The Television world has changed. Media meltdown from the markets.

Investors this week are re-assessing the value of TV.

The TV business is in trouble on two fronts - Firstly from disruptive technology that's ad-free (Netflix) and therefore, declining audiences (bringing less Advertising) and now, from the markets. A perfect storm.

Shares in Viacom, Time Warner, CBS, Fox were all hit last week, greater than the general market declines. Viacom for example, was -25% down, having reported declines in revenue, profit and income.

Disney, who are very diversified with blockbuster movies, even took a hit because of their dependence on TV. Time Warner took a hit because of its loss of subscribers/viewers. Yet, Netflix audiences surge to nearly 50 million in the US.

The problem with traditional TV continues, as viewers have now more (and better) options. 

Whether that's online broadcasting (Netflix, Amazon) or Apps (snapchat, vine) or spending time on Social Media (Twitter, Facebook) or Second screen viewing whilst watching TV - they're simply watching less. That means in turn, less advertising (because advertising money follows audience) and less subscribers (I use it less so why should I pay for it).

Audience ratings of prime shows (which you'll see peppered in this blog) are in steep decline with Nielsen reporting that 25 of the top 35 channels attracted lower audiences in 2015. Shows are in decline too. That's despite the TV industry trying to convince us otherwise through spurious data analysis.

According to The FT, "Wall Street has belatedly realised that the television world has changed. It is unlikely that the latest media meltdown will be the last" and indeed, that reporting will also be self-prophecy.

Of course too, TV is being replaced. By online digital video, something which Streamabout knows so well.

The trouble with Newspapers.

Online newspapers seem to grow and grow, yet paywalls seem to fail and this is all spelling out a really difficult future for traditional daily newspapers.

This week's 'Economist' outlines the points very clearly (as they always do).

Axel Springer bought BusinessInsider in September for 442 million usd and NBC invested 200m usd in BuzzFeed, in what's perceived as an attempt by traditional publishers to bring more online inventory into traditional media ownership.

Largely because their traditional Ad revenues continue to fall. 

Between 2005 and 2014, traditional print Ad spending in US newspaper dailies has dropped -60%. As it dropped, staff and newsrooms were cut. A bleak future response then, delivering a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ad revenue falls, staff are made redundant, product suffers, ad revenue falls.

Indeed, there may come a day when print advertising per se, drops to Zero and indeed, online Ad prices are falling too, as media options (where to place them) increases widely. Increased supply drives prices down and with Social Media options (Facebook, Twitter) developing a pace, they'll suck in more and more Ad dollars from newspapers.

Getting readers to pay for news has not been a success either - marked recently by the UK 'Sun' dropping their subscriber paywall. Metered or Limited paywalls have worked for some (notably The UK FT) but with so much free content, it's not going to work well. And certainly, will not compensate for the losses in Ad revenue in any real way.

Boosting online Newspaper Ad revenue is one way, but Newspaper online Ad revenue is only up +11% since 2007 - not enough. Not nearly. 

Although while Advertisers do look for more 'native content' (sponsored content) and online video, Newspapers just do not have the skills to produce video to an acceptable standard either - nor, in some ways, should they.

Sponsored content will also have a poor knock-on affect to readers who will realise that what they're reading as "news" is in fact Advertising - and they won't like it. It's breaking brand trust.

The real super threat is Programmatic buying, now becoming standard, where an advertiser buys the reader and not the Title and so that's a real threat to publishers. They should not embrace it but difficult to see how not to either. Turkeys and Christmas.

So Media buying by Title, is coming to an end. Ad Blocking proliferation is another threat too (and notably, video is not ad blocked).

One way suggest The Economist, is for publishers to branch out into areas such as Music, Sport, Health or Religion and they note, The Boston Globe developing a health site called 'Stat' this very month. Gardening and Wine Clubs too, possibly ideal for the Sunday reader (as in The Telegraph typically), may bring in some money.

It signifies a shift away too from 'Breaking News' which of course, given the print deadlines, traditional newspapers can no longer do. They still can of course, give insights into stories that have already broken, or special investigations. But it's limited.

There's no joy in saying it, but the traditional daily Newspaper days are numbered. They're facing an onslaught through online programmatic media buying; through ad blocking; through increased digital media supply bringing lower prices; by paywalls not delivering because of free news; through lower ad revenues; and a possibility of breaking reader trust with Native Stories.

Difficult to see a way out of this.

But it is clear that Newspapermen have to consider that their biggest asset is online and not what's being printed. If they stopped printing the Newspaper and focused on their online property, they'd save a lot. And that's considered heresy.

RTB/Programmatic Buying gets another push on by people with a ridiculous name.

Programmatic media buying or RTB, is here to stay, big time.

It makes absolute sense in automating the transaction between buyers and sellers. As well as, proving better real time data and indeed, more price transparency. 

Today's announcement of CNN, The FT, Thomson/Reuters and The Guardian coming together under a group umbrella of 'The Pangaea Alliance' (interestingly pangaea.com is bizarrely, taken by someone else, we checked!) offering access over programmatic buying to their claimed 110 million users.

Each is bringing 10% of their inventory to the deal from April with its own sales channel (presumably replacing the existing in-house teams). 

Indeed. Perfect sense and will result in selling what has generally been considered 'unsold' inventory because with RTB, all space has a price. These 4 brands together too, offer real advertising opportunities.

But but but.....they've fallen at the first hurdle with quite frankly, a ridiculous name that will do them no good.

Television at the tipping point now. Financial Times story will accelerate TV's demise.

TV is actually on a tipping point.

A lot of us take the view that traditional TV is dying at a rapid pace but Saturday's story in the illustrious 'Financial Times' will only hasten things. It's a paper well read, by CEO's and Marketing Directors.

The story is based around new Advertising spend data which shows, that after three consecutive decades of growth, it has finally peaked this year and now starting to decline - the tipping point.

TV should capture 40% of the global 532 billion usd ad market in 2013 and then start falling. That data came from none other than Publicis ZenithOptimedia, reliable a source as you'll find. That 40% share will now go into steep decline.

This is of course due to the rise of digital. 

The explosion of digital across multi-screens, was going to hit TV hardest always and in particular, the reluctance (ongoing reluctance) of TV stations to get involved with digital, has further accelerated their demise. 

A new breed of marketers too, has brought an opportunity to change and online video is also now a far sexier media buy, than traditional TV. 

For example, YouTube is surging + 50% with 66 billion usd in revenue this year. Google is also powering ahead on their GDN network.

It is good news for digital providers and another breakthrough in their fight with TV stations who went to lengths initially, to try and put them out of business. 

But like a lot of businesses that simply refuse to accept digital as even an option, they lose out. And TV is digital's biggest scalp.

UK National Newspapers. 9% pay for online news. Will a billionaire buy them?

Interesting numbers on UK Newspapers from this month's Economist (always well worth a read by the way).

Since 2008, the UK nationals circulation (Britain has 12 nationals) has been in decline and much more when compared to the US, Japan and Europe. They're down by 25%.

UK newspapers traditionally have depended on the casual reader buying off the cover (so a new Royal baby is a great fillip for them) rather than a daily buying habit or subscriptions. Tabloid headlines consequently, are key here to attract that casual reader in the newsagent. 

But it is far easier for a reader not to buy a newspaper in the shop there and then, rather than cancel a subscription which is the prominent way newspapers are sold in the US for example.

The Telegraph (superb publication), FT, Guardian, Independent and Times all are all pushing subscriptions and with some success. From December 2008 to May 2013, subscriptions have gone from 26% to 41% of overall circulation.

The Telegraph for example, are giving away a free Kindle with every subscription and others are bundling digital access with the sub. Clearly too, subs are better revenue long term and give numbers on readers profiles which can be used for targeted Ads. 

9% of British readers are paying for online news (paywalls) up from 4% in 2012. Some newspapers are adding content to their digital edition such as The Sun with clips of Premier League soccer games. Creating more worthwhile content that's worth paying for rather than just, an online version of the newspaper.

All of this though, is not compensating for the loss in Advertising revenue. Newspaper Ad revenue estimated by The Economist, will be 2 billion stg, about half of its 2005 level. The Times loses money, despite its successful paywall.

Like Ireland however, Britain has too many newspapers for the number of readers - it is an over saturated market. And free-sheets, such as The Evening Standard, prosper. 

So with the circulation declines and albeit the efforts to grow subs, the decline in Ads and the march of online, will mean that things will tighten up through the potential closure of some of those 12 titles. Nevermind competitive threats from other and new media. Although as someone said, newspapers are like soccer clubs....some billionaire will buy them.

Indeed. Like Ireland.

Google to launch new Music streaming service. This giant is awakening.

Google really seem to have their heads up especially with the oncoming onslaught of glasses and their move into retail. It's almost like there's a new energy a Google, a new momentum?

According to the front page of this weekend's Financial Times, they're about to launch a music streaming service and The FT know because of the discussions taking place with big music labels. It will therefore compete with Deezer and Spotify.

Although there's an irony here because music labels didn't like google as they saw Search engines facilitating, music piracy.

Advertising accounts for about 95% of google's revenue so these type of services (and glasses) changes their revenue model to being based more on consumer income. No bad thing. 

Music streaming normally allows two price options - free, but be subject to advertising or, pay, and get premium music, ad-free service. With download you get to keep the tract and this "streaming" market is worth over 1.5 billion usd a year....at the moment.

Commercial music download concepts (like Apple's itunes) is different to streaming and Google already launched a US music download store in late 2011. They also have YouTube plans for subscription music services and others (such as travel, price comparisons and so on). 

Google can easily bring these services to the Nexus tablets and their Android phones (as Apple do with Itunes on iPhone). By scrutinising consumer habits and downloads, Advertising Agencies might be well prepared to get involved with this. It could be a valuable database.

But this will give Google another string to its bow. It seems a sleeping giant is awakening....and when it does, we will feel the roar.

Online payments processing is changing. Out with the old, in with the new. Square gets a 3 billion valuation. It's all about time.

I was reading in the FT on Saturday (which is completely recommended as a great weekend paper along with The Sunday Telegraph) about Brad Miller, a techy in California.

He goes into a coffee shop, but the time he gets to the till to pay for his coffee, his picture has appeared on the ipad, which the coffee shop uses as a terminal. The assistant identifies him from the photo, taps the screen and he's paid. It's one new mpayment system called 'Square'.

As he leaves, a receipt drops into his iphone.

This is becoming a world without cash and a world without cards.  Called mpayments (or mccommerce) as in 'mobile payments' it extends the way we buy tickets, coffee and anything from a smartphone. Indeed, one questions the need for ATM's in the future?

Payment processing is something I do know a little about having been involved as a Director with 'Realex payments' from the start, who have been the dominant Irish payments processor for some years. However, what's going on, is an upending of the traditional payments business made possible by tablets and smartphones.

Square, one such new company of about 150 start-ups in the space, headed up by Jack Dorsey of Twitter, reached a 3 billion usd valuation this week. A fairly slick App, it's linked to a users credit card or bank account. Running constantly in the background on a smartphone, it allows facial recognition in shops and that single tap to complete the transaction.

But changing habits will take time and technology can still get better. What it is doing however, is playing traditional payment processors such as Visa, Amex, off the field and indeed, traditional processing companies. 

Paypal are seemingly trying to re-invent themselves and fit into the mobile payment revolution but I think their game is up. Definitely, their margin is up (!) as is the traditional outrageously high margins charged by Mastercard, Visa and all. They're definitely facing a low income future - whatever happens - and about time too.

They'll certainly also have new competitors in the form of these start-ups but also mobile operators, well placed to adopt these new technologies and embed them in handsets. Which is absolutely key. Own the distribution, you own the customer.

Google and Microsoft are moving in and Apple have started, albeit gently, with their 'Passbook'. The space is heating up.

Gathering payment data has also other advantages in linking it to say, coupon features, shopping suggestions or indeed, advertising - and yes, given the privacy issues. 

One thing is certain too, we're looking at a boom in mobile payments at the expense of companies who've had it too long their own way. Digital is changing this business and replacing fat companies with new, lean, smart, start-ups.

And you'll see the new folks win.
And you'll see the big boys fall.
As we've seen before.

And no harm too.