“The View From the Phlipside” is a media commentary program airing on WRFA-LP, Jamestown NY. It can be heard Monday through Friday around 7:30 AM. The following are scripts which may not exactly match the aired version of the program. Mostly because the host may suddenly choose to add or subtract words at a moment’s notice. WRFA-LP is not responsible for any such silliness or the opinions expressed. You can listen to a live stream of WRFA or find a podcast of this program at wrfalp.com. Copyright 2013-18 by Jay Phillippi. All Rights Reserved. You like what you see and hear? Drop me a line and we can talk.
Programs from the week of July 22, 2018
This Week’s Podcast
My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
How Long?
A good many years ago, I had a conversation with what appeared to be an otherwise rational adult on the subject of commercials. Given my mancrush on advertising here on The View From The Phlipside, you may be surprised to find that I took the negative part of the discussion that day. Like virtually every announcer on commercial radio I have ever known, I viewed advertising as a necessary evil. One that should be contained to the maximum possible extent so as to interfere with the important stuff, that being the music and, ahem, me, as little as possible. My friend, a radio salesperson, maintained that they would listen to a station that was all commercials, 24/7. I think she was exaggerating in order to make a point. But I’ve never been 100% certain.
The reality is that most media consumers fall closer to my point of view than my friend’s. And as our attention span allegedly grows shorter, the media has been looking at ways to make advertising fit better into the consumer’s world. At one point last year I reported that some folks were looking at moving towards ultra-short commercials, down to around six seconds. As a point of reference, the most common commercial lengths in the media these days are thirty seconds and fifteen seconds in length. So a six second spot is a major step down.
And not just in time elapsed. There are legitimate questions about how effective such advertising might be. In the end, as I’ve said here before, there is a single important hurdle that all advertising has to clear in order to be successful. The consumer has to remember what the spot was for. The technical term is “message recall”. And there are serious reservations about how much a consumer may recall about a commercial that is only a couple eye blinks long.
The really interesting part of this is that consumers have a negative reaction to the very concept of short advertising. A survey of adults done earlier this month by the folks at Research Intelligencer and Pollfish, show that, given a choice, 70% or more of us will choose – 15 and 30 second ads as the ideal length. The 6 second and below category falls below 20%. And that was for both television and online advertising.
The research is not unanimous on those conclusions, but I would think that the media would want a whole lot more answers before they jump.
Because in the end, most of us would prefer no advertising at all.
Your Movie Selection
I was amazed and amused to hear that there is still a Blockbuster video store left in America. The next to last such video store closed last week in Alaska, leaving the one in Bend, Oregon. The story brought back pleasant memories for me. For a movie fan like me, there was the joy of wandering up and down the aisles waiting to be tempted by a title. It was a lot like being in a library. Row after row of classics, new releases, hits and stinkers. All waiting for me to make my selection.
I checked with Kid Phlipside and she still remembers the stores as well. But if you are much younger than my kid it’s possible you only know getting movies via Netflix, Redbox or via download. While there are advantages to those services, there’s a certain experiential quality that is missing. My bet would be that the number of video stores of any description is exceedingly low at this moment in history. Some media reports would have us all believe that streaming video has relegated everything else to the dustbin of history.
The facts don’t always match up however.
In fact, the numbers of users who fall into the buying/renting category has increased in the last year. In 2017, that category saw only 44% of consumers involved. The figures for this year have jumped by 11%.
The numbers come from the NPD Group, a market analysis and advisory company. Their study also shows that of that group of consumers, just shy of half of them actually bought some physical only media, a third of them bought both physical and digital and just 18% bought physical only. That represents about an 8 point move away from physical only to the other two categories in the last year. The heavy digital users, which are defined by four purchases over a three month period, play a big role in the digital market. They make up a third of the consumer base there, but are responsible for almost 70% of the purchases.
I will admit to be old school enough that there is a certain pleasure in looking at my personal collection of movies. At the same time, it’s great being able to try something via Netflix first and not have to invest in movies that I end up hating.
It would appear that I’m not quite as far out of step as I had believed.
Necessary Tool
I still hear a small, dedicated group of disgruntled people grumbling about smartphones. The truly dedicated are the ones who maintain they don’t even own one, wouldn’t want to own one, and have a whole list of ways that smartphones are detrimental to peace, justice and…whatever.
The reality is that boat has sailed. It’s over. Smartphones are no longer an option, they are in fact an everyday part of life. I was sitting at lunch the other day and watched a table of ladies who were, shall we say, well outside the ages that are commonly dumped on for always having a smartphone at the ready. And every single one of them had a smartphone, and they all had them out and were comparing photos and posts throughout the meal.
This device is about to move into the upper echelon of consumer technology in our lives. Yes, it has almost reached the levels of televisions. The Consumer Technology Association has been issuing a “Consumer Technology Ownership and Market Potential Study” for the last 20 years. The latest one was released earlier this year and it shows that the smartphone is closing the gap on televisions. 96% of all American homes have at least one TV set. The number for smartphones is 87%, a 7 percent increase in the last twelve months. It is expected to equal or pass TV sets in the next five years.
It’s a sign of the versatile nature of the beast. It can communicate, educate, inform, and amuse, all from a package that fits easily into the pocket of most people’s pants.
Some folks greet this news with wails of despair. There is a belief that the smartphone is destroying the world, culture, families, pretty much you name it. Much the way television was going to destroy all of the same sixty years ago. We survived.
And the media business hasn’t missed the fact that we are all enjoying this mobile age. Long term sports deals are some of the most lucrative contracts that are out there. And making sure you get the mobile rights along with everything else has become an important part of the deals being signed. CBS, NBC, ESPN and Fox all made sure to nail down the mobile component in extensions of their NFL deals in the last year. And why not? The majority of those viewers are the younger, more desired demographic that advertisers crave.
If the trend continues, it will be interesting to see what else migrates toward the mobile platform as it continues to expand in our lives.
Call that the View From the Phlipside
Copyright Jay Phillippi, 2018
Theme music for “The View From the Phlipside” and “TVFTP – Podcast” is “Hustle”
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0
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