After launching its 52-page spin-off catalog The Look last fall, plus-size women’s apparel cataloger Silhouettes mailed the second edition in mid-March and has announced that it will continue distribution on a quarterly basis, Multichannel Merchant writes.
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According to industry and congressional sources, with satellite radio services now becoming distribution services, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has presented legislation that would require satellite radio companies to compensate copyright holders in the music industry for downloads, writes the Hollywood Reporter.
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MediaNews Group Inc., along with publishing company Hearst Corp., will pay $1 billion in cash to acquire four newspapers - the Contra Costa Times, the San Jose Mercury News, the Monterey County Herald and the St. Paul Pioneer Press - from The McClatchy Co., writes Yahoo.
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An unofficial survey of TV buying executives revealed that early estimates for the dollars to be spent at this year’s broadcast prime-time upfront fall between $8.7 billion and $8.8 billion - a one to two percent drop from last year, translating to a loss of $100 million to $200 million - MediaPost writes.
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The GLCensus Partners study, performed by OpusComm Group and Syracuse University, released Wednesday, surveyed 5,000 gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) respondents and reported on the importance of targeting gays in advertising, writes Media Life.
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Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal Television Group COE, said the company’s upfront strategy for 2006 would make “Television 360″ its main sales pitch, adding that every NBC program “has to have a broadband component,” writes Ad Age.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft is planning to acquire in-game advertising firm Massive Inc. for anywhere between $200 and $400 million, with the official announcement to come next week, writes Gamasutra (via MarketingVOX). Microsoft is apparently interested in controlling how advertising is placed within games and wants to try using ads to subsidize users’ costs for massively multiplayer online games.
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Online advertising researchers InsightExpress and Marketing Evolution have teamed to make the measurement of online advertising effectiveness comparable to that of traditional media, especially TV, reports Media Post’s Joe Mandese (via MarketingVOX). Their new system combines InsightExpress’s pre-testing of online ad creative and tracking of campaign effectiveness with Marketing Evolution’s newly developed data for estimating online campaigns’ reach and frequency - online’s analog, so to speak, of TV’s gross rating points (GRP), at local market levels.
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Newspapers worldwide have started experimenting with transmitting their content to electronic paper devices - which are more like paper as they reflect rather than transmit light - hoping to become to the newspaper industry what the iPod is to the music industry, writes The New York Times.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau dubs pay-per-click (PPC) as advertising’s fastest-growing segment, writes DM News. Google, for example, earned revenues exceeding $6 billion from keyword ads, which beat out other TV and network chains for ad dollars.
Elena Krivoruchko, director of advertiser solutions at Searchfeed.com, said PPC advertising could offer a low cost addition to infomercials as well as another way for advertisers to measure their marketing message’s effectiveness.
Various Omnicom Group shops will oversee global advertising for Procter & Gamble’s osteoporosis medication Actonel, Adweek writes. Last year, P&G invested nearly $80 million on advertising Actonel in the U.S., according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
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U.S. marketers using cell phones as an advertising outlet typically use text messaging to call cell phone users to action, writes Media Life.
During the recent NAB Convention, first-time NAB president and CEO David Rehr expressed his faith in radio to overcome competition from newer services, especially satellite radio, writes Radio Ink. Also at the conference, delivering what will likely be his last “State of Radio Sales,” RAB president and CEO Gary Fries criticized the radio industry for not reacting quickly enough to changes in the advertising marketplace, and for focusing too much energy on taking from one another, Radio Ink reports.
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Comcast has delivered the industry’s first upfront presentation dedicated solely to video on demand, writes MediaWeek. “We realize that for a lot of people this is a scary step to take, but the eyeballs are there to take advantage of this platform,” said Steve Burke, Comcast COO.
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Forbes.com has launched its new section Business in the Beltway this week, expanding its business and politics news coverage, writes BtoB.
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