Magna Global to Nielsen: We Won’t Use New Data

When it comes to negotiating deals for the 2006 upfront market, Magna Global has said that it will not use Nielsen Media Research’s revised daily ratings reports once the tracking company begins incorporating playback viewing from digital video recordings, Mediaweek writes. Broadcast and cable companies have been pushing Nielsen to revise the ratings systems to include viewers who watch prerecorded shows in the hopes that they can charge advertisers for a larger viewing audience, but media buyers aren’t as thrilled about a revised system because of the high percentage of viewers that fast-forward through the ads - and the level of ad-skipping is not expected to be measured in the near term.

Oakley to Sponsor Snowboard Competition in Arctic

Oakley will once again sponsor The Arctic Challenge, a once-secret snowboarding event that will take place in Midstuen, Norway, in February 2006. Oakley began its sponsorship of the event in 1999, when Terje Haakonsen asked if Oakley could bring 12 riders to a small and secret snowboard experiment and the company agreed.

Email List Prices Continue to Drop

Email list rental prices have fallen by $6/M over October 2004, according to the Fall 2005 index from Worldata released Friday, DM News writes. Permission-based b-to-b lists have remained the highest priced lists on the market, with the average price of $167/M in October down $3/M from last year.

The second priciest category - newsletters at $175/M - actually rose in price by $5/M since last October. Consumer magazine lists dropped $5/M to $104/M.

Media Buyers Watch as Fitness Mags Evolve

Shake-ups to the fitness magazine category are on the horizon and are being keenly watched by media buyers, with top editorial changes and pending redesigns at Shape and Fitness and the introduction of a new title, Women’s Health from Rodale, writes Mediaweek. Fitness will begin providing a new range of exercises for all fitness levels in the hopes of boosting a circulation that decline 4.4 percent to 1.5 million for the first half of 2005, according to figures from the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Fitness will also increase coverage of nutrition, fashion, psychology, and beauty.

BBM Canada Explores New Measurement for Radio

BBM Canada, which tracks radio and television habits in Canada, wants to change the way radio is sold by introducing a new, PPM-like device, according to the Globe and Mail. Canadian listenership currently relies on people filling out roughly 260,000 weekly diaries sent out across the country by BBM each year, but the number of people willing to take part is dropping, from nearly 60 percent a few years ago to 50 percent now.

Ads Show up in Shockwave’s Casual Web Games

Online game publisher Shockwave.com, a division of AtomShockwave, will begin offering advertisers a way to insert ads within casual web-based games - which attracted nearly 56 million unique visitors to various sites in September, according to comScore - the Associated Press reports (via MarketingVOX). Shockwave.com hosts more than 200 games and claims that its 20 million visitors last month played more than 25 million game sessions.

Shockwave’s ad network, launched today, will allow marketers to insert images or brand names in the games, track impressions or viewing times for each ad, and tailor ads to geographic markets.

CBS Snags First Night of Sweeps

ABC, in the lead going into sweeps, ended the first night in third place. CBS won the first night easily and, perhaps, predictably, led by Survivor: Guatemala and Without a Trace, ending with a 7.6 rating and 19 percent share among adults 18-49, Mediapost reports. CBS was also the lead in households (14 rating/22 share), viewers (22.38 million), adults 25-54 (9.3/21), and adults 18-34 (5.4/15).

Personal Financial Advisers Find Trade Pubs Most Useful

Personal financial advisers use trade magazines as their source of job-related information more than any other medium, B to B reports. According to a new study by Aptura Research - a division of VNU - that measured the relationship between personal financial advisers and the media they consume, 57 percent use trade magazines as a source of information related to their jobs.

Trade pubs ranked ahead of newspapers, television, websites, and trade shows.

Yahoo, In DVR Experiment, Hooks Up with TiVo

Yahoo and TiVo are scheduled to announce today a deal that would connect Yahoo content and services to TiVo’s set-top boxes, which not only record TV programs but also connect to the internet, writes the New York Times (via MarketingVox). TiVo would thus be able to differentiate itself by offering web content and services, while Yahoo would be taking another step toward moving its services from computers to other devices, including mobile phones and TV. David Katz, Yahoo’s vice-president for entertainment and sports programming, said the deal was an exploratory first step for Yahoo.

ABC Launches Reader Profile

The Audit Bureau of Circulations announced the launch of a reader profile FAS-FAX, Editor & Publisher reports. The reader profiles will accompany the circulation report beginning with the March 2006 reporting period, as decided last week at the organization’s board meeting. Executives with ABC have said that 300 newspapers currently use the reader profile report.