July 18, 2005

Can you imagine someone telling the legendary William S. Paley (who made CBS into a broadcast news powerhouse) that 15 years after his death more people would get their news from something called 'Yahoo!' than from CBS?

Part of the reason is the rise of the Internet, and part is fact that CBS has been slow coming to the Internet news table.

As a result, Yahoo! ranks as the number one Internet news source (with an audience of almost 25 million unique visitors last month), while CBS ranks number 17 (with fewer than 6 million unique visitors).

Sure, CBS News has had other problems. But not recognizing and taking advantage of the multiplicitous ways in which people presently get their news has really cost the formerly-known-as "Tiffany Network."

Multi-dimensional marketing and communications are vital ways to get an adequate share of voice...AND share of mind.

I am stunned by how many good newspapers and television stations still haven't figured this out. They're missing a great opportunity...and, in many ways, putting themselves at great risk.

CBS is doing something about it now. Their website will soon include a wide array of free video material as well as a blog site where people can comment on the news (and its coverage) and communicate directly with CBS news personnel.

Getting Personal

Yesterday I was noting the personal connection that Lucky Magazine creates with its readers. Then last night I read the Times Magazine piece on the new typeface called Bello. With its handmade look (Bello is based on lettering done with a brush), Bello has won instant popularity and garnered the best new "display font" award from the Type Directors Club.

Looks like everyone wants to get personal.

While it's presently very popular, there's certainly nothing new about finding ways to make a personal connection with your audience. Calvin Tomkins has written a great piece for The New Yorker on the story behind the Duccio "Madonna and Child" painting bought by the Met for $50 million. The painting is incredibly important in art history, because it marks a moment at which artists moved from stylistic Byzantine figures to the more human figures of the Renaissance.

Tomkins says that the real "figurehead" of the revolution was Dante: "The fact that Dante chose to write in the vernacular, in Italian rather than Latin, is one of the turning points of the West. And this is precisely what these artists [Duccio and Giotto] were about as well - finding a vernacular as opposed to an intentionally elitist, anti-popular form of painting. This is the real thing; painting is no longer an illustration but something that attenpts to evoke a human response from the viewer."

Good Lord! Am I comparing a popular type face - Bello - to Duccio, Giotto, and Dante! Get a grip, David!!! Well.....