In the 18 months since I began this blog Media Hunter has grown from a regionally focused experiment to become one of Australia’s leading media blogs. It now covers traditional media, digital media and social media despite originally looking mainly at media in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley.

I know that during this time many people around me- staff, family and friends -  have all wondered why I would want to dedicate a reasonable amount of time to writing and researching posts for an obscure little blog. Certainly, there were times when I really wondered why I was doing it too.

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Newcastle TV ratings week 39, 2008

We seem to be stuck in a holding pattern on Newcastle TV at the moment. Every week the overall results are much the same. NBN, miles ahead. Prime second. TEN Third. Prime had 3 shows in Top 10. NBN had the rest.

We need something to spice up the viewing habits of the Hunter.

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Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

It’s that time of year when sport splits the nation. The AFL Grand Final drew 2.49 million viewers in the mainland capitals on Saturday (way below the 3.15 million it managed in 2006). Meanwhile only 898,000 watched the NRL preliminary final. The AFL total included included 331,000 Sydneysiders, while the biffo could manage only 24,000 southerners.

That result clinched the week for Channel Seven, which averaged 29.9 per cent of the prime time audience, while Nine got 27.1, Ten 20.0, ABC 17.8, and SBS 5.2. Apart from the footy, the most watched shows included Packed To The Rafters (7), Find My Family (7), Border Security (7) and Wednesday’s new episodes of Nine’s latest Bandaid Two and A Half Men (9).

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It seems like only a year ago that if I started talking about social media in Australia I received perplexed responses. I might as well have suggested that we consider voodoo for the next campaign.

However, while I have stuck to my guns in the belief that social media marketing would emerge as a viable option, I have to admit there were moments when I wondered if we were on the right track.

These days I am more certain than ever that social media marketing in Australia has arrived. Witness these recent activities, announcements and stories:

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Newcastle Television ratings, week 38, 2008

Very few changes this week in the Newcastle TV ratings race. NBN maintains a healthy 12.9 point lead over Prime, who in turn leads SC TEN by 3.7 points.

NBN had seven of the top ten programs for the week, with Prime the other three.

Special note: Sticky Advertising provide detailed cot-effectiveness reports for all Newcastle TV programs. The ratings supplied here are for overall audience figures and don’t necessarily represent the best TV buying choices. For a better idea of what programs you should put on your advertising schedule to best reach your target demographics, please contact Sticky.

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Source: David Dale, Sun Herald blogs

The two new Aussie cop shows — Channel Nine’s The Strip and Channel Ten’s Rush — each attracted a million viewers in the mainland capitals last week, but one is considered an impending flop and the other a modest success. That’s because Nine’s program is showing at 8.30pm and Ten’s at 9.30 pm, when most Australians are preparing for bed. If The Strip keeps losing viewers at its current rate, Nine will do a Canal Road on it (dump it to late night), although at this stage in the year, there’s not much to replace it with. It’s not as if Gordon Ramsay works as a programming bandaid any more.

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In the lead up to the Beijing Olympics Amnesty International Australia embarked upon a successful social media campaign. Fi Bendall, one of the campaign architects explains how it worked.

Campaign: Chinese Internet Censorship

Agencies: Care Network, Bendalls Group, dgmAustralia

The Challenge:

Amnesty International set the challenge of how they could leverage social media to create a debate confronting issues around Internet Censorship in China, which would educate and engage online communities.

There were hard metrics set in terms of benchmarks, volume of conversations that would demonstrate share of voice and share of mind. Further benchmarks included the number of content pieces published and number of resultant actions, such as signing up to the Amnesty International Chinese Internet Facebook cause, driving traffic to the uncensor.com.au campaign web-site, joining the online Day of Protest and attending the Tear Down The Great Firewall of China protest in Martin Place, Sydney.

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Still a social media sceptic? Still think micro-blogging is frivolous time wasting?

Read this.

Tech blogger Robert Scoble just notified me (via Twitter) of this great post by Steve Rubel about CNN in America:

If you haven’t been watching CNN on the weekends you’ve been missing out. CNN anchor Rick Sanchez has been increasingly using Twitter to engage viewers in conversation while on the air. He was particularly active during the lead up to the conventions and Hurricane Gustav. Now Sanchez is now taking his Twitter love to the next level with a brand new show called Rick Sanchez Direct, which debuts today at 3 pm EST.

Craig Stoltz has the deets on the new show. Sanchez is using Twitter to create a level of interaction with viewers that is transparent, authentic and captivating. Hopefully this will raise awareness for Twitter among corporations who will also start to use the platform towards similar outcomes.

Watch for more media to follow CNN in lock step. Newspapers are already jumping in. Newsday, my local paper, was using Twitter to track Tropical Storm Hanna as it hit Long Island on Saturday.

When will Australian media start interacting more with their audiences? Soon, I think.

Trouble for TV’s $4 billion advertising market - Lara Sinclair at The Australian reports: BUDGET shortfalls and the weakest TV advertising market in seven years are combining with fears about the US financial services meltdown to fuel a growing pessimism about the health of the $4 billion TV advertising market.

Yahoo challenges Google with BigPond mobile deal - Lara Sinclair at The Australian also reports that: NUMBER two search player Yahoo has signalled it will attack the dominance of Google in the mobile space after Yahoo’s Australian arm signed a deal to make it the on-deck search provider on all Telstra mobile phones.

Online to benefit from downturn - Mark Chenery at AdNews reveals that: Australia’s online advertising market will benefit from current tight
economic conditions as advertisers seek out cost effectiveness in
marketing budgets, predicts a report released today by Frost &
Sullivan.

Newcastle TV ratings week 37, 2008

While the Nine Network has struggled since the Olympics against a resurgent Seven, the trend hasn’t translated as strongly through to Newcastle viewing habits.

Last week NBN won handily again, with a 12 point lead over Prime, despite individual programs performing quite well for the Seven affiliate station.

Prime and NBN shared the Top 10 programs evenly while SC TEN was nowhere to be seen. Interestingly, the NRL numbers have disappeared from the Top 10 despite the finals season just beginning.

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