Audible has introduced the first components of AudibleWordcast, a platform that for now inserts ads into podcasts, audits audiences and offers secured transactions - but will, starting in the first quarter of next year, also enable tracking of ad impressions - reports ClickZ (via MarketingVox). Audible says that podcasts in its .AA format will allow audio producers to measure both how much of a file and what ads have been played.
XM Satellite Radio is launching its biggest holiday marketing campaign to date, featuring television, print, radio, online, and outdoor advertising. The campaign, dubbed Listen Large, focuses on XM’s wide variety in programming. Heading up the campaign are two TV spots starring Ellen DeGeneres, Snoop Dogg, Derek Jeter, David Bowie, and Martina McBride, which begin airing today during prime time on broadcast network and cable TV.
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A new magazine devoted to the sport of snowshoeing will launch in December. Snowshoe Magazine will publish twice this winter - in December and January - and four times next winter.
PBS is assembling a think tank of leaders in child education, entertainment, and technology, to discover how PBS can survive and thrive during a time when new technology and new ways of accessing media have intersected, and as a new generation of children - unlike any that have come before - begins their TV viewing years, USA Today reports.
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Time Warner’s AOL and Warner Brothers units will be offering a major ad-supported internet service - In2TV - that will showcase full episodes of some 100 old television shows free, online, starting early in 2006, with more than 4,800 episodes available the first year, writes the New York Times (via MarketingVox). AOL will distribute the service on its AOL.com portal; an enhanced version will use peer-to-peer technology to distribute video. To avoid cannibalizing potential DVD sales, continuous access to all the episodes in a series will not be offered.
The In2TV programs will have 1-2 minutes of commercials for each half-hour episode, compared with the usual eight minutes for standard broadcasts. Users won’t be able to skip through the advertising.
The New York Times Company plans to publish a new national sports publication to be distributed in all editions of The New York Times, the company announced today. PLAY: The New York Times Sports Magazine will launch on Super Bowl Sunday - Feb. 5, 2006 - and will be edited by Mark Bryant, award-winning editor formerly of Outside magazine.
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SI on Campus, a spinoff of Sports Illustrated, will cease print publication with its Dec. 1 issue, and move college sports coverage online, Mediaweek reports. SIoncampus.com launched in September to cover daily breaking news and features from college sports writers, and already has 500,000 unique visitors and 1.7 million page views per month.
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In a letter to the chairman of the U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors, the Direct Marketing Association has urged the Board to reconsider the Postal Rate Commission’s Media Mail rate recommendation. The letter states that, while the Postal Rate Commission’s recommendations reflected the U.S. Postal Service’s requests in many areas, the Media Mail increase - at 12.7 percent - is more than twice the increase sought by the USPS, and more than twice the increase recommended by the Postal Rate Commission for First Class or Standard Mail.
The broadcast network daytime daypart is down 13 percent for women 18-34 and 12 percent for women 18-49 across ABC, CBS, and NBC, and the networks are already in makegood situations, Mediaweek writes. Daytime ratings at this time last season were down a similar amount and never really recovered.
Google is today releasing the latest version of its Urchin hosted analytics service - now dubbed Google Analytics - which will be free to AdWords advertisers and would likely attract more advertisers to sign up, reports ClickZ (via MarketingVox). Google began charging $199 per month for the service starting in May, lowering it from the $495 it was charging after it acquired Urchin in March.
In the latest version, which will be available in 16 languages, Google has added customized dashboards for different types of users: webmasters, marketers and executives. The software is also integrated with AdWords.
As part of Slate.com’s initiative to offer advertisers new ways to reach the online magazine’s audience, it has sold all display ads on the site for today to a single marketer, JC Penney, Mediapost writes.
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When XM Satellite Radio launches its first product placement push on The Apprentice (Trump, not Martha) on Thursday, the company expects to sign one million new subscribers, according to Brandweek.
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Newspapers, searching for alternative business models in the face of classifieds competition from venues such as Craigslist, are increasingly turning to New Times’s free classified service, Backpage.com, Mediapost writes. The service allows papers to generate revenue from advertisers willing to pay for a better position and from web-to-print upsells.
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The U.K.’s Home Office, in anticipation of changes to the licensing law that will allow some pubs and bars to serve alcohol 24 hours a day, has launched a 150,000 pound ad campaign targeting binge drinkers and antisocial behavior, Brand Republic writes. The outdoor campaign uses posters to highlight the fines drunks will face when caught breaking the law.
