Now that Howard Stern has finally made his move to Sirius Satellite Radio, the radio networks and stations on which Howard aired are in play for listeners, according to MarketWatch. Not every Howard Stern fan will follow him to Sirius, and they’ll be looking for something to replace him with.
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Some 123.6 billion online display ads were served up in December, about 7 percent more than in November, and second only to October’s year-high 124.5 billion, reports MediaPost (via MarketingVOX), citing data from Nielsen/NetRatings AdRelevance. Email sites accounted for 32.1 percent of December display ad impressions (compared with 20.1 percent in Dec. 2004 and 26.7 percent in Nov. 2005); portals and search engines accounted for 12.1 percent (compared with 16.9 percent in Dec. 2004); general community sites accounted for 8.1 percent (compared with 5.3 percent the previous year).
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Kia Motors is seeking a new agency for its 1 million pound U.K. direct marketing account, Brand Republic reports. Last May, Kia moved its DM database online and hired digital agency E3 Media to handle its contact strategy. Previously, the automotive company’s direct marketing has come from its ad agency, Mustoes. The DM pitch is not expected to affect Mustoes’s current relationship with Kia.
Over the next five days, 25 Clear Channel Radio stations in five markets will turn on their HD2 multicast digital radio channels, the company has announced. Within two weeks, another 82 stations in 20 more markets will light up HD2 multicasts. In every local market, the HD2 multicasts will either complement existing on-air programming or bring new genres to listeners. The first five markets include: Los Angeles, Dallas, New York, San Francisco, and Chicago.
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The Madison Avenue Journal, an e-zine that “illuminates the impact of Mad Ave culture on popular culture,” launched in beta in September, and today has announced its official launch with a readership of 2,000+ senior management-level marketers, ad agency, and media executives.
Chrysler Group has implemented a new click-to-call technology on its website to allow a more seamless connection between visitor and dealer, DM News writes. Chrysler’s website has a Build & Price feature which lets visitors get pricing information about different configurations on a vehicle, but when the feature failed in answering a specific question, those visitors would abandon the site.
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Viacom and the Kellogg Company are being sued by The Center for Science in the Public Interest, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and two parents who allege that the companies are harming children’s health by marketing junk food, The New York Times reports. The suit seeks to ban the marketing of food of “poor nutritional quality” to children under eight.
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A Bridge Ratings & Research report finds that AM/FM radio listening is increasing because of lower commercial load policies and MP3-use fatigue, Radio Ink reports. A 15% decrease in terrestrial radio use by 12-24 year olds was reported for Q3 2005 Vs Q3 2004, but by Q4 2005 use had increased by two quarter hours per week per person resulting in only a four percent increase when compared with Q4 2004.
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Comcast’s new on-demand channel, Exercisetv, which has no traditional commercials, is a subtle infomercial for the channel’s sole sponsor, New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc., The Philadelphia Inquirer reports. The network may overcome advertiser concern about viewers fast-forwarding though their messages in on-demand programming. but Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research, said Exercisetv could create other challenges by biting into ad revenue for specialty channels offered on traditional cable.
Napster has announced that its number of paid subscribers has grown by more than 100 percent during the last year to total more than 500,000 subscribers. Fifty-thousand of those are college students who subscribe through Napster’s university program.
NBC Universal is purchasing Denver-based KDEN from Longmont Channel 25 Inc. and Longmont Broadcasting LLC, The Denver Post reports. The acquisition will give Spanish-language Telemundo access to 100 percent of Hispanic households in the Denver TV market. KDEN will be the 17th Spanish-language station owned and operated by the NBC Universal Television Stations division. Channel 25 is currently a home-shopping network.
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Satellite TV providers DirecTV and EchoStar are following cable’s lead and will offer packages of family-oriented channels, The New York Times reports.
Total U.S. ad spending will increase 5.4 percent in 2006, according to TNS Media Intelligence, with only a 5.0 percent growth in the first half of the year to be followed by a 5.7 percent growth in the second half, Mediapost writes. The fourth quarter is expected to grow 6.4 percent over Q4 2005.
ABC News Now, a broadband channel available to users by subscription, has launched an online, 24-hour cable channel available for free to users who agree to watch an ad in its entirety, Mediapost writes. The “day-pass” model allows users to access the site’s content for the entire day.
Ads on News Now include the “must-see” spot (currently for AT&T Inc.) as well as ads from various sponsors and plugs for ABC programming throughout the footage.
The Office, a quirky comedy on NBC that was all but dead last year, has suddenly begun to revive thanks to its new lead-in, My Name Is Earl, Media Life writes. While The Office, a pseudo-documentary about office workers for a paper supply chain, garnered praise from critics, viewers last year weren’t thrilled with the show, and it averaged only a 2.5 rating among viewers 18-49.
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Ed Keller, author of the popular word-of-mouth marketing book The Influentials, has announced that he is launching a company to shed light on how everyday, in-person interactions shape consumers’ buying behavior, AdAge reports. While it’s relatively easy to track online conversations - via blogs, chat rooms, message boards, etc. - the majority of brand “conversations” (to the tune of 80 percent, some in the industry believe) take place offline.
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Kiptronic, an ad network for the podcasting industry, has announced the introduction of the Kiptronic Podcast Marketplace, which offers a way for podcasters to connect with advertisers in an open marketplace. Kiptronic’s patent pending ad insertion technology allows the podcasting community to add sponsorships to their content while providing advertisers a central exchange where they can connect with the topical podcasts that they are interested in. This allows the podcaster to stay in control of their content and the type of advertising that runs on their podcasts, a major issue to some podcasters.
