MONEY, MEDIA &
The Asian American Image
PAGE 3 OF 4
From a score of transPacific trips in the past seven years, I know that over
half of all business and first-class passengers on most airlines are Asian. In
coach the percentages are even higher.
A survey of counterpeople of premium cosmetics brands like Estee Lauder,
Chanel, Lancome and Christian Dior in top-flight California department
stores shows that 20-65% of all sales are to Asian women. These figures hold up as well for the toney purveyors of brand-name fashion and accessories that line
Rodeo Drive.
The truth is that we Asians have enough buying power to ensure the success
or failure of virtually any premium brand selling in the U.S. simply by
systematically giving or withholding our business.
This translates into the potential to exercise formidable influence over what
kinds of Asian images we see in the American media. But only if we use it.
Let's take a look at the media food chain.
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The entire American mass media is ad-driven. TV and radio broadcasters get
100% of their revenues from selling commercial time. The price charged for a
spot depends on the share of the total audience, or rating points, the show
achieves as measured by the homes wired to the ratings services. A loss of
even one point can mean millions of dollars in lost advertising revenues. In
the past decade networks have suffered a heavy loss of viewership to cable
and video. That has meant a big decline in revenues, forcing them to cut
costs in order to stay in business. A two or three ratings-point decline
relative to competing networks would probably result in a show's
cancellation and a frantic search for a replacement. No network can afford to
lose additional ad revenues. That is exactly what they would do if their
existing advertisers go letters of complaint from Asian viewers disgruntled
by unfair depictions or unrealistic omissions of Asian characters.
Most newspapers and mass-circulation consumer magazines like Time,
People and BusinessWeek, with circulations dozens of times the
size of this magazine, spend far more money on printing and mailing
magazines than they take in from newsstands and subscriptions. They keep
prices as low as possible in order to maintain a large circulation base that can
be translated into higher rates for advertising space. What's more, they
maintain their huge subscription bases by pumping tens of millions a year
into expensive direct-mail campaigns, the single biggest budget item for
mass-circulation magazines. In the past several years, however, most have
suffered a 20-35% drop in ad revenues. As a result, they have been unable
to spend as much to maintain subscription bases. Time, for example,
announced three sharp cuts in its circulation base during the past three
years. Currently very few mass-circulation publications are operating with
healthy profits. Even a 20% loss of ad pages would plunge most deeply into
the red. A bigger loss would likely force them out of business, as with
several mass-circulation, ad-driven magazines in the past two years.
More than anything, the mass media fear the loss of advertisers. This is
especially true where they are competing for ad dollars against one or more
similar competitors. For TV shows competitors would be any show that
reaches a similar audience. In the case of Time, competitors are
Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report. For The New York
Times, competitors are the Wall Street Journal and USA Today.
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