This September, Oprah Winfrey will launch Oprah & Friends, a new satellite radio channel, according to the three-year, $55 million deal she signed with XM Satellite Radio on Thursday, writes The Global and Mail. The channel will include fitness, health and self-improvement programming with guests from Oprah’s TV show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, and O, The Oprah Magazine.
The New York Post has launched a magazine based on its popular gossip feature, Page Six, and Thursday’s readers of the newspaper got the first glimpse of the new magazine, a 76-page insertion in the regular edition, writes Editor & Publisher. The magazine featured a teenaged Angelina Jolie on the cover. The gossip-focused Page Six debuted in the New York Post in 1976.
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Wednesday, speculations rose concerning who would buy and for how much, when Univision Communications - owner of the nation’s leading Spanish-language TV network, a radio broadcaster, music company and online operations - confirmed its plan to sell, writes The New York Times.
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MobiTV, a mobile video service, will help NBC Universal’s mobile phone programmer, NBC Mobile, deliver daily highlights of the Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, to U.S. customers of Cingular and Alltel, writes Broadcasting & Cable. The NBC Mobile: NBC Olympics service will be available through a dedicated MobiTV channel and updated daily.
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NBC has nearly sold its entire ad inventory for the Winter Olympics, February 10-26, almost reaching its sales goal of $900 million, writes Media Life. Favorable pricing sold out most of NBC’s cable networks, which may in fact be oversold, meaning advertisers could get bumped. Some NBC stations are retaining a small percentage of the inventory lest they have to compensate for ratings promised to advertisers. If the Games have better than expected ratings, advertisers will likely pick up any remaining inventory at premium pricing.
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AdCommute targets morning and afternoon commuters with its new nationwide ad service, capitalizing on the growing trend of advertisers using magnetic ads on vehicles, the company announced. Jared Callahan, president of AdCommute, said his company is opposing conventional marketing by bringing the message to the customer rather than the customer finding the ad. The company’s vehicles sport a pair of 12 X 18 inch magnetic ads, morning and afternoon, in all major cities. The service costs less than online, print, radio and TV advertising.
Harris Publications launched its first Hispanic magazine, Fuego, less than a year ago, but the publication has said that the winter 2006 issue will be its last, Mediaweek writes. Fuego, a quarterly, English-language men’s lifestyle magazine, targeted second- and third-generation Latinos and had a circulation of 200,000.
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Classic Hits and Spanish-language radio formats have gained stations and audience share in the last year, while Alternative/Modern Rock have declined, according to a new study of radio formats from Katz Media Group, Mediaweek writes. Based on fall Arbitron ratings for 4,428 stations in 294 markets, the study found that the number of stations programming Classic Hits, Jack FM or other “play anything” formats nearly doubled - from 89 to 155 - and the average listening share also increased, while the number of Oldies stations declined, from 256 to 216.
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Google has expanded its print ad test - dubbed Publication Ads - to the tune of 30 new magazines, writes Mediaweek. The test, which expires on Feb. 20, allows AdWords users to bid on print ad space of a variety of sizes within these titles. Winning bidders will be notified by March 3. New magazines in the program include Car and Driver, Road and Track, Elle Girl, Rodale’s Women’s Health, MacAddict, and Official Xbox Magazine.
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Video-on-demand is not apparently eating into traditional TV viewing time, according to a joint report from Comcast and Nielsen Media Research, Mediapost writes. Some 75 percent of homes with access to VOD used it at least once during the length of the three-month study, and homes that tuned in to Comcast’s On Demand service watched traditional TV an average of 723 minutes per day, 9 percent longer than digital cable households and accounting for 38 percent more viewership than all cable households.
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On the eve of the kids upfront TV marketplace, Disney ABC Kids Networks has announced a mix of 11 new shows, both animated and live action, as well as 25 movies, aimed at preschool kids to tweens, Mediapost writes. The kids upfront marketplace will look different this year, as some of the major players have announced major content and inventory changes.
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On February 9th, the largest U.S. wireless carrier, Cingular, opened its concert series, Cingular Sounds Live, designed to generate content specifically for the mobile environment, announced Cingular Wireless. The company will produce and host a series of regular music events around the country and offer taped footage from each event to customers. Cingular plans to launch an on-demand streaming video service, Cingular Video, in which users can access concert highlights on their 3G-compatible wireless phones.
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Alliance Data, a leading provider of transaction, credit and marketing services, has acquired ICOM Information and Communication Inc., which provides targeted list, marketing data and direct response communication solutions, the companies announced. The agreement allows ICOM to remain a distinct business under Alliance Data and will help Alliance Data explore new vertical markets.
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