Paper or Pixels

Hot on the desk is the PADD (Print and digital data) survey from the NRS. Long discussed this is the first formal measurement by the NRS of readership across both paper and digital versions of their titles. To a very large degree a lot of the learning here has been presaged by Touchpoints, who have been measuring readership on and offline for several years. But it’s the first time our gold standard readership currency has published joint figures, so it’s worthy of note. The numbers on national press hold no surprises. Biggest gainers from adding digital are The Guardian - web adds another 65% to their daily readership, and 119% to their monthly reach. At the bottom of the newspaper pile we find The Daily Star, chalking up just 1.3% gains from their website. Much more interesting are the magazine results. Firstly we see a bigger impact across the board. Of the 110 odd tiles measured 2/3rds of them recorded net gains by adding web of more than 30%. And at the top end, really big gains - 984% being the record to date. And secondly, and I think more interesting - we see a marked difference between the business models off and online. BBC Easy Cook, who topped the rankings with a massive 984% gain, has bbcgoodfood.com as its web partner. Now to call bbcgoodfood.com a magazine is stretching definitions more than a little in one sense, but it does reflect the major reason why the magazine is purchased - for recipe ideas and support and services that the consumer needs in the most efficient way possible. The second major trend is the partnering between offline magazines and online ecommerce sites. In some cases the magazine came first (eg Boots Health and Beauty and Boots.com) but in others (eg Asos) the magazine is the “new” media channel. I rather suspect that we may see more of the latter as our pure play digerati learn the lessons that Google has learned and turn to old fashioned print for marketing. We think that this is an area worthy of more debate, and it will form part of our next seminar “The future of print: paper or pixels” on October 10th. If you would like to join us then call Cathy Lawler on 020-7307 6104 for a place on the guest list. Mike Colling, Managing Director

TV’s may be staying dumb and not getting much smarter

Last week’s global conference on the future of “integrated TV” in Amsterdam saw an interesting reversal of one stream of conventional wisdom on the future of television
Manufacturers in particular have long believed that it is the destiny of the television set to become “smarter”, with full super-fast broadband access, and with a range of accompanying “apps” that enable deep exploration of fab facts associated with the broadcast stream. They also see the main television screen as the focal point for “social TV”, ie real time messaging with your friends and family via Facebook or IM.

Three things are conspiring to frustrate this vision of the future.
Firstly, the refusal of “live TV” to go away. The number of minutes we spend watching TV is still rising (up to 242 minutes per day) , 85% of which is live TV. This is a figure that has remained stubbornly the same for the last 5 years, despite the fact that 50% of us now own DVR’s. We want to watch TV live and now, and not have the effort of controlling it.

The second reason the TV is for TV and not other things is that it’s often not just our choice. More than 50% of viewing is still “shared” viewing with others in the room. If our wives want to watch Eastenders what chance do we have to play with the Top Gear app?

And the final reason for the likely failure of the smart “big screen” is the rapid advance of the smart “medium” screen.

11% of us now own tablets, up from 2% a year ago. And 17% of us say we will buy one in the next 12 months. Zero to 30% penetration in two years is good going.
The big surprise on tablet usage is the amount that is in the home (87%) and when watching TV (68%).

All of a sudden there is a personal, alternative screen sitting on our audience’s laps that they can turn to in order to explore, respond, or just chat.

And that’s just what they are doing. Our betting - learn about tablets rather than smart TV’s, that’s where the testing efforts should go.

Mike Colling, Managing Director