Name: Harry Grapenthin
Email:
Bio: I’ve been in sales for over 18 years, the last six of which in the communication solutions industry focusing on the media/entertainment market. Today, as the BurrellesLuce vice president for media/entertainment, I continue to work closely with media/entertainment conglomerates. If there is one thing that I am passionate about, professionally, it’s developing long-term relationships with my clients -- understanding their business and the industry in which it operates. The goal: offering the right solution to help them reach success. Personally, I am what you might call “a travel junkie.” I love to meet new people, experience different cultures, and try unique foods. My most recent travels include Tokyo; Kyoto; Madrid; Hong Kong; Buenos Aires; and Morocco. I enjoy independent and foreign films, books on philosophy, music, and Florida State football (my alma mater). I’ve been told that I remind people of Jerry Seinfeld (impersonations by request only). Twitter: HarryGrape; LinkedIn: Harry Grapenthin; Facebook: BurrellesLuce
Posts by Harry Grapenthin:
News Organizations Sometimes Bend the Rules of Engagement to Keep Up with Today’s Frenetic Pace of News Cycles.
July 21st, 2010The 24 hour news cycle is nothing new. It started in 1980 with the launch of CNN, the very first 24 hour news channel. Prior to cable news we relied on the newspaper, radio, or the evening news broadcast to find out what was happening in the world. And if a big story broke during the day or after the news broadcast chances were we would be informed by having our favorite TV show interrupted with a special report from the affiliate’s newsroom.
Over the last few years, however, the rate at which we receive the news has been accelerating and, believe it or not, promises to become even more immediate. Some news organizations are applying extreme and sometimes controversial business practices to keep up with this increasing pace and to survive in the highly competitive online news space.
With more pressure to deliver content to their followers, organizations like Politico and Gawker are helping to ratchet up the intensity to an even higher level when it comes to reporting the news. Pre-dawn start times at agencies 
along with bonuses tied to the number of pageviews a reporter’s story garners are adding to the sense of urgency in which a story is posted online. Tracking how many people view articles online is becoming a higher priority not only at new media, but old media as well – creating an environment to see who can post the most exclusive stories the fastest.
As a result, when a major national story is in the midst of breaking news, the rules of engagement sometimes become a bit blurred, with more outlets favoring “cut and paste reporting” over actual journalism. Last month Rolling Stone magazine was about to post the General McChrystal story in which he and his aids were critical of the White House – first sending an advanced copy of the story to the Associated Press (customary for magazines trying to promote a story) with some restrictions. But before Rolling Stone had a chance to publish the story on their website, on their scheduled date, two major websites (Politico and Times.com) decided to post a PDF of the entire story to their respective sites.
Although it was seen by some as a breach of copyright and professional best practices, both companies explained that they posted the story as it was unfolding. Since Rolling Stone didn’t immediately post the article itself they decided to move forward on their own. Eric Bates, executive editor of Rolling Stone, didn’t see it that way. Voicing his concern not only from his magazine’s perspective but from an industry perspective, he called it a “transitional moment,” adding, “What these two media organizations did was off the charts. They took something that was in pre-published form, sent to other media organizations with specific restrictions, and just put it up.”
However, the exhausting pace of online news isn’t just taking its toll on the media organizations themselves. It is also coming at a price to the individuals supplying the content. The longer hours and added pressure to constantly come up with exclusive stories has contributed to an increased turnover of staff at online news organizations with more journalists facing burnout at a younger age. A dozen reporters recently left Politico in the first half of this year and it’s very common for an editor to leave Gawker after just one year.
While some may debate the future of the media, one thing is certain: The online media race is on. I’m just not sure if slow and steady wins this one.
Do you think that the media and their audiences, are biting off more news than they can chew? As a public relations professional, what do you think about news organizations bending the rules of engagement to keep up with today’s frenetic pace of news and how does this impact the way you conduct media relations? If you’re a journalist or blogger, how are you handling the added pressure of constantly having to deliver? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.
What Do You Do When You Find Yourself at the Center of a Negative Story in the Media?
June 25th, 2010In ancient China, soldiers would warn against impending attacks by sending smoke signals from tower to tower up to 300 miles away within just a few hours; In 1775, Paul Revere used his vocal chords and a horse on his “midnight ride” to warn of the British invasion and in the 1800’s Samuel Morse used a type of character encoding system to send 20 words per minute via radio.
Today, in just a few typed lines and a few clicks, stories are being spread around the world through social networking sites circling the globe in a matter of seconds. And the vivid details from personal accounts through citizen journalism and the proliferation of camera phones are adding more truth and authenticity to these stories. In some cases the immediacy and extra scrutiny can lead to positive things (e.g., shedding light on last summer’s Iranian protests). In others, it can be
devastating for the main character or brand – causing irreparable harm to their reputations. The BP oil spill in the Gulf, the English goalies blunder against the U.S. team in the opening round of this year’s World Cup, or any Lindsey Lohan story these days are just a few stories that go against the old PR adage, “Any publicity is good publicity as long as you spell my name right.”
Celebrities have been putting up with this type of scrutiny, to some degree, for years with paparazzi constantly photographing unsuspecting beach goers wearing unflattering bathing suits or in compromising positions. But when it happens to our politicians, business leaders, corporations, athletes or just everyday people, how does one cope with the instant barrage of viral videos, bloggers, or tweeters, and the repercussions that follow? At least bad weather would force the ancient smoke signalers to take a break every now and then. Barring a colossal Internet crash, today’s perpetual flow of information continues to tarnish reputations worldwide (and many times rightfully so).
Today crisis communications is becoming increasingly difficult with public relations and marketing people scrambling to keep up with today’s technology. One lesson that Southwest Airlines taught the PR community back in February is to always keep a close eye on what the media, especially social media, is saying about your company. When movie director Kevin Smith was kicked off a Southwest Flight on Feb 18, 2010, essentially for being too fat, he tweeted about the episode and the next day the story was all over the Internet. However, Southwest wasted no time and offered an apology to Smith via Twitter and posted an explanation of their policy on its own blog before the story started to trend.
Maybe there should be an island for all the victims of negative social media fall out, where they can live in solitude and where there are no computers, web access, or mobile devices until their names are mercifully pushed down the search engine results list. Even then, it probably wouldn’t take long before helicopters were swirling overhead taking video and instantly downloading the footage online. A more practical approach would be to prevent the crisis from spreading further by paying close attention to what is being said in all forms of media and to who’s saying it.
The “who are you with attitude?” is old school now. So how are you preparing your clients and executives for “the every one is a reporter mentality?” Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.
The Future Can’t Come Fast Enough for the News Industry and It’s Looking a Little Brighter
May 28th, 2010
Image Courtesy of DC Comics
It would be hard to imagine the fictional newspaper men (and women) of the past like Perry White of the “Daily Planet” (Superman) hollering for their first quarter numbers of “unique visitors per month” or boasting about their ranking for “most-linked-to-news-outlets” or even deliberating about putting their content behind a “pay-wall.” Today these are just some of the relatively new terms being used to describe the various metrics and business models newspapers are exploring during this transitional period in which the entire industry finds itself.
For the last several years the forecasts for news organizations have been filled with doom and gloom. However the news about the news industry has been much rosier as of late. For starters, newspaper website’s traffic continues to grow. As highlighted in this Media Post article, online newspaper operations from the top 25 media outlets reached 83.7 million unique visitors in April, up 10 percent from March, 12 percent from February and 15 percent from January of this year, according to comscore figures released by the Newspaper National Network. And according to Nielsen, 74.4 million unique visitors per month in the first quarter of 2010 were a record – up from 72 million from the first quarter of 2009. These increases were actually higher than competitors like CNN and The Huffington post who came in at 43.4 million (flat) and 22.2 million (a 3 percent drop) respectively.
(For a list of the top 100 daily newspapers, 25 consumer magazines, 25 blogs, and the 20 social networks in the U.S., check out the updated 2010 Top Media List from BurrellesLuce.)
It is obvious from these figures that, as Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt was recently quoted as saying, “Newspapers don’t have a demand problem they have a business model problem.”
As various business models continue to be tested, measured and debated within the industry, a silver bullet has yet to emerge. So far, it appears that several viable solutions are taking shape and depending on who you ask you’ll get a justification for each of them. According to this article on CNN.com, “Last year Rupert Murdoch, chairman and CEO of The Wall Street Journal’s parent company News Corp., said ‘The current free access business model favored by most content providers was flawed and contributed to a fall in newspapers’ revenues.’” The WSJ is currently behind a pay-wall and “he also claimed the Wall Street Journal had proved that charging for content could be made to work pointing out that 360,000 people had downloaded an iPhone WSJ application in three weeks and that users would soon be made to pay “handsomely” for accessing WSJ content.”
Alternatively, The New Times plans to use a metered system (EZ Pass approach) starting January 2011, where a certain number of articles would be free before demanding payment (similar to what Financial Times is currently using). This may solve their monetization challenge, but it will no doubt affect their “most-linked-to-news-outlets” rank, a measure used to track the amount of people who actually clicked-through to the original news organizations website via a blog or third party source. This could significantly impact results, with 99 percent of the stories bloggers include as links coming from traditional mainstream media sources. Interestingly enough, 80 percent of the stories linked to in online and social media come from only four news outlets: The New York Times (20 percent), BBC news (23 percent), CNN.com (21 percent), and the Washington Post (16 percent). The Wall Street Journal has twice the print circulation as the New York Times, but is not on this short list.
Some pay-wall advocates would argue that the majority of these visitors are merely “drive by users” who come in once through an aggregator and don’t really engage with the product. The counter argument claims more traffic directed to a newspaper’s online site would ultimately translate into higher advertising dollars.
If the numbers prove the demand for news content is there, let’s hope for the news industry’s sake the revenue will follow. In my opinion credible news journalism still trumps all. As long as it’s being distributed through the device of choice, engaged by the readers, and monetized in a way that generates revenue without isolating readers – it doesn’t matter whether it’s done through pay-walls, online advertising, or possibly something we haven’t thought of yet. (After all necessity is the mother of all inventions.) A tall order for the news industry for sure, but the future suddenly looks a whole lot brighter. There’s no doubt the identity of the news industry will change, but a reinvented news organization is still better than none at all.
American Television Creating Global Brands Through Overseas Expansion
May 5th, 2010
Image: Collider.com
On a recent trip to Colombia (South America), after a long day of sightseeing, I thought I’d switch on the TV with the hope of maybe catching an American baseball game … Instead, I found an episode of MTV Network’s “Jersey Shore.” As if it wasn’t surprising enough that this show recently became a television phenomenon in the states, I found out it was also number one on pay television in Colombia amongst 18-24 year olds, as well as in Mexico.
American television companies are penetrating international markets at a rapid pace and are leveraging multiple platforms, turning their creations into global brands or “multi platform franchises.” “Transmedia storytelling,” where multiple platforms are used to create varying entry points to the story while sticking to the main narrative, is a huge contributing factor in expanding these franchises. Additional revenue, created by linking video and computer games, mobile devices, and websites to the show, in turn helps entertainment companies offset high production costs. “Once people fall in love with a brand they want to interact with it in all sorts of ways,” says Tony Cohen, the head of Fremantle Media.
Transmedia storytelling is nothing new to entertainment – movie studios have used it for years making Spider-Man and Harry Potter as recognizable worldwide as Coke or McDonald’s. Avatar, Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster hit of 2009, grossed $747 million in the states and a whopping $2.7 billion worldwide, surpassing Titanic’s overseas box office record.
McDonald’s created Internet- based games and a sweepstakes around Avatar that included a private screening of the film among other prizes. “They’re realizing that the demographic they’re targeting isn’t using traditional media as much as they used to,” said Jeff Farmer, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in Boston.
As the Vice President of media and entertainment at BurrellesLuce I follow the television and movie industries very closely. A little break while traveling abroad would be nice, however, “Hollywood” seems to be everywhere these days.
What do you think? Is Hollywood and U.S. television over saturating the digital space? Are you using “transmedia” to engage and connect with your audience? What industry beyond entertainment do you think has crossed over with an effective use of transmedia public relations, marketing or advertising?
The FCC’s National Broadband Plan Could Make Things Interesting For Media
March 25th, 2010Five years in the media world is an eternity these days – since 2005 YouTube, Hulu, Twitter, and Facebook have profoundly changed the way we communicate and how we consume media and entertainment. The FCC last week shared the details of their National Broadband Plan that, if approved, should have another major effect on media and entertainment. Their plan is designed to double the households with high speed Internet access from 50 million to 100 million homes by 2015 and it hopes to make broadband 20 times faster by 2020. According to the New York Times, the FCC categorized its congressionally mandated plan, as “a much needed step to keep the nation competitive.” “This plan is necessary to meet the challenges of global competitiveness, and harness the power of broadband to help so many vital national 
issues,” stated FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.
The FCC’s justification for its plan is reminiscent of an argument raised back in the 1950’s by our late president Dwight D. Eisenhower. He argued that we needed an interstate highway system for the purpose of national defense. “In the event of an invasion by a foreign power, the military would need good roads to be able to quickly transport troops around the country.” The only troops I can remember being transported quickly was when my parents loaded up the family truckster and drove my sister, brother, and I down U.S. 95 from New Jersey to Florida to see Mickey Mouse. The highway system did, however, open up the country; it motivated more Americans to hit the road on vacation, and allowed for goods to be transported faster and to more destinations.
For the last four years, as the vice president of Media and Entertainment at BurrellesLuce, I’ve closely followed the challenges media companies have been faced with in trying to keep up with the evolution of technology and at the same time protect their content and profits. With the type of speed and reach proposed in the National Broadband plan, media will surely once again evolve into something unfathomable to us at the present time. As highlighted in this article, Google is already getting involved, reportedly working with Intel and Sony Corp to develop a new class of Internet–enabled televisions and set-top boxes.
Whether the availability of a faster Internet in twice the number of households makes us a more competitive country remains to be seen. But with that kind of speed and access the already growing number of people getting their entertainment and media from the Internet is sure to explode in the coming years. Like the interstate system did for domestic travel, raising the speed limit on the information superhighway (please excuse the 90’s terminology) will allow more people to travel further and faster throughout the media and entertainment world.
