Media Info Bureau

More than a year later, Zoom burnout persists as virtual meetings have become a daily fixture of remote and hybrid work environments. This column from Rosemary Ravinal offers a half-dozen ways to combat Zoom fatigue.

During the 2020 Christmas season, a well-known brand of TexMex-style food products integrated some of its offerings into a Lifetime yuletide yarn. The products also found their way into one of Food Network’s top cooking programs.  Did those product placements translate to a bump in sales?

Hybrid shopping, localized travel, a focus on health and wellness, the rise of challenger brands and an increase in e-commerce in areas of higher infection, are some of the buying behaviors in the U.S. that remain in a post-pandemic era. Here's what this may mean for your advertising trends in 2022, courtesy of Ascential-owned research firm WARC.

Smart speakers are the biggest boon to radio in the home since, well, the Reagan era. But, is there one key ingredient needed to lure consumers to a radio station's audio stream, instead of another Pandora-powered audio stream or Spotify playlist of choice? Yes, says Clark Smidt. Voices carry, especially good ones.

Stay-at-home ordinances and remote work mandates eliminated the daily commute. As a result, Spanish-language in-car radio listening and ad revenue "plummeted" during the early months of the global COVID-19 2020 shutdown.  Now, dollars are surging, says Entravision's Angie Balderas.

Video communication engages two senses of our five: sight and sound.  But how can we stimulate the other three with the existing digital technology?  Longtime public relations pro Rosemary Ravinal says it can be done through the memory of how things taste, feel and smell. "Video calls favor what we see over what we hear by a ratio of 90 to 10%," she says. 

WARC has teamed up with iHeartMedia for a just-released study on media consumption and audio investment in the U.S. According to the report, "The Investment Gap: Understanding the Value of Audio," domestic consumers spend 31% of their media time with audio. But, brands allocate just 8.8% of their media budget on "audio," let alone Radio.

As social media and technology companies face criticism for not doing enough to stem the flow of misleading information on their platforms, a new Pew Research Center survey finds that some 48% of U.S. adults get news on social media sites “often” or “sometimes,” a 5 percentage point decline from 2020. 

What you wear during a virtual meeting can bring your confidence and executive presence to another level, veteran PR professional and "Zoom expert" Rosemary Ravinal notes in this column. "Large numbers of office workers continue to work remotely with video conferencing at the heart of the workday," she says. "So, the image you project can be critical to your success."

A "major evolution in response to the rapid digitalization of audio consumption" is about to take place for radio ratings across some of the biggest metropolitan areas in the world. How so? Live streaming data is to be integrated into a new multimillion-dollar hybrid measurement system. This effort doesn't involve Nielsen, however.

According to Kagan estimates, top cable networks lost about $179.5 million in affiliate fees since 2013 from cable carriage disputes that resulted in blackouts that were eventually resolved. Cable network owners risk affiliate revenue loss in hopes of producing a more favorable deal with traditional multichannel operators, S&P Global Market Intelligence's Ron Marcelo reports.

Why are you not you using a green screen when you Zoom? Public relations veteran Rosemary Ravinal recently conducted an informal poll on LinkedIn. What did she learn? More than 80% of respondents do not use a green screen with a virtual background. "That was disappointing, but not surprising," she says in this column.

In this RBR+TVBR Observation, our editor-in-chief takes a bold step by asking some big questions about the quest by the NAB and a host of radio broadcasting companies for more deregulation. Is it really what will help the radio industry solve its ad sales ills?

Although global car sales were heavily impacted in 2019 and 2020, long-term market growth is expected, with car ownership growing strongly in emerging markets as developed market demand recovers. What does this mean for automotive audio trends? Software is evolving as e-vehicles, including autonomous cars, are on the rise.

With four months remaining of 2021, it is abundantly clear that the “normal” workplace pre-pandemic is a thing of the past. For PR veteran and "Zoom expert" Rosemary Ravinal, this means video conferencing will become a fixture of workplace culture to varying degrees. "Your professional future may depend on how well you navigate the virtual environment." It’s time to get serious, folks.