TV Just Won't Stay Dead

It's been a long time since we checked in on the death of television.

In about 2007, as the economy was going into the tank and the ad industry was bleeding money our chattering marketing geniuses, pundits, and visionary journalists developed a "narrative" that television was dying. Of course, TV was being killed by the web. Why would we watch TV anymore when we had YouTube and Hulu and TiVo?

Well, from time to time the investigative staff here at Ad Contrarian world headquarters likes to check up on the imperious assertions of our chattering experts and see how they're doing.

The big story last week was that Nielsen is predicting that the number of US households with TVs is going to drop next year for the first time in history. All the way down to 97% -- ohmygod!

So to get the real story we did something that takes exceptional courage and determination. We read all the way through the 2010-2011 Nielsen report on TV viewing. If you've ever attempted this, you know it's not for the faint of heart.

Wading through 32 pages of charts, graphs, columns, percentages, distributions, circles, arrows, pies and bars we were able to actually find some interesting facts that you'll never read because they're out of sync with what the media decided 5 years ago

During the 2010-11 season:

• Average household TV viewing increased more than an hour a week from the previous year
• Average household TV viewing increased to 59 hours and 28 minutes a week (when do these people sleep?)
• Average household TV viewing reached almost 8 1/2 hours a day (when do they work?)
• Average household TV viewing has increased almost 12% from 2000
• Average household TV viewing has reached its highest point ever

Sound dead to you?

Book Update:
Several people have asked about a print version of the book. It is in the works and I hope it will be available before Christmas. Thanks to all the people who have written and tweeted nice things about it. Remember, you're allowed to write a glowing customer review right here.

Keeping Poetry Alive

Allow me to tell you the fable
Of a story I followed on cable
'bout a fellow named Herman
Who had the girls squirmin'
Apparently this Cain was able

If you liked the poem, you'll love the book.

Random Thoughts On A Friday

Some Thoughts About Apple

• The Steve Jobs book is terrific. Jobs was apparently a total pain in the ass and a complete dick -- as some brilliantly creative people are. (I only got to meet him once, for about 15 seconds.) Jobs was a walking, talking warehouse of contradictions. My only gripe with the book -- a little repetitious.

• Why does Apple make things so hard? Last week my book 101 Contrarians Ideas About Advertising was published at Amazon in the Kindle format. It was a breeze. I published it in less than an hour. At this writing it's the #2 advertising eBook at Amazon. (Fucking Tipping Point.) On the other hand, about 4 weeks ago I sent in my red tape "paperwork" to Apple to get the book published at the iBookstore. Not only have I not heard from them, there is no way to even find out if they received the paperwork or what the status is. What a pain in the ass.

• I bought a new MacBook Air about 2 months ago. After a few weeks it started randomly running out of memory when there should have been 100's of gigs left. I struggled with this for weeks. It disrupted my work and cost me hours of frustration and anxiety. Finally our IT guy discovered that this was a "known problem" to Apple. If it was a "known problem" I'd like to know why they didn't let us buyers know so we wouldn't have to go through the torture that I went through? They have fixed it, but that doesn't take away the time I wasted or the aggravation I suffered. By the way, I hate Lion.

Tips For Authors
This week I stumbled upon a blog post by Seth Godin called Advice For Authors from a few years ago. I wish I had found it several months ago. Some great advice in it if you are a writer.

The Herman Cain Affair
This whole thing makes me sick. I don't give a damn about Herman Cain and would never have voted for him, but the hypocrisy of this country on the subject of sex is just appalling. If sexual purity ware a condition of employment the following people would never have been president: Bill Clinton, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson. Not to mention probably every other president we've had. Can't we just stipulate that everybody lies about sex and get on with it?