Early Results of the TPN Oct 2006 survey

by | Oct 23, 2006 | climate change, Iraq, Podcast, Uncategorized

Beti the Excel Jedi (and the host of the TPN Health and Fitness podcast) has put together a nifty pps containing the results of the TPN Oct 2006 survey so far. I’ll leave it open for another few weeks but I think the results are already showing some interesting trends.

Some interesting things that popped out at me:

  • most people say that, on average, they listen to “most or all” of podcasts
  • about a third pay attention to ads in podcasts, but another third ignore them
  • 50% would be willing to pay >$1 a month to listen to TPN podcasts
  • the breakdown between people listening on a PC versus a portable player is moving away from the PC, with 75% listening on a portable device
  • nobody first heard of TPN via the mainstream media
  • the vast majority say they trust the opinions of TPN hosts either “very much” or “somewhat” and 70% trust TPN hosts more than they trust mainstream media (which might shut up all the journos who love to say “you can’t trust blogs”… nah who am I kidding… )
  • almost all of you relate to TPN hosts more than you relate to mainstream media hosts, yet again demonstrating the power of citizen media
  • two-thirds listen to less traditional radio since discovering podcasting (I should have asked what percentage of the podcasts you listen to are traditional radio shows versus citizen media… next time)
  • two-thirds find citizen media more stimulating than mainstream media
  • and, overwhelmingly, you are Beatles persons who disagree with the Iraq invasion and are worried about climate change. In other words, you haven’t been fooled by the propaganda campaigns on these issues run by your Governments and the corporations that run them. I am very proud of you.

Check out the early results.

And if you haven’t completed the survey yet, you still have a chance by going here.

What Does Packer Know?

by | Oct 20, 2006 | Uncategorized

Unsurprisingly, most of the media chatter about PBL’s decision to sell off 50% of its media assets says the decision was made "so it can focus on expanding its international gaming business". Now I know James isn’t Kerry. But thing back. Kerry was the king of expert timing. He floated ecorp (aka PBL Online) about 6 months before the dot com crash. He cashed out of the stock market just before the 1987 crash. He famously sold Channel Nine to Alan Bond at the peak of Bond’s hubris and then bought it back a year later when Bond crashed.

So if this was Kerry selling PBL’s media assets I would be asking the following question: What Does Kerry Know That The Rest Of The Market Doesn’t Know?

Now, as I said, James isn’t Kerry. Maybe he has inherited his patriarch’s sixth sense, maybe he hasn’t.

But I suggest to you that "so it can focus on expanding its international gaming business" may be the explanation that Packer, and the rest of the media, what the market to think. What other reasons could there be? That the value of the Television and Magazine businesses have peaked? Is that a rationale even worth considering?

Here is your homework today kids: find a mainstream media analysis of the PBL sell-off which asks deep questions about the future value of the television and magazine business.

Austereo, Australia’s largest radio network, on the other hand, says the media buying frenzy has totally by-passed it.

"In response to media speculation following recent changes to media ownership laws, Austereo advises that it has not had any approaches from third parties," it said.

Wow, now there’s a surprise. No-one is overly-excited about buying a radio business. I wonder why?

Get This Week’s Bulletin Magazine

by | Oct 16, 2006 | Uncategorized

Josh Gliddon has written an article about Aussie Web2.0 entrepreneurs which is coming out in this week’s edition of The Bulletin magazine. I was interviewed for the story and apparently I’m on the cover (that was the photo shoot last weekend). Hopefully it’ll give us some good exposure in this country although the gist of the article is that Aussie web entrepreneurs need to go over to the US to get realistic valuations for their start-ups. It’s pretty cool that Josh has written this 2nd article on TPN at this defining moment for the business – he wrote the first mainstream media article on TPN back in February 2005 just as we were getting started, so this kind of feels like nicely orchestrated bookends. I’d link to the original article he wrote but Ninemsn’s archives seem to be completely borked.

Another report says Australian newspapers in massive decline

by | Oct 13, 2006 | Uncategorized

Hugh Martin reports "The Australian Press Council has just released The State of the News Print Media in Australia Report 2006…… I can’t help but think there’s a lot of wishful thinking going on in this report. The authors are by and large working editors, with a couple of academics thrown in for good measure."

I haven’t read the report yet but this graph above (click on it to bring up the full size version) pretty much tells the true story. Look at the graph on the right. Look at the decline in circulation since 1999. Now grab a ruler and extend that line downwards. If you are so inclined, make the decline exponential.

Face it, my friends in the newspaper business. Things are changing faster than many of you care to admit. I know Hugh isn’t one of those. Neither is Mark Jones at the AFR. Don’t forget to buy a copy today to read about Telstra v Tom Reynolds.