Yearly Archives: 2005

Connected.

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A couple of nuggets from a new Arbitron/Edison Media study (pdf) released today:

* Eight in 10 Americans have access to the Internet from any location. As of January 2005, 81% of consumers have access to the Internet from any location. This is a remarkable rise from the 50% penetration figure from just six years ago (January 1999).

* The number of people with a broadband Internet connection at home equals the number of people with a dial-up connection at home. In January 2001, only 12% of Americans with Internet access at home used a broadband connection. That figure has since quadrupled. Now, in January 2005, 48% of people with home Internet access have broadband, and 48% have dial-up service.

Winter is not over

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Winter is not over in Wisconsin. Photo above taken by Bob Hague while riding his snow-tire equipped bike Saturday morning. We suspect he stopped to take this shot but he wasn’t clear on that point.

Radio to decline 2.5%. Blame iPods and satellites.

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Some interesting stats coming out of the Kagan Radio/TV Summit in New York. The CIBC World Markets director of research says radio can expect an overall 2.5% annual radio audience decline this year owing primarily to iPods and satellite radio.

According to independent research commissioned by Sirius, once consumers get a Sirius radio, they spend 83% of their radio time with Sirius and 7% with traditional radio. So whats commercal radio to do? According to the presentation: Increase local content; upgrade national sales efforts; get better research data; Hire TV people (“they know how to sell in a declining market.”)

“Virginity pledges”

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“Virginity pledges” — public promises to remain virgins until marriage — do not protect the young people who make them from the risk of engaging in unsafe sexual practices that could lead to sexually transmitted diseases. Some pledgers engaged in alternative sexual behaviors in order to preserve their virginity. In fact, among those who had not had vaginal intercourse, pledgers were more likely to have engaged in both oral and anal sex than their non-pledging peers. Among virgins, male and female pledgers were six time more likely to have had oral sex than non-pledgers, and male pledgers were four times more likely to have had anal sex than those who had not pledged, the research shows.” .

— Study in the March 18 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health

PrairieLinks.com

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Spent the morning visiting with Dwayne Leslie (5 min interview). He’s a farmer from Manitoba, Canada, who –five years ago– decided to build a web page to help pass the cold winter days when he couldn’t farm. He created PrairieLinks.com which is the #1 ag portal in Canada. When he couldn’t find any good farm auction sites, he started FarmAuctionGuide.com which attracts 10,000 unique visitors daily. Do not tell me that farmers are not plugged in.

“Advertising in the Age of Podcasts Manifesto”

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“We’re seeking out commercial information all the time. When you look up a movie review, or choose a plane flight, shop for an apartment, pick a restaurant or review your stock portfolio, you are seeking commercial information. So, therefore, there’s nothing particularly bad about commercials.”

— Dave Winer’s Advertising-in-the-age-of-podcasts Manifesto

Randy Michaels on future of radio

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“People today are being entertained different, and that’s a problem for radio. (By the) time a profit is made, satellite radio will be eclipsed by something more profound. Namely, Internet-based radio stations available nationwide thanks to wireless broadband technology. Radio is going to be interactive, and it’s not going to be delivered just by transmitters. The next thing is not satellite, which is another form of point-to-multipoint technology. It will be interactive, two-way communication that’s available to everybody that is the next big thing. Radio companies will have no more defense in defending their business than the railroads did when airplanes came in and took their freight business.”

— Randy Michaels, former Clear Channel Radio CEO, on the future of radio

iPod

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I find it interesting when words or objects of popular culture make their way into novels (I believe I posted on this the first time I saw Sheryl Crow’s name in a novel). I spotted a reference to iPods in Robert B. Parker’s Bad Business [pg 197], which was published in March of 2004.

“Vinnie put the shells on the coffee table and leaned the shotgun against the couch at the near end. Then he took an iPod and some earphones out and put them on the coffee table.”