggest change is really the elimination of barriers to viewing,” Google President Daniel Alegre told NAB Show attendees while announcing Google Search will carry live TV listings. “It’s never been easier to watch what we want, when we want, wherever we want. A new and better version of TV is rising from the ashes.” If you’re a local broadcaster, he said “traditionally you’ve been constrained by the number of [people who can access your programming] over the air. That constraint no longer exists.”

About $1 billion is headed to digital for the 2016 campaign, some analysts predict, though most of it will end up in the coffers of Alphabet ($400 million) and Facebook ($350 million).

People ages 18-34 spend more time on their phone or computer than they do watching live TV, according to ComScore. In fact, the study found that mobile is quickly approaching equal status with live TV among millennials. That demographic spends 47%  of its time with live television, while mobile already accounts for 40%.

With the 2016-17 upfront now in full swing, major programmers are taking the healthy scatter market as a sign of an improved market. But with advertising on digital platforms still leading on data insights, media buyers will be looking for TV to behave more and more like digital.

Global consumer spending for traditional media will continue to slow down to under a 1% growth rate in coming years — while digital media consumer spending will maintain double-digit percentage annual hikes.

It will surpass TV next year to become the No. 1 medium. We spend more and more time with it. But just how effective is it really? Have advertisers been over-sold on digital?

Disney CEO Bob Iger says Disney needs to improve on the digital front, and that selling ESPN direct-to-consumer is on table. Speaking on Tuesday, Iger said that “rights” were not the issue with selling ESPN directly, but mentioned that price was a sticking point.

The CEOs of GateHouse Media, Townsquare Media and The Dallas Morning News framed out their companies’ respective futures at Borrell Associates’ conference on Tuesday, and digital was the cornerstone common denominator. A look at how Kirk Davis, Steven Price and Jim Moroney see digital diversification as fundamental to their long-term strategies.

Digital newsrooms are doing everything from increasing operational transparency and job flexibility to offering cross-department collaboration to recruit and retain young people known for job-hopping.

With its movie studio, broadcast television network and theme parks, Comcast-owned NBCUniversal sits squarely in the geriatric old-media camp of Disney, Viacom, CBS, 21st Century Fox and Time Warner, all of which are struggling to varying degrees with the digital revolution and innovative upstarts like Netflix. But NBCU CEO Steve Burke has turned his attention to the digital revolution. “It’s my biggest challenge.”

From videos to music to apps, digital was at the forefront of consumers’ (and marketers’) minds this year. As 2015 comes to a close, Nielsen looked at some of the top trends in digital, including the top U.S. smartphone apps and operating systems.

Canada’s public broadcaster CBC has weathered nearly a decade of deep cuts and faces a graying broadcast audience. Through its 2020 Initiative, CBC is mapping out a new direction that right-sizes staff and infrastructure, refocuses around mobile-first and gears product development around key audience behaviors.

CBS is pulling the Enterprise out of storage. HBO landed one of the biggest free agents in showbiz. And NBCUniversal is trying to corner the market on hipster comedians. As traditional TV networks dive into the SVOD channels business, they’re feeling competitive pressure to make their streaming services something more than merely a new way to view their existing linear programming.

Much of that’s driven by digital, especially mobile, which small businesses are embracing. TV and especially radio are being squeezed by mobile’s ability to geo-target.

Study: One of every three digital ad dollars is scammed and it’s expected to get worse, but little’s being done to combat it. Buyers have scant sense of its scope.

News organizations were among the groups that pushed for passage of the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act signed Thursday. The law now requires police to get a court order before they can search messages, photos and other digital data stored on phones or company servers in the nation’s most-populous state.

Station broker Larry Patrick says FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is “tilting the field dramatically on the side of the cable and satellite people.” Others claim the big threat to local television is local advertisers and ad agencies in confusion” about new media. And another sees opportunity in local TV’s ability to serve the interests of their communities, they just need to do so more intensively than they are now.

Author/media critic Michael Wolff says TV is prevailing because it refused to change when confronted with the digital challenge, he said. “Not bending is exactly the thing that has kept the industry in place, strong and in a competitive position.” Digital companies like Netflix and Facebook pose a threat, but not as digital media outlets, but as producers and distributors of TV, he says.

While the growth of digital may be disrupting broadcasters, many are finding ways to compete by leverage their scale and  boosting their relevance with original offerings.

More and more stations and groups are taking the initiative in securing and growing the crucial auto category at a time when stations’ share of ad marketing dollars are not keeping pace with booming auto sales as they have in the past. One tack is an increasing interest in programmatic buying and selling, while another is to aggressively follow auto dollars into the digital realm. Publisher’s Note: Deep Dive is a new, branded feature of TVNewsCheck.com. It is offered free today as a sneak preview of the kind of in-depth content soon to be offered in the our Premium Member Center. To read the first part, click here.

NBC’s $200 million investment in BuzzFeed and Vox shows the outline of a new media world that may prove life-threatening for big companies. Aside from Comcast, the media companies scrambling to escape disaster and crack the digital code include Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox empire (which comprises Fox studios, the Fox broadcast network, and the FX, National Geographic and Fox News cable channels), Time Warner (Warner Bros., CNN, HBO and the various Turner channels), and the Walt Disney Co. (Disney studios, ABC and ESPN).

In a move recognizing the growing importance — and complexity— of digital media and marketing channels, the 4As has launched a new committee to “address issues related to the digital supply chain.” Joe Barone, GroupM Connect managing partner-digital operations, has been named chairman of the newly anointed Digital Operations and Technology Committee, which will serve as the association’s hub for internal and external education on key digital operations issues and technologies.

There’s no shortage of chatter in the media realm about the growth of digital, and the myriad conversations span everything from platform usage to consumption trends to advertising. While digital is a fluid and evolving arena, David Poltrack, chief research officer at CBS, has a clear vision on where it fits into CBS’s strategy. Poltrack believes that when talking about digital and TV, the discussion really warrants the use of the word “and” instead of a “versus.”