Satellite Subscribers Love Lack of Commercials

By the year 2010, nearly 20 million households will have satellite radio, roughly double the amount of subscribing households today, according to an analysis of the industry by Targetbase, a direct marketing agency in Omnicom Group’s Diversified Agency Services division.

In the brief, titled “What Listeners Want: The Value of Satellite Radio,” 50 percent of the respondents cited “no commercials” when asked what they value most as part of their listening experience. Fifty percent also said “having the same stations everywhere,” with 46 percent citing the “variety of the programming.” “Sound quality” and “exclusivity” each got favored responses from 30 percent.

Fox Retains MLB Rights; Turner Catches Divisional Series

Fox is expected to retain the rights to televise Major League Baseball’s World Series, All-Star Game and a league Championship Series, while Turner will carry the Divisional Series and one Sunday afternoon game, writes Adweek. This move is apparently a win-win for Fox: it gives more flexibility to Fox in its prime time schedule - which last October was nearly entirely made up of baseball, according to the article - yet Fox gets to retain big-ticket games.

Google Tightens up Landing Page Algorithm

Google is updating its algorithm for evaluating “landing page quality” in an effort to weed out low-quality sites that are linked to from AdWords ads, writes ClickZ (via MarketingVox). As a result, “over the coming days a small number of advertisers who are providing a low-quality user experience on their landing pages will see increases in their minimum bids,” according to the official Inside AdWords blog.

Commercial Ratings Loom as New Upfront Currency

Shaw

The television networks seemed primed to move from using program ratings to using commercial ratings as the currency for selling ad space beginning in the fall. Nielsen Media Research will begin offering syndicated data on commercial ratings to the industry at the beginning of the new TV season, and it is likely that the commercial ratings will be the currency media buyers use when making their upfront decisions next May, Adweek writes.

ZenithOptimedia Ups Online Advertising Outlook

Internet ad spending will account for 7.0 percent of global ad spend in 2008, according to a forecast update from ZenithOptimedia, which increased its outlook from April, when it had projected a 6.5 percent share (and 6.0 percent in December) for internet ad spend, reports ClickZ (via MarketingVox). The “pace of development in Internet advertising” was the factor cited for the most recent upgrade.

June Sales for Direct Marketers a Mixed Bag

Direct retailers reported both an increase and decrease in sales when publicly traded companies were tracked recently during the month of June, reports Multichannel Merchant.

Many companies reported an increase in sales during the month of June. Neiman Marcus Direct reported a 16 percent increase, J.C. Penney reported an increase in total company sales of 4 percent (which included direct sales, internet sales and department store sales), and Jos. A. Bank, a men’s apparel catalog/retailer, reported a total sales increase of 20 percent.

‘Studio 60′ Snares Top Buzz; CW’s ‘The Score’ Lowest Scorer

A recent web analysis by Brandimensions of pre-season television reports that NBC’s new show, Studio 60, is generating the most preference with audiences, reports Mediaweek.

Brandimensions concluded that 22.2 percent of the audience talked about Studio 60 in online discussions, whereas the network’s drama Heros only scored 9.3 percent. Brandimensions’ ratings on new shows also included the following shows: the CBS drama Jericho, 5.5 percent; the NBC sitcom 30 Rock, 5.4 percent; ABC dramas Six Degrees, 4.4 percent and Betty the Ugly, 4.2 percent; Fox drama Vanished, ABC drama The Nine and NBC drama Friday Night Lights all showed 3.9 percent; and CBS drama Shark, 3.8 percent.

Daily Paper in Santa Barbara Increases Circ., Shows Promise

Recently, the Santa Barbara Daily Sound, a free daily newspaper, has managed to increase its readership from 3,000 to 5,000 since it launched its newspaper in March, Editor and Publisher reports.

Jeremy Gordon, the 23-year old founding editor and publisher of the newspaper, was reported as saying that more people wanted to find out about the newspaper. It also happens that his newspaper is covering the news on The Santa Barbara News-Press and its recent slew of resignations. “I have never seen anything like that happen at a major paper,” Gordon was quoted as saying about the News-Press. “It’s scary.” Gordon was referring to the controversy over the News-Press editors, six of whom have recently left after alleging that the owners are undermining the paper’s credibility, the Chicago Tribune reports.

Advertisers Use Kite Boarders to Reach Audience

Advertisers have recently been trying out a new venue in advertising this summer at the beaches: using kite board sails to reach their audience, Media Life reported.

Kite Billboard, whose corporate headquarters are in Largo, Florida, has recently marketed their niche to advertisers from corporations and small businesses alike. Ads can be placed on the sails of kite boards which carry riders across the water. However, the ads are not only limited to the water. They can also be used with wheeled boards over land or with snowboards used on frozen surfaces.

Texas Uses Newspapers to Distribute Magazines

Publishing Group of America (PGA) has recently announced it will use daily newspapers in Texas to distribute a new regional magazine called Texas Profile, MediaPost reports.
The magazine will be distributed with another magazine, American Profile, which is a national publication.