If you think the news industry is in turmoil, you should take a look at the music recording industry.
This story says so much about how we live today -- shunning prepackaged products in favor of micro-products that let us pick and choose exactly what we want.
Music compact disc sales dropped a stunning 20 percent in the first three months of 2007. What filled a part of the void?
Downloads of individual songs.According to AFP,
Nielsen SoundScan says 89 million CDs were sold between the start of the year and March 18, significantly fewer than the 112 million that were sold during the same time a year ago.
The Wall Street Journal reports that in recent weeks, record companies have seen some of their weakest sales ever. Already this year, Nielsen Soundscan has recorded the two lowest-selling number one albums since the company was launched in 1991.
The Journal story says:
The sharp slide in sales of CDs, which still account for more than 85 percent of music sold, has far eclipsed the growth in sales of digital downloads, which were supposed to have been the industry's salvation.
The slide stems from the confluence of long-simmering factors that are now feeding off each other, including the demise of specialty music retailers like longtime music mecca
Tower Records. About 800 music stores, including Tower's 89 locations, closed in 2006 alone.
Apple Inc.'s sale of around 100 million iPods shows that music remains a powerful force in the lives of consumers. But because of the Internet, those consumers have more ways to obtain music now than they did a decade ago, when walking into a store and buying it was the only option.
Today, popular songs and albums -- and countless lesser-known works -- can be easily found online, in either legal or pirated forms. While the music industry hopes that those songs will be purchased through legal services like Apple's iTunes Store, consumers can often listen to them on MySpace pages or download them free from other sources, such as so-called MP3 blogs.
Jeff Rabhan, who manages artists and music producers including Jermaine Dupri, Kelis and Elliott Yamin, says CDs have become little more than advertisements for more-lucrative goods like concert tickets and T-shirts. "Sales are so down and so off that, as a manager, I look at a CD as part of the marketing of an artist, more than as an income stream," says Mr. Rabhan. "It's the vehicle that drives the tour, the merchandise, building the brand, and that's it. There's no money."
Caring for Traumatized JurorsThe National Center for State Courts reports:
New legislation in Texas would provide counseling to jurors or alternates after certain types of trials, such as homicide; sex offenses; assault; offenses against the family (bigamy, interference with child custody, etc.); and public indecency (such as prostitution).
The bill is the brainchild of one victim's mother. Her daughter had been dismembered. She was worried about the jurors who served on the defendant's case.
HB 3416 was referred to the House Criminal Jurisprudence on March 20.
A few years ago,
The National Law Journal reported that jury debriefing was becoming more common following some high-profile, gruesome cases, such as those of the Oklahoma City bomber and Jeffery Dahmer.
That story said:
Voluntary mental health experts are being called on by a growing number of judges who recognize the need to debrief juries after a traumatic trial.
Janiver Slick, an Oregon-based debriefing expert and director of the state's division of child protective services, has been called on to work with juries after murder or sexual abuse trials. But Oregon, like most states, has not created a formal debriefing service within its court system.
"It's an issue of funding," Slick noted.
Skyhook IntrusionHave you heard about
AOL's new add-on to its popular instant messaging service?
It lets users know exactly where the people on their AOL Instant Messenger buddy lists are physically located. I can see people who worry about online child predators coming unglued over this. AOL promises Skyhook is an optional feature.
How detailed is the information?
Skyhook, the company AOL partnered with to create the add-on, has spent the past few years driving a fleet of 200 trucks up and down the streets of 2,500 cities and towns across the United States and Canada. What were they looking for? Signals from wireless routers. Skyhook cataloged the unique pulses put off by home and office routers and tagged them with GPS coordinates. Attach this information to an AIM screen name and it becomes possible to see where every message is coming from.
The Associated Press reports:
The resulting database consists of 16 million [wireless] access points covering an area where Skyhook says 70 percent of the U.S. population lives and six Canadian markets where the majority of that nation's people live.
When an AIM user installs Skyhook, the application gathers the identifying codes for all access points that are detected by the [wireless] card in the computer, then compares those with the database to identify the person's location. When connected via a non-[wireless] computer, a user can manually input a location.
Free Shirts for TV AnchorsThere is always somebody trying to get free publicity by tempting journalists with goodies. Some TV news friends of mine sent me a copy of an email they got from US Marketing promising nifty Nike golf shirts for sports anchors just like the one Tiger Woods wears. Here's the nauseating pitch:
Good afternoon! I have a story idea I want to share with you. Nike Golf is running a fun campaign around The Masters this year! It's called "Wear It On Air." This campaign entails us sending the exact same shirt that Tiger is wearing to anchors to wear on air the same day Tiger's wearing it during The Masters (1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th round). Most likely you will report on how Tiger is playing regardless of whether or not he is in the lead. We think this would provide fun banter and jokes by the other anchors.
We'd love to invite you guys to join us for a little fun. We know that your affiliate might have restrictions on what you can and cannot wear so, if you want to participate we need the shirt size for the anchor/anchors who will be reporting.
Please let us know if you will or will not participate as soon as possible so we can get you your shirts!
Thank you!
I think it is interesting that the PR folks recognize that you, the journalist, "may have restrictions on what you can or cannot wear" but do not recognize that taking free stuff from advertisers might pose an ethical problem.
See the
Balancing Business Pressures and Journalism Values guidelines that Bob Steele and I wrote in 2002. Print them out. Talk about them on the air -- it might provoke some fun banter and jokes from the other anchors.
A friend of mine, Kim Dillon at WABC in New York , tells me this is not an isolated incident.
She says:
I received a similar pitch recently from a toy company that wanted to send computer games to the children of our anchors! The young woman who called told me she thought it would spark fun on-air banter. She also wanted me to provide names and ages of the children. It was clear to me that this tactic was accepted practice in other markets ... and that it had worked in the past. She seemed perplexed when I told her we wouldn't be doing that.
A note to public relations folks: Don't send Al's Morning Meeting any of your cheap promotional crap. We only accept expensive promotional crap.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts and other materials from a variety of Web sites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed and a link will be provided whenever possible. The column is fact-checked, but depends upon the accuracy and integrity of the original sources cited. Errors and inaccuracies found will be corrected.
Wouldn't you agree that US Marketing targeted men in this...
