A new, internet-only radio station has launched that aims at an all-new audience: pets. DogCatRadio.com, broadcast from Los Angeles, was started by Adrian Martinez when he noticed that his cat liked to listen to 80s rock, CBS News writes.
The station takes requests, the most popular so far being Hound Dog and Who Let the Dogs Out. DogCatRadio.com broadcasts in English and Spanish.
In a report issued at today’s press conference held by the six major television networks, executives said that the DVR will only increase viewership to major network programs, reports CNET News. For example, homes with a DVR watched 5.7 hours of TV daily, compared with 5.1 hours for homes with a DVR. And, DVR households still watch about 90 percent of their television at original broadcast time. The 10 percent of recorded shows is mostly composed of the most popular shows during a given season.
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Google launched Google Base late on Tuesday, in beta, allowing users to upload text and images and categorize or label (tag) that information to make it easier for others to find it - via Google Base and, if appropriate or relevant, via Google Search, Froogle and Google local - reports CNET (via MarketingVox). “If you have information you want to share with others, but aren’t sure how to go about gaining an audience, Google Base is for you,” according to the frequently asked questions section.
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Experiential agency RPM will launch a direct push for Smirnoff Experience music events, after Diageo awarded the agency the 1.6 million pound business, Brand Republic reports. The campaign will break early next year and will run across 25 markets in six continents.
Lowe’s has penned a deal with CBS Sports and National Collegiate Athletic Association that will include all NCAA men’s and women’s collegiate sports, with a special focus on men’s basketball, Mediapost writes. The deal includes school-branded gift cards available at Lowes.com and at Lowe’s stores in the home states of 95 NCAA schools.
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Harper’s Magazine’s Lewis Lapham will retire next spring, after 30 years as the monthly’s editor, Mediaweek reports. He will continue to work on his column, Notebook, and will develop Lapham’s Quarterly, a history journal he plans to launch next year. A new editor has not yet been named.
The six major networks - ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, UPN, and WB - plan to hold a press conference today to present the reasons that advertisers should consider DVR playback viewing when making their media buys, Adweek reports. The move comes a week after Magna Global declared it wouldn’t consider DVR playback viewing figures when purchasing TV time in next year’s upfront market.
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Jon Stewart of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show has become an opinion-shaper, especially among the hard-to-capture younger generation, New York Business writes. “He is as important in shaping opinions today as Walter Cronkite was in the ’70s and Huntley and Brinkley were in the ’50s and ’60’s,” Seth Siegel, co-founder of branding consulting firm The Beanstalk Group, is quoted as saying. “There’s no other journalist today, real or fake, who is more significant for people 18 to 25.”
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As third-party email list response has begun to rise, a group of online marketing executives have formed a trade organization - Online Lead Generation Association, Inc. - to develop best practices for gathering the names on opt-in email lists that are sold to third parties, Mediapost writes. According to one of the group’s founders, Daniel Felter of Opt-Intelligence Inc., the association is necessary because of the growing market in selling email names gained when consumers register for websites: while many sites ask registrants whether they want to receive email from third parties, the process is varied from one site to another.
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The websites of U.S. newspapers have increased readership at an annual rate of 11 percent, according to Nielsen/NetRatings - a bit of good news to counter a report last week according to which print circulation fell 2.6 percent over the past six months (one of the largest decreases in 20 years), writes the Financial Times (via MarketingVox). Nielsen analyst Gerry Davison said the development of interactive features such as blogs, podcasts and streaming video and audio was helping to make “newspaper websites an increasingly appealing choice for news.”
Friendster has hired a banker to shop the social network around, said sources familiar with the matter, CNET writes. Friendster spokesman Jeff Roberto wouldn’t comment, and a spokeswoman from the boutique investment banking firm, Montgomery & Co., couldn’t confirm or deny whether Friendster is a client. Earlier this year, Friendster had been shopping for a buyer at the asking price of $200 million, according to one source. That same source claimed the price has been reduced to $50 to $100 million.
In a cost-cutting move, the Los Angeles Times has written that it will discontinue its Outdoors section to offset higher newsprint costs, flat revenue, and competition from the internet. The last edition of the Outdoors section will appear Dec. 6.
The Outdoors section launched in Sept. 2003, but failed to attract advertisers over time, and only about 28 percent of Times readers regularly read the section.
According to PQ Media, a custom media research firm, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, total media spending fell by $1.13 billion from August 2005 to September 2006, Mediaweek reports. That represents about 2.2 percent of media spending in the top 20 markets with New Orleans accounting for 64.8 percent of the total loss, or $732.5 million. Six additional storms hit in 2005, raising the total media spending losses to $1.59 billion.
Fox is seeing gains during the November sweeps compared with last year, Media Life reports. Fox will probably still finish fourth during the November sweeps and carry a fourth-place finish into January, when American Idol returns, but the gains are helping offset the effects of airing the lowest-rated World Series in history.
A new report from American Business Media indicates that the industry is in good shape to prosper, B to B reports. According to Richard Mead, managing director of Jordan, Edmiston Group which prepared the report, the internet is still growing in importance as a revenue generator but print publications continue to play a key role - that of “community product” - for business media companies.
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