Mike Wallace has decided, as his 88th birthday approaches, to retire from 60 Minutes at the end of the current TV season, the New York Times reports. CBS is not pushing the move, he told the Times in an interview today.
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Database marketing services provider Datran Media LLC settled with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for $1.1 million, though it admitted to no wrongdoing, DM News reports. The settlement was a result of allegations of a privacy breach of specific email lists when sending marketing messages on behalf of clients. The settlement said Datran obtained and knowingly used personally identifiable information from list providers who had promised consumers they wouldn’t sell or rent such information.
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Madison Avenue, in its search for continued relevance, is turning to and investing in search engine marketing, with more and more agencies and parent companies beginning to offer search marketing services internally rather than having clients go to independent specialists, writes the New York Times (via MarketingVox). The latest big agency to enter the search arena is OgilvyOne Worldwide.
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CNET Networks sites will be running banner ads that have RSS feeds embedded in them, allowing advertisers to provide updated, current information via the ad units, reports AdWeek (via MarketingVox). CNET will offer the RSS-enabled ads on 15 of its sites for all Interactive Advertising Bureau ad units. E! Entertainment TV is the first advertiser to use the ads.
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According to a benchmark study from Nielsen Media Research, television viewers in the U.S. now receive more TV channels than ever, yet they are watching fewer of them, especially channels from broadcasters, writes Mediapost. Following a fundamental principle of increasing media choice, the data shows that when given unlimited media options, people on average will continue to use only a small number.
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Yesterday, Clear Channel Airports - a division of Clear Channel Outdoor - launched Pinnacle Collection, its new collection of advertising displays located in more than 30 private airports in twelve of the top media markets. The campaign is geared toward reaching the nation’s frequent business flyers utilizing ad displays in private aircrafts and executive terminals where ultra-elite passengers travel.
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Howard Stern, dressed in an “I Hate Les Moonves” T-shirt, ranted against CBS’s CEO last night during his appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, complaining about the lawsuit CBS filed against him, Radio Ink reports.
Early estimates show that ABC’s Desperate Housewives couldn’t hold up against HBO’s Sunday debut of The Sopranos, writes Media Life.
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The online edition of the Wall Street Journal intends to add new personalization features and make its site easier to use, as it did a soft launch Saturday of its first redesign of its home page since 2002, writes B2B.
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Catalog Holdings - a portfolio company of the private equity firm Golden Gate Capital - purchased Portland, OR-based Norm Thompson Outfitters yesterday, reports Multichannel Merchant. In the past few years, Norm Thompson has had to relaunch its websites and close its full-price stores.
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Internet Broadcasting, the nation’s largest local online news network, announced at the end of February new, multi-year agreements with Hearst-Argyle Television, Inc., Post-Newsweek Stations, Inc., and McGraw-Hill Broadcasting. With the deals, Internet Broadcasting will continue to provide local and national online advertising sales, interactive media services, and technology for their partner TV station website properties.
Meredith Corporation, publisher of Ladies’ Home Journal and Better Homes and Gardens, has created a unit designed to create video content around its magazine brands, and has hired a syndication veteran - J.R. McCabe, who has worked for Paramount and Universal - to handle sales for the new unit, writes Mediapost. However, the company says it has no specific plans for the unit at this time.
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Arbitron will begin rolling out its portable people meter measurement service in Houston in July, with the top 10 markets following Houston by the fall of 2008 and the rest of the top 50 within three years after that, according to Mediapost. Only two radio broadcasters - Spanish Broadcasting and Beasley Broadcasting - have committed to using the PPMs, though 18 of the nation’s major agencies ad agencies and one national advertiser, Wendy’s International, are already onboard and most large radio buyers have endorsed the service, Mediaweek writes.
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As the line between digital media and television blurs, TV buyers and digital buyers are facing off over the question of whether some portion of digital budgets should be pooled with upfront budgets - and who should oversee it, if so - AdAge writes.
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Combined ad spend on newspapers and their websites came to $14.3 billion for the fourth quarter of 2005, a 1.4 percent increase over the same period last year, according to estimates from the Newspaper Association of America, BtoB writes. The majority of the growth came from spending on websites, which rose 32 percent in Q4 - the seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit increases.
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