Jeff Zucker, president of NBC Universal Television Group, did utter, "I don't know why Brian Williams isn't blogging right now," at Yahoo!'s New York Media Summit this week.
"I can fix that," quipped Lloyd Braun, former chairman of ABC Entertainment Television Group, now chief of Yahoo! Media Group.
But Zucker didn't say Williams (or Katie Couric) would blog, or should blog, or might blog, as was widely reported. He said he'd check in with his news division. I know. I was there. And as a former TV marketing executive, I shudder at the notion of exorbitantly compensated news readers "blogging" by executive fiat (imagine the new job title: Ghost Blogger). Still, it's no surprise the mass media are becoming interested in the micro media.
I spent this week listening to a select handful of world-class advertisers, agencies, and executives from both online and television discuss how broadband is changing consumer habits and expectations and subsequently altering the nature of advertising. What I'm hearing couldn't be clearer: the big brand advertisers, almost as one, are shrugging off "mass" as antiquated, unattractive, untargeted, and immeasurable.
Or, as Daimler Chrysler's refreshingly blunt Director of Communications Julie Roehm put it, "TV tells you nothing about what you're doing for shareholder value."
Link: Mass Loses its Appeal.
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