FedEx Freight - FedEx Corp.’s the less-than-truckload subsidiary - will increase its general rates by 5.95 percent on April 24, DM News writes. The increase will affect intrastate and interstate traffic, as well as selected shipments between the United States, Canada and Mexico.
Amongst the media coverage of Katie Couric’s switch to CBS Evening News and Meredith Viera’s replacement of Couric on NBC’s Today show, the real sense of what the changes mean for network news - both in the short and long run - was lost, writes Mercury News.
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In its the latest move to strengthen its networks in China, Omnicom Group announced Sunday the official opening of its office in Shanghai, China, on the company’s 20th anniversary.
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If proven true, the impact of the latest scandal dealing with The New York Post’s Page Six would reach beyond the parties involved and hit the ever-growing world of gossip news, writes Editor & Publisher.
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Crutchfield, Tweeter and ABC Warehouse/Detroit launched multi-tiered promotional campaigns for HD Radio yesterday, and are adding more HD Radio receivers to their inventories, Radio Ink writes.
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Before becoming confirmed as secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice said, “I want them out,” to skin magazines like Playboy and Penthouse sold at two State Department newsstands - though placed under brown paper covers - writes U.S. News.
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Though most Americans have lost interest in coverage of Hurricane Katrina - considered modern America’s largest natural disaster - The Sun Herald out of Gulfport, Mississippi, and The Times-Picayune remain focused on the effects of the storm, writes The New York Times. The papers have been recognized for their continued coverage of Katrina, and both may receive Pulitzer Prizes next week.
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Portability still an issue Within a decade, newspapers will evolve into mostly online entities, according to Ken Doctor, analyst at research and advisory firm Outsell, who cites results of a survey of major newspaper publishers and readers, writes MediaPost (via MarketingVOX). “It’s moving in that direction at different rates for different publishers, [but] the basic trend is unmistakable,” he is quoted as saying. He adds that “content companies need to be able to ‘publish once and distribute many,’ meaning you take the content and distribute it to specific targeted sub-audiences, sometimes through print, sometimes through desktop or laptop, sometimes through mobile.”
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ZenithOptimedia today (Monday) revised its outlook for global ad spending, forecasting that internet advertising spend will overtake outdoor in 2007 and pull alongside radio in 2008, reports MediaPost (via MarketingVOX). “We have revised our internet forecasts upwards once again as it has continued to exceed expectations. We now predict it will attract 6.5% of all advertising in 2008, up from 4.5% in 2005 (and up from the 6.0% we predicted for 2008 back in December),” ZenithOptimedia said in a statement (.doc).
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Following recent cutbacks amounting to 455 layoffs over the past four months, Time Inc. has made its most drastic layoff yet, cutting 250 jobs across multiple titles, reports MediaWeek. The company hopes this round of cuts was its last. “We believe this covers the vast majority of job eliminations for the foreseeable future,” said a spokesperson.
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The consolidation of UPN and the WB into the CW network is expected to eliminate half of the ethnic sitcoms that currently air on UPN, along with a number of other UPN shows, tossing up for grabs about $100 million in ad dollars targeting African-American viewers in the upfront marketplace, Mediaweek reports.
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Mike & the Mad Dog WFAN 660AM out of New York will begin streaming live over the internet tomorrow, writes The Media Drop. “Considering it’s like one of the most widely-broadcast stations on the AM dial, this has some big implications,” according to the blog. The streaming will go live at 3 p.m. when the Mike & the Mad Dog show will be broadcast while the New York Mets game is played over the airwaves.
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P&G has quietly been increasing its use of direct response TV in recent years, and last month named its first DRTV media buying agency of record, Quigley-Simpson Brand Response - a move that has perhaps fueled claims by experts that in five or 10 years, all TV advertising will include some form of direct response, AdAge writes.
Prism Business Media will shutter the print version of Video Systems, the company has announced, and is launching a new magazine, Digital Content Producer, writes BtoB. The website for the new magazine, Digitalcontentproducer.com, is already up, and the first print issue will appear in May.
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According to leading industry observers, the World Cup - which kicks off June 9 in Germany - will generate $1 billion in advertising revenue, making the soccer tournament one of the most lucrative sporting events in history, writes The Observer.
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Looking to expand into more non-floral product offerings, 1-800-Flowers.com announced it’s buying Fannie May Confections Brands from Alpine Confections for an estimated $85 million in cash, writes Multichannel Merchant. The $75 million Fannie May oversees the Fannie May, Fanny Farmer, and Harry London candy brands.
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Not only is Dimension Films’ Scary Movie 4 the first film placed by a studio on online video website YouTube, it has created the first downloadable trailers designed for a video iPod, writes BrandWeek. Consumers can download the trailer into iTunes and transfer it onto a video iPod.
Wal-Mart told the National Newspaper Association last week that it would no longer put run-of-press ads in local newspapers, BrandWeek writes.
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During the Discovery Communications’ annual upfront presentation in New York, president of Discovery Networks, U.S., Billy Campbell, said the channel is “getting back to its core DNA,” writes MediaWeek. After the presentation, Campbell told reporters that this year’s slate was ‘dramatically different from last year’s.”
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