New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Last week “FNC was the top-rated cable news channel” and “placed third in primetime in all of cable with two million viewers,” according to Nielsen. Hemmer, who joined Twitter over a year ago, told Lost Remote how important social is becoming to the way he broadcasts. “There has yet to be a creation like Twitter to enable viewers in any part of the country to provide instant feedback on the speech by Paul Ryan, or by Mitt Romney, or the performance by Clint Eastwood,” he described. “I find it an invaluable tool… action as they [the viewers] see it at home,” he added.

We asked him how he’s personally using Twitter while he’s on and off the air. “I like to keep people updated on what we’re doing and the progress of how we’ve been setting up,” he explained to Lost Remote. “I cherish the instantaneous feedback you get from viewers – they’re seeing it in their offices, on their computers and to get a perspective for how they are reacting, is priceless.” He added how they use social on air during his show. “If there is a newsmaker who is tweeting information that is relevant to the news of the day, that often times finds its way into our broadcast,” he explained.

Hemmer’s understanding of social as a tool for his broadcast is also proof that every network shouldn’t just be coming up with a strategy but investing as many hours as it takes to make sure their talent get how social TV can transform their broadcasts in a positive way that will also result in ratings success.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Twitter’s own team is embedded into the media center in Tampa, Florida at the RNC. Adam Sharp (who heads up @gov) and his team are sharing updates via the Twitter blog. According to Twitter, Mitt Romney’s wife Ann stole the show last night with her speech, sparking a modest tweet spike (6,195 tweets per minute). Her Political Index score — which tracks both volume and positive sentiment — nearly doubled from from 45 to 83.

Together with FOX News, Twitter is extending the same analysis on air, but giving Fox a deeper look into the data. Fox is bringing the partnership on air via their “special convention coverage including America’s Election Headquarters co-hosted by anchor of Special Report Bret Baier and anchor of America Live Megyn Kelly.” In return, anchors are encouraging viewers to make their voices heard on Twitter (video).

Lost Remote: How will this relationship with Twitter build upon the way you tracked the debates? How will the analytics and algorithms be different?

Jeff Misenti: During the debates we asked users to participate by answering a question – answer/dodge – and we were specifically measuring those using the terms while watching the debates on Fox News. Moving forward we are measuring every Tweet mentioning the speakers/candidates and looking to assess its sentiment.

LR: How does this partnership work? What does Fox gain?

Misenti: We will have access to the data stream from Twitter in real time to be displayed as complimentary material as part of our online offerings and we will also have access to the data so that our team of commentators and analysts can potentially react to how the audience received messages that were delivered during the convention activities.

LR: As someone working for a TV network, how is Twitter and social media going to affect the election process?

Misenti: All of the social media tools including Twitter have speed up a process that has been around for as long as the media has. Information now spreads in minutes not hours or days; which requires that all involved are able to react accordingly. It puts pressure on reporters that are using the tools to make sure that the information that they are sending is accurate and it also puts pressure on the campaigns to react faster in responding to information. Candidates are able to speak and interact directly with the audience via these mediums hoping to turn fans or followers into voters.

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The show’s short history is very interesting. The format of the opinion program is “five rotating low-profile co-hosts,” which Fox News President Roger Ailes came up with after Glenn Beck went off the air. The different hosts that rotate are a diverse group that include former White House press secretary Dana Perino, Eric Bolling, Greg Gutfeld, Andrea Tantaros, Kimberly Guilfoyle and Juan Williams.

The show’s doing very well on linear, more proof that social can help traditional. Last Monday, the show was the highest rated cable news show among ages 25-54, bringing in 515,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. Even more interesting, The Five has grown over Glenn Beck’s ratings by 15% in total viewership as well (according to Nielsen). Here are more details on how social (including fun Twitter wars between the hosts) has helped grow this show to success in just a year.

Lost Remote: How is social media uniquely used for The Five?

Porter Berry: In May, we launched the Facebook page for “The Five” so roughly two months ago and already we have nearly, 45K fans that have “liked” our page. Given that, we’re really excited about the possibilities and opportunities in the social media world and how it can help grow the relationship between the co-hosts and our fans. The key to our show’s success are the great personalities of the co-hosts: Bob Beckel, Dana Perino, Eric Bolling, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Andrea Tantaros, Greg Gutfeld and Juan Williams. It’s a great mix of talent and we want our audience to get to know them personally- and social media is the perfect place to build that relationship. When we launched our Facebook page we decided to really go for it and roll out the page for an entire week. The first week, we had fans/viewers send in questions and each day after the show, one of the co-hosts answered FIVE questions. Some of them were funny, some offbeat, but all of them gave people a chance to know a little more about the co-hosts.

Another way we use social media is to engage our viewers – whether it be through supplemental videos, viewer comments or posing questions on Facebook. For instance: In a recent Fourth of July special, we proposed the idea of doing a dunk tank and asked our fans who they wanted to get thrown in the dunk tank. Bob was the clear winner. This gave our viewers an opportunity to chime in and later we posted a clip of Bob getting thrown in a dunk tank. Our fans loved it. We received over thousands of “likes” for our Fourth of July special.

LR: How did social media help grow the show?

Berry: Our show is in the early stages of building our social media audience so it’s hard to correlate our presence online to show growth, but we think it’s an important place to be moving forward. We have three objectives: 1) As I mentioned earlier, to give our audience opportunities to interact with the hosts personally. 2) To share great moments from the show for people who may have missed it on TV and 3) To put clips out there for people who may not have had a chance to see the show yet.

“The Five” is a fun, free-wheeling hour that has a natural appeal to a younger audience- and places like Facebook and Twitter are ideal to get the word out and hopefully have them check out the show. Also, Twitter is a great avenue for instant audience feedback – and our co-hosts are regularly checking their Twitter feeds (even during commercial breaks) – to see how people are responding or adding to the conversation.

LR: The show is particularly popular among young audiences, how do you produce TV with younger audiences in mind?

Berry : First, we have some of the hottest bumper music in cable television which makes the show fun and exciting. Hits range from Katy Perry to Rascal Flatts to Rolling Stone to Dave Matthews. Plus, “The Five” is a great place to come for smart political analysis from some incredibly accomplished hosts… but we don’t just do news and politics. We also talk about celebrities, cultural and moral questions- bullying for example, and lots of other topics. Bottom line: If there’s something fun, interesting and entertaining going on out there, chances are we’re going to be talking about it. Younger viewers are clearly in tune with what’s happening in the worlds of celebrity and pop culture and what you’ll hear from our hosts is probably a different take than what they’re reading in celebrity magazines. Here’s a great example: There was talk a couple months ago that Kim Kardashian might run for mayor of a town in California so Bob Beckel, who has run a presidential campaign, gave her some good natured political advice. His motto: Kim Kardashian for Mayor: Because Brains are Overrated.

LR: How is social used on air? Do you work with any partners (social tv startups, agencies?)

Berry: We’re sort of a start-up ourselves since we’ve just been on the air a year. Our co-hosts are regularly engaging the audience on their personal Twitter and Facebook pages- asking questions, looking for reaction to stories we’re covering, etc. We haven’t hooked up with any partners. We’re building our franchise up from the ground up, one viewer at a time, and we’re doing it ourselves at this point.”

LR: What are plans for the future?

Berry: Who knows! Social media and technology are moving so fast that it’s impossible to predict how we’ll grow. Generally speaking, whatever improves the experience for our audience – is something we’ll be looking to do

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Fox News has already pushed social TV boundaries with their coverage of the debates. In January, Twitter was deeply involved in providing social TV analytics, and in December Fox News cleverly used #answer and #dodge to listen to viewers sentiments on how each question was answered. We spoke with Jay Wallace, Vice President of News and Senior Executive Producer of News and Politics at Fox News about the program’s use of social.

Lost Remote: How do you incorporate social media into the show?

Jay Wallace: Social media’s influence on, and incorporation into Megyn Kelly’s America Live is multi-directional – from playing a role in a story and segment ideas to finding guests and real-time news updates during breaking news to promoting stories the show thinks are important. Social media has become an essential platform to get news and information out instantly and to receive feedback just as quickly.

The amazing thing about this social media age is that it’s usage on Megyn’s show and in the newsroom has grown to a point where it is hard to imagine what life was without it – it has become second nature in news production.

LR: How do you think social has helped ratings?

Wallace: While there is currently no tangible metric to gauge how social media influences ratings, the contribution it makes to the production and dissemination of news is obvious when you look at how it has become an incubator of information in the early stages of major news events. Last year alone – whether it was Hurricane Irene, the death of Osama bin Laden or the unfolding scandal at Penn State – the buzz on Twitter and Facebook in the early stages of those events most likely brought more eyeballs to our screen for those interested in knowing more.

When used properly, social media does a great job at making reporters and anchors more accessible by showing some added personality that you wouldn’t necessarily find on TV or via an exchange over email. If someone is being exposed to FNC or Megyn on Twitter or Facebook for the first time and they like what they see, there’s a good chance that the next time they are flipping through the channels and they come across her – they’ll stop and give her a try. Another opportunity to get viewers in the tent.

LR: How does the show America Live use social media?

Wallace: Megyn and her team have become active tweeters to help promote the show – it’s become part of the checklist of things to do to help get the word out each day on what will be on America Live. In addition to appearing live for a tease in the show that is on before hers and getting word to our web team for FoxNews.com, tweeting teases out before and during the show has become an important tool in the toolkit to get viewers to tune in to the program. In addition to Megyn and the show team, a growing number of contributors and guests are also tweeting out their upcoming appearances and topics to their followers which is also helping spread the word to a wider audience.

LR: Anything else you’d like to add?

Wallace: As wonderful a tool that social media has become to newsrooms, as journalists, we still need to run all the traps and double and triple check things that are discovered via the various platforms that information comes in and goes out on. It’s our job to take the time to confirm and put some of this information into the broader context of the bigger story.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Twitter also released a graph for Mitt Romney, which was mostly in #dodge territory. It will be interesting to see if this hashtag approach can be adapted to other live TV events — Twitter says the approach provided a “rich real-time picture of audience reaction to each candidate’s answer within 15 to 30 seconds.”

Earlier: While there have already been many social activations to enhance the previous Republican debates, tonight’s airing on Fox News will be the first one in which Twitter itself is getting deeply involved. They’re encouraging users to use #answer or #dodge during each question to indicate on they feel the candidate handled the question, and real-time results will appear on Live.FoxNews.com, powered by Mass Relevance. Fox News is then going to use this information, or at least try to, in their analysis of the debate afterwards.

Fox and Twitter have tested this kind of tracking during a December debate, and they’re now ready to execute it completely. “Fox was game to experiment with us on something that hadn’t been done before – real-time measurement of audience reaction over Twitter,” said Adam Sharp, the manager of government and political partnerships for Twitter in Washington. Last time, Fox News told us it counted 150,000 tweets with the two hashtags during the two-hour debate. With more social promotion against tonight (Monday’s) debate — and a big spotlight on South Carolina — it should generate a larger response.

Twitter’s team works with Fox hours before the debate. Photo by @ritagarg.

While using Twitter to indicate sentiment on the candidates answers seems natural, it also seems like something that will be easy to spam. If candidates teams are able to rile up their teams to tweet #dodge no matter what the candidate’s answer, it might be difficult to determine if the meter’s are accurate. In December, Ron Paul tended to have the best #answer scores across all the candidates.

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(Screen grab provided by Fox News before the debate began.)

The hashtags evaluated the candidate’s performance overall, not by specific question. Fox News tells us that it counted 150,000 tweets with the two hashtags during the two-hour debate. And not surprisingly perhaps, Ron Paul’s social-savvy supporters helped him lead the way positive #answer tweets for much of the night.

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The app features two primary horizontal panes, one with self-scrolling “happening now” stories, another that toggles between top stories, Fox News programs, favorites and a build-your-own video playlist.

Along the bottom of the screen, the app features a scrolling ticker — the first iPad news app we’ve seen with a TV-like ticker. There’s also a weather page customizable to your city.

Stories and videos appear similarly, shareable on Facebook, Twitter and email. You can “favorite” them and add videos to a playlist. While clips appear in embedded form, they’re playable full-screen.

In the upper left-hand corner, the app reminds you what show is airing live on Fox News on TV. While the app doesn’t offer live TV programming (for obvious licensing reasons), you can listen to Fox News Radio live — and the app will feature the occasional live event. We were unable to find any social viewing features, like Twitter or Facebook integration, which would be a great addition to the app.

So why wait until now to launch an iPad app? “We waited for the right moment,” Fox News VP Jeremy Steinberg told Mashable. “We want all of our products to be viable financially.” The app features Exxon as a launch sponsor spanning display ads to pre-rolls.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

That’s one reason why former Huffington Post CEO Betsy Morgan took the job as president of The Blaze, Beck’s conservative news site that launched four months ago. “There’s great leverage there,” she said in an interview with Lost Remote. “Just as Glenn has seen multimedia opportunities for his own personal brand, we see multimedia opportunities for The Blaze.”

Morgan’s new job is certainly a huge polar shift in ideology. “I am a very apolitical person,” she told the NY Times. “I’m a business person, who is absolutely fascinated by brands.” And when you think about the business, The Blaze has many parallels with her earlier work at the Huffington Post. Both sites (which have similar designs) have strong, well-known personalities at the helm, perfect for building an online community, both on and off the site.

“When I think about joining the Huffington Post in 2007,” Morgan says, “we very imaginative in how we said it wasn’t about front door traffic, it was about side door traffic. It was about getting people in through all doors to a destination site, but I think a tremendous amount that has changed in the last three years. The idea that there’s community, conversation and debate away from destination websites is enormously important to be aware of, and I think a big opportunity for The Blaze.”

Without much promotion, The Blaze has built 21,000 Facebook fans and 13,000 Twitter followers. Beck’s social media accounts are just beginning to cross-promote The Blaze, a technique Morgan hints is only just beginning. “He has an enormous community,” she says. “What we hope to do on The Blaze is to build on his loyal, core audience.”

Besides politics, one thing is different from Huffington Post — the brand name. “It is absolutely by intent his name is not on the front door, and it’s called The Blaze,” she says. “It’s not Glenn Beck’s Post, and that is very much by design, and I think that gives us endless possibilities.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.