Though the New York Post has remained silent on the issue of its Page Six’s recent scandal involving freelancer Jared Paul Stern - who was caught on tape allegedly soliciting bribes topping $200,000 from a California billionaire in exchange for keeping his name out of the Post’s daily content - the newspaper has initiated some response to the scandal by lessening its use of freelancers, writes the Los Angeles Times.
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Joining the growing movement among publishers in favor of doing away with ratebases, BPA Worldwide CEO Glenn Hansen said last Wednesday night that the days when any magazine has a totally paid circulation are probably over, writes Folio. During the Western Fulfillment Management Association bimonthly meeting in Los Angeles, Hansen also added that for years some of the largest U.S. consumer magazines have been “practicing controlled-circulation while calling it paid.”
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Microsoft’s online ad offerings will soon incorporate Ad-ID - the bar-code-like digital identifier that both the American Association of Advertising Agencies and The Association of National Advertisers endorse - writes MediaWeek.
Nielsen Media Research has announced that data pertaining to one of its more important metrics, length of tune (LOT) - which calculates viewers’ average time spent on a certain network, program or daypart - has been “incorrect” since December 9, 2005, reports MediaPost.
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While Postmaster General John E. Potter reportedly announced that the U.S. Postal Service would file the next postal rate case with the Postal Rate Commission as early as this month, a source inside the service said the USPS wouldn’t post the case until May or later, writes DM News.
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A Dutch online reservations company, Hotels.nl, has started adorning sheep along Netherlands highways with waterproof blankets sporting the company’s logo, writes The New York Times.
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Viacom recently paid $102 million in cash to acquire online gaming technology firm Xfire - an ad-supported network with four million subscribers on the game-enhancing social networking and instant messenger services found on Xfire.com - writes Broadcasting & Cable.
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As rumored, CBS will be bringing radio hosts Opie & Anthony to commercial drive-time radio in 7 cities, replacing David Lee Roth, who failed in his attempt to succeed Howard Stern, Reuters writes. CBS stations in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, and West Palm Beach will start carrying the duo on Wednesday.
Broadcast networks’ long-standing dominance among adults 18-49 has come to a close, as ad-supported cable claims for the first time a larger share of the target audience in primetime, Media Life writes. According to MediaVest’s analysis of Nielsen Media Research’s recently released data, as of March 26, cable’s share among the 18-49 demo has grown to 42 percent, up from last year’s 41 percent and above broadcast networks’ 40 percent share.
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Local television stations are stepping outside tradition thought - turning away from TV sets and looking towards the internet - to formulate new, creative ways to stay profitable, writes The New York Times. While consumers continue to demand choice and flexibility when watching TV content and new streams of programming offer potential sources of revenue, TV stations are forced to break the rules.
In a study of the impact of behavioral vs contextual targeting on an internet advertising campaign, behavioral targeting identified and reached 50.3 percent more imminent buyers of Panasonic plasma TVs than contextual targeting. According to the study by Next Century Media and Insight Express, the cost of reaching each potential buyer was also 50 percent less than with contextual targeting, MarketingVox reports.
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In a move that some consider the first step toward allowing advertising on other Apple content areas or even iPods, iTunes will soon be ad supported, Ad Age writes. Apple CEO Steve Jobs supports the concept of ad-supported podcasts, providing a window of opportunity for visual ads to join existing audio ads.
Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia will roll out the test issue of Blueprint on May 1 with 48 ad pages, including Liz Claiborne, Nestlé, Crate & Barrel and Anheuser-Busch. Its high-end demographic–women 25-45 with an average household income of $75,000–helped push the advertising, Mediaweek reports.
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When flipping through a magazine for the contents page, readers usually have to sift through several advertisements before concluding their search. Starting today, however, four issues of Time Warner magazines - Business 2.0, Fortune, People and Time - will post the table of contents on the first page, thanks to Philips Electronics - who has paid $5 million to advertise on a second cover flap that it is making the new contents page placement possible, writes the Wall Street Journal.
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Turner Broadcasting System will begin airing promos for TNT’s upcoming NBA playoffs coverage to commuters on ,586 transit-based TV screens on 1,650 buses in Los Angeles and 1,186 televisions on 537 buses in Atlanta - part of TransitTV’s municipal transit system network–which also covers Milwaukee, Orlando, Chicago, and soon, San Dieg - MediaPost reports.
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To maximize advertisers’ return on investment and provide online publishers with the ability to match ads with the most appropriate audience, DoubleClick has unveiled a new optimization tool - DART Adapt - for its DART for Publishers platform, reports ClickZ (via MarketingVox). Based on publisher-defined rules, DART Adapt determines - based (anonymously) on user activity or behavior and using statistical modeling - the best ad to serve that user to ensure a higher conversion rate.
Last week, Nielsen Outdoor announced the expansion of its GPS-based ratings service to Los Angeles, as part of plans to deploy the new technology-based measurement service in the top ten media markets in the U.S. This week, the outdoor media industry is announcing the final phase of its own outdoor audience ratings plan, which is being coordinated by the Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB), by awarding the contract to Europe’s Gfk Group, Gfk’s U.S. subsidiary, magazine audience researcher Mediamark Research Inc., and media planning services provider Telmar, MediaPost reports.
Beginning this June, Rail-Ads will offer marketers large and small the economical opportunity to reach commuters on Metro-North Railroad line trains out of Grand Central Terminal in New York, writes DM News.
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Clear Channel is allowing its smaller competitors - who lack the resources to fill HD and internet outlets - access to its format lab, which consists of 75 new round-the-clock channels that were once only available to company stations and few third-party licensees, Billboard Radio Monitor writes.
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According to a new Advertising.com study, the ad network’s so-called NetBlocks - similar to roadblocks on specific content, but expanded to include an advertiser’s “ownership” of a chunk of the entire ad network - can significantly increase consumer/brand engagement in the days following exposure, writes MarketingVox. That “ownership” can be defined as a desired volume of impressions or all impressions served to a specific demographic segment, or other criteria. Overall results showed that NetBlocks increased - up to 1,700 percent (versus a control group) - traffic to the advertisers’ websites.
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