So little time... Since time immemorial, it seems, reporters and others have pondered: Just how long does the average stockholder spend reading an annual report to shareholders? Some say that can't be quantified; others, that studies clearly indicate how many minutes on average are invested. Also: Won't Disney's Michael Eisner ever get control of his ego run rampant? About Eisner first: His annual report remains in a time warp; that is, appears recycled from a decades-old bin, the type set on the cheap, professional layout nonexistent. And his ego! His 2000 annual (in which he sees positives to report; I see negatives) contains a never-ending, eight-page letter to shareholders. That's approaching three times the year-after-year worldwide average. But that's not the worst of it: Those eight pages are littered with first-person references: I, me or my appears 40 times, by actual (if painful) count. And of course the guy just can't help himself: He simply has to sneak in mentions of his relatives—aunts, cousins, kids, what have you. Even though they beg him (so he writes) not to embarrass them. As he persists in doing, year after year. Now, about time invested in reading an annual report. I've felt that asking that question is like a pollster ferreting out television-watching habits. Do I watch soap operas, Fox' "World's Worst Crashes," "America's Most Wanted" and the like? Of course not; my viewing is strictly highbrow—PBS primarily. Yeah, right. So stockholders are polled, and I can't believe they answer truthfully: "Did I read Big Ego's annual report? You gotta be kidding! It's the old heave ho for that boring document. I got more important stuff to do with my time." No, I suspect most estimate for the pollsters, "Oh, I devote upwards of an hour to such an important document." Patrick Tuohey (tuohey@marcomresearch.com) says valid surveys can be taken, and have been. A 1994 study (excluding those who put the report aside to read later) showed that nearly two in five (37%) spent five or fewer minutes. One in five was said to have invested 30 or more minutes. Merck's Sharyn Bearse says she doesn't have a breakdown of ages or professions, but "I know that one of every four shareholders throws the report away without even opening it." Of the remainder, she said four of five "spend 10 minutes or less"—this from "a Merck study done by Harvard a few years ago." Tuohey's '94 study indicates 55% spent 10 minutes or less—again, "excluding those who put the report aside to read later." His 1995 study indicates that one in five respondents claims to have "thoroughly reviewed" the document, while half said they "read some of it." Nearly three in 10 "quickly skimmed" it. Only 2% didn’t look at it, quite at odds with Bearse’s findings. Reason this subject is being examined currently is because of the March/April issue of Family Money, a Better Homes & Gardens magazine. Its editor reportedly asked columnist Gary Belsky to do a piece on how no one bothers to read the key corporate communiqué. Courageously, he took issue with his editor, decided—arbitrarily, to be sure—that an annual report is worth five minutes. His guess is as good as any.

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