New Mag Reaches Boston’s College Market

A new magazine geared toward Boston’s large college population, produced by The Boston Globe, Boston.com, and Metro Boston, is being distributed to 50 area campuses this fall, Editor & Publisher reports. Boston Uncovered, hoping to tap into a demographic that normally shuns print newspapers, will “uncover the best that Boston has to offer and add a student voice,” said Michael Freidson, editor at Boston Uncovered and entertainment editor at Metro Boston.

The magazine will include an online component, regularly updated, and will also appear as a weekly section in the free daily, Metro Boston.

TiVo CEO: Subscribers, Advertisers to Gain Momentum

Advertisers will flock to TiVo as it gains more subscribers, said TiVO CEO Tom Rogers during the company’s Q2 earnings conference call, writes Adweek. The company reported that it generated $40.7 million in revenue in the quarter, with $240,000 in net income - the company’s first-ever profit.

TiVo, which currently has 35 advertisers, plans a major marketing push this fall to build its subscriber base in anticipation of DirecTV’s plan to stop marketing TiVo and start marketing its own DVR. Comcast is set to begin selling TiVo to subscribers in 2006.

MTV to Carry Video Music Awards Online, After Show

MTV will carry on-demand, post-show internet video coverage of the MTV Video Music Awards on its broadband website, MTV Overdrive, following airing this weekend, according to Adweek. MTV was criticized for its TV coverage of July’s Live 8 charity concerts, which were shown online by AOL to rave reviews.

YellowPages.com Picks GSD&M

YellowPages.com, the online joint venture between BellSouth and SBC Communications, has chosen Omnicom’s GSD&M of Austin, Texas, as its first agency of record, ClickZ reports. GSD&M is charged with helping the new company stand out in the ultra-competitive local search market by building brand awareness, generating online traffic and positioning YellowPages.com as a premier site for local information.

The site’s most prominent competitors include Google and Yahoo, which have both stepped up local search. The first YellowPages.com campaign is expected to debut in early 2006.

Mad Ave Must Cut Ad-Making Costs

The findings of Project Wanamaker, an ongoing test of advertising effectiveness in Omaha, Nebraska that claims TV commercials reach the saturation point faster than advertisers realize, is a tough pill to swallow for agencies, writes David Kiley of BusinessWeek. MediaCheck, which is running the project, said that at least seven new commercials reached 95 to 100 percent of the test’s household audience within the first week.

GM Extends Employee Discount Yet Again

General Motors will once again extend its Employee Discount for Everyone - first launched in June as a one-month program - this time through the end of September, Brandweek reports. The discount boosted sales by 41.3 percent the first month and was extended first through July, then through August and early September. Ford and Chrysler had both extended their similar programs through September 6, as well; now, Chrysler has reported that it will extend its efforts again, but Ford has made no such announcement as of yet.

Summer Months Don’t Hamper Search

New figures from NetRatings show that U.S. Internet users performed more searches last month than in June - going against the conventional wisdom that growth would slow during the warm days of summer, MediaPost reports. Web searches in the U.S. rose last month to 4.454 billion, up nearly 3 percent from 4.327 billion in June.

ABM Report Adds Trade Shows

The Business Information Network of American Business Media’s report is adding the latest data available on revenue and attendance figures for trade shows and exhibitions, MediaPost reports. The move was prompted by the 2005 edition of investment banker Veronis Suhler Stevenson’s annual Communications Industry Forecast, which for the first time documented the growth of non-traditional B-to-B revenue sources. While B-to-B magazine media spending is projected to grow just 2.7 percent in 2005, trade shows and exhibitions made a marked gain of 6.1 percent this year.

Nielsen: More Adults Watching TV Than You Thought

Nielsen Media Research today reported (via Lost Remote) that more adults 18-34 are watching local television this summer than had previously been reported. The new data comes from Nielsen’s local people meters, now available for the first time in major markets. Earlier estimates in the major local television markets were based on a combination of Set Meter and Diary Samples, which were available only during the sweep month of July.

Every LPM market - Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago - reported higher numbers for the adult 18-34 demo compared to Set Meter/Diary data for July of last year. Weekdays from 5-7 am is the time period that shows the biggest bump.

YES Gets Creative with Product Placements

The YES Network is making a huge mark in New York. Twelve of the Yankees last 17 prime-time games through Tuesday had beaten all other local programming among YES’s target audience, men 18 or older, The New York Times reports. Through 98 YES telecasts, Yankees games had an average 4.4 rating.