"Ed Huntress" wrote:


Sometime we'll have to talk about Murdoch and why he's directing Fox the way
he is. As one of his former directors said last year, if a liberal bias
would make him more money, he'd switch Fox 180 degrees, starting tomorrow.
Meantime he has a near-monopoly on conservative-biased news on major cable,
which gets him a larger audience share than he could get by competing
directly with the rest of the media. That's what the Fox game is all about.
It's a classic market-segmentation game.


Hows that strategy working for MSNBC?

Wes

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:


Sometime we'll have to talk about Murdoch and why he's directing Fox the
way
he is. As one of his former directors said last year, if a liberal bias
would make him more money, he'd switch Fox 180 degrees, starting tomorrow.
Meantime he has a near-monopoly on conservative-biased news on major
cable,
which gets him a larger audience share than he could get by competing
directly with the rest of the media. That's what the Fox game is all
about.
It's a classic market-segmentation game.


Hows that strategy working for MSNBC?

Wes

Extremely well. Check the numbers.

--
Ed Huntress

CABLE NEWS RACE
FRI., SEPT 11, 2009

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,212,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,644,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,544,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,968,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,705,000
MSNBC DOBERMANN 1,067,000
MSNBC MADDOW 948,000
CNN BLITZER 889,000
CNN KING 875,000

Just did.

Wes


I'm kind of curious about hos popularity translates to accuracy.

Popularity ratings like this tell us more about US than the media.

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:


"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:


Sometime we'll have to talk about Murdoch and why he's directing Fox the
way
he is. As one of his former directors said last year, if a liberal bias
would make him more money, he'd switch Fox 180 degrees, starting
tomorrow.
Meantime he has a near-monopoly on conservative-biased news on major
cable,
which gets him a larger audience share than he could get by competing
directly with the rest of the media. That's what the Fox game is all
about.
It's a classic market-segmentation game.


Hows that strategy working for MSNBC?

Wes

Extremely well. Check the numbers.

CABLE NEWS RACE
FRI., SEPT 11, 2009

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,212,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,644,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,544,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,968,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,705,000
MSNBC DOBERMANN 1,067,000
MSNBC MADDOW 948,000
CNN BLITZER 889,000
CNN KING 875,000

Just did.

Wes

No, you didn't. What's remarkable there is that a cable news channel with a
segment audience (MSNBC) is beating out a general-market channel (CNN) in
this particular category.

The strategy is to make money, Wes. If they've segmented an audience on
psychographics (something that Murdoch pioneered, and at which he is a
supreme practitioner) and you can outdraw key mass-market players while
doing so, you've got a potential money maker.

Murdoch in the US has corralled off the conservative audience, which had
been underserved. He has high loyalty ratings on most of his
politically-segmented properties because he knows how to make the audience
jump up and salivate. Fox also has imposed a big cost-of-entry, which is
keeping competitors away from this segment.

MS and NBC had to segment the psychographics again -- it would have been
'way too expensive to go for market share against the mainstream players
(and NBC wasn't about to cannibalize its own market share) -- and there is
only a much smaller segment left, which you could describe as "liberals."
(It's more lifestyle than politics, but the result is the same.) But it's
still potentially very profitable, for similar reasons.

If you want to discuss this further I'll pull out my notes from a lecture I
used to give on this very subject. It's a classic marketing subject for news
media, especially since cable became an issue. Now you have to decide if
you're going head-to-head against established players (the old networks and
CNN, for the most part) or if you can target a segment. Traditionally, they
try to segment demographics. Murdoch's genius is in segmenting by
psychographics.

Fox will make much more money but you can still make a lot of money if you
can find another, smaller segment. The advantages of segmentation are much
lower initial marketing cost and, potentially, lower program costs, because
you don't have to field a big, general-purpose news staff. MSNBC is a very
low-budget operation but it's profitable.

There are ways to lose by psychographic segmentation, particularly if it
defines a bad set of demographics: people over 58 and poor people. But there
are advantages, too, which are more complicated to explain.

All in all, it's a business that's about making money. If you think that the
politics are driving content management at any of the broadcast or cable
networks, think again. They just have different strategies for building
viewership.

--
Ed Huntress

"Buerste" wrote in message
news

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

"Wes" wrote in message
...
"Ed Huntress" wrote:


Sometime we'll have to talk about Murdoch and why he's directing Fox the
way
he is. As one of his former directors said last year, if a liberal bias
would make him more money, he'd switch Fox 180 degrees, starting
tomorrow.
Meantime he has a near-monopoly on conservative-biased news on major
cable,
which gets him a larger audience share than he could get by competing
directly with the rest of the media. That's what the Fox game is all
about.
It's a classic market-segmentation game.


Hows that strategy working for MSNBC?

Wes

Extremely well. Check the numbers.

--
Ed Huntress


Hmmm, Google: "MSNBC ratings", or have you redefined the words "Extremely
well"? But, you have to cling to something, it might as well be some
liberal circle-jerk.

It has nothing to do with MSNBC ratings versus Fox ratings. It has
everything to do with ROI and market potentials, especially using a
segmentation strategy. Some businessman you are. d8-)

See my message to Wes on this subject. This is what my college degree is in,
and I used to lecture about it at William Patterson College (now
University).

--
Ed Huntress

"cavelamb" wrote in message
...

CABLE NEWS RACE
FRI., SEPT 11, 2009

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,212,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,644,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,544,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,968,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,705,000
MSNBC DOBERMANN 1,067,000
MSNBC MADDOW 948,000
CNN BLITZER 889,000
CNN KING 875,000 Just did.

Wes


I'm kind of curious about hos popularity translates to accuracy.

Popularity ratings like this tell us more about US than the media.

What Wes quoted are live-plus same-day ratings. If you aren't familiar with
those terms, it ain't worth it. g As for accuracy, they're accurate enough
where it matters, which is in media-buying terms.

The Nielsen game does not produce meaningful results unless you have a deep
knowledge of what you're looking at. The business issue is revenue versus
expense, just like any other business, and ratings can easily mislead you
about how a market is segmented and who is actually competing with who(m).
The rating system is designed to be used by, and to make sense to,
professional media buyers. I used to buy about $4.5 million/year, all print
and show, which means my actual experience is 'way at the low end. But it
was the central subject of my college degree.

Fox News has the biggest single segmented-market franchise in TV. Right now,
it's the only big one in cable news. I wouldn't expect that to change. But
if you're looking to derive some meaning from this in social terms, it's Fox
News against ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN, combined. All the latter list are
mass-market players who share a market largely undifferentiated by
demographics or psychographics. It's the old-time network play, a carryover
from the days when all TV was broadcast. MSNBC news and commentary is
another segment player, like Fox, only with a *much* smaller segment. It's
all that was left when they started playing the game that way. CNBC is
another segment player but they're actually after a special-interest niche
rather than a demographic or psychographic: semi-pro and smaller pro
financial people. But it still can be very profitable, if you can hold your
costs down. That's easier to do if you're a segment player than if you're a
mass-market player beating heads with three or four others of the same type.

In the non-news parts of TV, the big players are all mass-market, including
Fox. They may aim at particular demographics and psychographics, but it's a
slant rather than a segment.

There you go. Expand that to two hours, and you have the middle half of my
two-part series on media buying for broadcast. g

--
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:
"cavelamb" wrote in message
...
CABLE NEWS RACE
FRI., SEPT 11, 2009

FOXNEWS O'REILLY 3,212,000
FOXNEWS HANNITY 2,644,000
FOXNEWS BECK 2,544,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 1,968,000
FOXNEWS SHEP 1,705,000
MSNBC DOBERMANN 1,067,000
MSNBC MADDOW 948,000
CNN BLITZER 889,000
CNN KING 875,000 Just did.

Wes

I'm kind of curious about hos popularity translates to accuracy.

Popularity ratings like this tell us more about US than the media.

What Wes quoted are live-plus same-day ratings. If you aren't familiar with
those terms, it ain't worth it. g As for accuracy, they're accurate enough
where it matters, which is in media-buying terms.

The Nielsen game does not produce meaningful results unless you have a deep
knowledge of what you're looking at. The business issue is revenue versus
expense, just like any other business, and ratings can easily mislead you
about how a market is segmented and who is actually competing with who(m).
The rating system is designed to be used by, and to make sense to,
professional media buyers. I used to buy about $4.5 million/year, all print
and show, which means my actual experience is 'way at the low end. But it
was the central subject of my college degree.

Fox News has the biggest single segmented-market franchise in TV. Right now,
it's the only big one in cable news. I wouldn't expect that to change. But
if you're looking to derive some meaning from this in social terms, it's Fox
News against ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN, combined. All the latter list are
mass-market players who share a market largely undifferentiated by
demographics or psychographics. It's the old-time network play, a carryover
from the days when all TV was broadcast. MSNBC news and commentary is
another segment player, like Fox, only with a *much* smaller segment. It's
all that was left when they started playing the game that way. CNBC is
another segment player but they're actually after a special-interest niche
rather than a demographic or psychographic: semi-pro and smaller pro
financial people. But it still can be very profitable, if you can hold your
costs down. That's easier to do if you're a segment player than if you're a
mass-market player beating heads with three or four others of the same type.

In the non-news parts of TV, the big players are all mass-market, including
Fox. They may aim at particular demographics and psychographics, but it's a
slant rather than a segment.

There you go. Expand that to two hours, and you have the middle half of my
two-part series on media buying for broadcast. g

--
Ed Huntress



The NEWS used to be about news - not media share.