Internet trends, audience data, digital advertising, iPad sales, journalists’ job satisfaction, tech trends, and social sharing are among the topics covered in this month’s installment of TFP’s Media Metrics roundup.
We compile excerpts from some of the key stories covering issues affecting the publishing and media industries each month to help you keep up with current media industry trends and prepare for changes that are just around the corner. Here are our top picks.
Mary Meeker’s 2014 Internet Trends Report: All the Slides Plus Highlights (Quartz)
- Internet user growth has slowed below 10%; smartphone growth is still strong but slowing.
- Mobile data traffic is accelerating—up 81% year-over-year—thanks to video, where mobile is now 22% of consumption.
- Only 30% of the world’s 5.2 billion mobile users have smartphones—still room for growth.
- Mobile advertising is still underperforming vs. time spent on mobile devices, whereas print is still significantly overperforming.
U.S. Mobile Ad Dollars Shift to Search Apps (eMarketer)
- Mobile advertising in the U.S. will total $17.73 billion in 2014, with mobile search spending accounting for more than half of that total, or $9.02 billion, according to new figures from eMarketer.
- By 2018, mobile search spending will reach an estimated $28.41 billion, or 85.9% of the U.S. digital search advertising market.
- Google owned 82.8% of the $2.24 billion mobile search market in 2012, and while the company’s mobile search revenues continue to increase, other players have ramped up their efforts to become the entry portal for mobile information.
Study: Audiences Increasingly Going Mobile for Entertainment (Adweek)
- A study conducted by global mobile video advertising firm Vdopia found that the number of people who said they looked at entertainment content on their smartphones during a given month went up 28% in the past year.
- Mobile audiences were also twice as likely to click on entertainment ads than those who viewed the spots on a non-smartphone platform. They were 45% more likely to remember the ads, compared to 24% of those using a regular computer or other non-mobile device.
- 84% of the entertainment mobile ad campaigns used video or rich media to tout products like theatrical or DVD releases, TV tune-ins, live events and songs or music.
- Banner ads, on the other hand, were in sharp decline, going down to less than one-third of the firm’s total impressions.
Publishing Profitability Survey Shows Mix of Optimism, Naiveté (Cxense)
- In a survey of more than 380 qualified U.S. publishing executives, nearly 80% of respondents said they simply do not know who accesses their audience data.
- Of publishers that understand which third-party companies access their data, more than 20% acknowledged that the third parties are “likely earning more money from our data than we are.”
- Nearly 70% of the respondents said sites like Google, Yahoo, and Facebook that pull content from their site and use their data are “frenemies,” while 16% of respondents consider them enemies.
- The survey also showed that readers are accessing publishers’ content via mobile phones more often than through print, tablet devices, or personal computers. In fact, 34% ranked print as the least important means for readers to access content.
Digital Marketing Spending Tops $50B as Direct Response Outpaces Branding (Folio)
- Spending on digital advertising is set to top $50 billion in 2014, according to a recent report by market research firm eMarketer.
- Close to 60% of that digital marketing budget will be focused on direct response campaigns, with the remainder aimed at branding efforts, the report says.
- Spending on desktop campaigns made up about two-thirds of the total market, with mobile devices accounting for the remaining third.
iPad Sales Slow as Tablet Competitors Rise (Digital Book World)
- According to a report from ABI Research, Apple competitors grew their tablet businesses by a combined 79% last year, while Apple managed only 13% growth.
- Although its competitors using Google’s Android OS have surpassed Apple’s unit volume, iPad revenues for 2013 still exceeded the rest of the market by 11%.
- Among e-readers in the U.S., there is some evidence that this shift is starting to have an effect. Among children, the Kindle Fire is a more popular reading device than the iPad, according to a recent report.
Report: Journalists are Miserable, Liberal, Over-Educated, Under-Paid, Middle-Aged Men (The Atlantic)
In a survey conducted by the Indiana University School of Journalism, 60% of journalists said their newsrooms shrank in the past year.- 23.3% said they are “very satisfied” with their jobs, compared with 49% in 1971.
- A clear majority of journalists (59.7%) think the Fourth Estate is headed in the wrong direction.
- The industry’s median age has increased from 32 to 47 in the last three decades, during which time the age of the typical American went from 30 to 37.
- 92% of journalists were white in 1992, and 92% of journalists were white in 2012. But the gender makeup is changing pretty radically. In 1971, journalism was 80% male. Now it’s 62% male.
Is Journalism Really a Male-Dominated Field? The Numbers Say Yes (The Washington Post)
- According to the American Society of News Editors’ annual newsroom census, the employment of men and women by job category has remained about the same for years—newsrooms remain about two-thirds male.
- In 2013, the percentage of male supervisors was 65.4% versus 34.6% for females. Reporters? 62.2% male versus 37.8% female.
- Copy editors/layout editors/online producers (all one category) are divided 60.1% male and 39.9% female, while photographers/videographers make up the largest gender gap: 75.1% male versus 24.9% female.
- Grand total: Men have 63.7% of the gigs, while women have 36.3%.
- In print journalism, The New York Times had the fewest female bylines (31%) of the 10 largest newspapers. The Chicago Sun Times had the most female bylines, with 46%.
99% of Shared Blog Content is Posted to Facebook and Twitter (AllTwitter)
- 76 million people will read blogs in the U.S. in 2014—roughly one quarter of the population—and close to two in five will use Twitter when sharing those posts, reveals a new study.
- TrackMaven polled U.S. internet users about their blog content sharing habits and found that 38.6% will tweet links to posts that they have enjoyed.
Pinterest Users Remain Almost Exclusively Female, 84% Stay Active After 4 Years (VentureBeat)
A study of 50,000 random Pinterest users reveals that 92% of all “pins” are made by women, 84% of whom have been active ever since Pinterest first launched four years ago, RJMetrics claims.- Although the study states that only 80% of Pinterest’s user base is female, RJMetrics claims only 8% of all pins are made by men.
- According to RJMetrics, “the average active female user has made 158 pins” over the past year alone.
Report: Readers More Loyal to Large News Sites (Poynter)
- The latest report by analytics firm Parse.ly indicates large news sites see a greater percentage of visitors return within 30 days than small news sites do.
- Sites with more than 10 million monthly visitors saw a 16% return rate, while sites with fewer than 1 million monthly visitors saw a 9% return rate.
- In March, search accounted for 32.8% of referrals, edging past social, which accounted for 31.2%.
The 2014 B-to-B CEO Survey (Folio)
- Print advertising still accounted for more than half (52.5%) of total revenue last year for the 100-plus respondents to Folio’s 2014 B-to-B CEO Survey. Remarkably, that’s actually higher than it was in 2010 (52.4%).
- 8% of those surveyed invested $500,000 or more in technology last year, while 44% crossed the $25,000-mark—both five-year highs.
- A quarter of the CEOs surveyed said they’re planning to add digital media staff in 2014.
- Only about one-third of respondents’ companies will make anything more than a minimal investment in print products this year. A quarter of them will shift resources away from ink and paper.
- One-third of respondents also claimed live shows as one of their fastest-growing business segments last year, only trailing digital media.
- Two-thirds of respondents’ companies have rolled out a responsive design site, a dedicated mobile site , or both, with the crowd evenly split between the two main options—39% have opted for responsive design; 36% have developed sites specifically for mobile.
Reporters’ Pay Falls Below U.S. Average Wage (American Journalism Review)
- The mean salary for reporters and correspondents rose from $40,090 in May 2003 to $44,360 in May 2013, an increase of 10.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics.
- During the same 10-year period, the mean salary for all occupations rose considerably more—28%, from $36,210 in 2003 to $46,440 in 2013, BLS data shows.
- A decade ago, reporters and correspondents earned more than the average wage for all U.S. workers, but that is no longer true. Reporters, on average, earned $2,080 less than the national average last May, the most recent month for which data is available.
Why Digital Tools Stay in the Shed: “The Goat Must Be Fed” (Duke Reporters’ Lab)
- Based on interviews with senior editors and producers in more than 20 newsrooms, the Reporters’ Lab found that many U.S. newsrooms are not taking advantage of the emerging low-cost digital tools that enable journalists to report and present their work in innovative ways.
- Journalism awards and well-attended conferences create a sense that the adoption of data reporting and digital tools is broader than it really is.
- Local news leaders often cite budget, time, and people as their biggest constraints. But conversations with the editors and producers we spoke to also revealed deeper issues—part infrastructure, part culture.
- The local newsrooms that have made smart use of digital tools have leaders who are willing to make difficult trade-offs in their coverage.
Media Metrics is a new monthly feature from Technology for Publishing, aimed at keeping you armed with the latest industry data. If you’d like to share something you’ve read, drop us a note. And keep up with the latest industry news coverage by signing up for our This Week in Publishing emails or our monthly Publishing Trends newsletter.
Posted by: Margot Knorr Mancini
