Download Wolzien LLC Speeches & Tools
On this Download page you will find copies of articles, speaches and comments at public events, supporting slides, and some models we have developed to help consider questions that impact the media and communications industries.
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Between Advertising & The Cash Consumer (pdf) As media companies look to the consumer to pay subscription fees for new offerings, this opening address at the 2010 UCLA Entertainment Bar Symposium asks if the consumer really has the financial bandwidth to do so. Topics include global saturation of media, the US consumer, analysis of latest BLS spending data, Netflix, Disney Keychest, Hulu, Retransmission Consent, TV Everywhere and the lock down of content.
Cross Currents In Media Globalization (pdf) Opening address to the Entertainment Bar, UCLA, March 6, 2009. Set stage for two day symposium. Wolzien's fifth appearance at this session. Address dealt with challenges in global broadband connectivity and usage, inherrent conflicts between traditional multi-market/multi-window content sales model and emerging global distributors who need all rights in all markets, and explored growth of quality cinema tradecraft in India in light of Slumdog Millionair and a the decay of US automobilie, consumer electronics, and development of call center and software services.
Plan for Outflanking TV Stations and When the Dogs of News Don't Bark (pdf) This two part piece, written for the RTNDA's March 2008 tribute to Edward R. Morrow, provides a web flanking strategy by which newspapers (or others) could attack the entrenched local news operations of the best television stations. The article also discusses the loss of TV viewers because of (though not to) the web, as they learn from the web, mobile phones and other devices the answers to the three basic news questions: Am I safe? Is my family safe? is my country safe? If they are answered by the lack of anything bad on the web, the need to tune in is reduced. No tune in to learn the headlines means no access to promos or personality...and an overall reduction in audience.
Station Future Revenue Interactive Reality Check (.xls) First presented at TVB's National Marketing Meeting, Javits Center, NY, April 12, 2007. Download this interactive model, enter station's 2006 revenue and sources, long term revenue sources and overall desired station growth rates. Model delivers dollar revenue requirements by source--primary channel, digital sub-channels, internet, interactive, mobile, retransmission consent, network comp, needed to meet station revenue goals.
The 4 S's--Second by Second, Set by Set: Requiring and Funding Better Accountability. (.pdf) March 20, 2007. Luncheon speech for the ANA 2007 TV Forum at the Marriot Marquis. Increased accountability through set by set, second by second measurement will become possible using return data path as digital transition in broadcast and cable puts boxes on virtually every set over next half decade or so. Funding for improved advertising accountability comes from tapping third revenue pool--marketing dollars (advertising and subscription are other pools)--using the same return pathway to permit consumers to ask, buy, and generate leads. Marketing revenues would allow operators to be compensated at corporate level, though resistance from local cable sales expected. Resistance to better accountability also expected from some content companies fearing inability to sell "sizzle" with better measurement. Therefore, responsibility falls on advertisers to require better accountability.
The Legacy of Studio 8H (.pdf) November 6, 2006. Opening talk for NBC-Universal/GE Corporate Finance day long seminar "New Thinking for New Media" at NBC's Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center. Studies by Wolzien LLC for its clients suggest that the combined media, telecom, internet, cable/satellite sectors have seen revenue growth, on average, of almost one percentage point per year more slowly than the economy since 2002 (5.1% vs 6.05% CAGR), suggesting there is no rising tide to lift all ships in the sector, but rather a slack tide that can only result in companies trying to eat each others' lunch. Without new revenues from marketing or other sources (not apparent yet), the current media advertising pie is a zero-sum game, with new media taking share away from old. Declines in share, if not revenue, are the inevitable result of non-action by legacy companies. This will force legacy video media companies to seek interactive solutions for their current one-way services as a way to increase accountability and tap into marketing budgets. At the same time, they will increasingly move onto the web through build or buy strategies in an attempt to avoid market share declines that have already descimated the classified portion of the newspaper industry.
Industry Implications of the NBC Cutbacks, NewsHour October 19, 2006. Squeeze on legacy media companies as they try to evolve but aren't, at the same time, successful in keeping the maintaining current businesses. Link to interview with Jeffrey Brown.
National Association of Broadcasters' Convention Speech (.pdf), April 25, 2006. Opening comments at Convention's Broadcast Management Conference. Includes comparative advertising threat analysis of Broadcast TV, Cable, Satellite, and the Internet. Asks whether broadcast-cable cooperation could be needed to provide greater ratings accountability, interactive generation of hard leads and sales, and access to zoning capabilities and thereby compete with those capabilities provided advertisers by the Internet. Also considered in the comment are the merits for cable-broadcaster cooperation to encourage growth of free over-the-air digital broadcast channels (anti-stripping or digital must carry) to assert downward presssure on what cable industry has been telling Wall Street is undue subscriber fee growth of multichannel networks.
TV Station Retrans Scenario Calculator (.xls), first presented at TVB April 20, 2006. Designed to help compare value of sub fees versus estimates of additional advertising accountability, lead generation, direct sales, and zoning that may be gained through cooperative effort with cable or satellite company to use its return path infrastructure.
Wolzien Comments at the Television Bureau of Advertising Annual Marketing Conference (.pdf), Javits Center, New York, April 20, 2006. This includes an explanation of the Retrans Scenario Calculator. Provides detailed outline of the strategic and financial case for long term value creation from the use of retransmission consent leverage by television broadcasters to gain access to cable's return path as alternative to cash for carriage. Cooperation with cable would provide improved ratings accountability, interactive development of hard sales leads and actual sales, and the ability to zone advertising. (For AdAge video coverage, click here.)
Slides (Selected) from TVB Conference April 20, 2006 (.pdf). Contains ten year illustration of impact of internet growth on traditional media, TVB slides showing TV and Internet Reach and TV's impact on teaching about products and brands, schematic or local video collection system, illustration of Retrans Calculator.
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