»
MTV wanted its own YouTube, and Viacom has obliged, continuing its thrust into the digital realm; it plans to acquire Atom Entertainment in a bid to expand its online video and game holdings.
Viacom’s MTV Networks will acquire Atom for $200 million, bringing under its aegis several popular online video and gaming destinations, including Atom Films, AddictingClips, Shockwave.com and AddictingGames, ClickZ reports (via MarketingVox). The sale is expected to close this quarter. Atom Films was a dominant source of online video and film before the meteoric rise of consumer-generated content and video-sharing sites like YouTube and MySpace. MTV’s deal with Google this week calls for the distribution of MTV video content, along with in-stream ads, to third-party sites.
Acquiring Atom Entertainment advances Viacom’s multiplatform strategy of building an engaging universe of music, gaming, entertainment, news and interactivity for targeted audiences, the companies said in a statement. The acquisition is in line with Viacom’s digital strategy and “adds great scale with users, improves our growing casual gaming position, and brings a world-class digital video library and a fantastic management team,” Viacom CEO Tom Freston said.
Atom’s videos will be made available across MTV’s 24 broadband channels, writes Reuters, adding that Viacom in May acquired a builder of online game forums, Xfire, for $102 million. Atom Entertainment was formed about five years ago with the merger of Atom Films and Shockwave.com, which offered online games.
The Spanish Radio Association says Arbitron still has not addressed its concerns and research questions regarding the PPM and how “Hispanics are recruited and represented, and how the PPM panel is maintained.”
The SRA has been working with Arbitron in…
The Chicago Tribune’s new design will launch on Sept. 29, Tribune Co. chief operating officer Randy Michaels says. No details on the redesign have been released; the paper has already been decreasing its editorial pages to create a more even split…
Teens are not the best demo to target with cell phone advertising, according to a new study from comScore. Though they are cell phone-savvy, most of them - 70 percent - have their phones paid for by parents, which means…
CNN won its second night of coverage of the Democratic National Convention Tuesday. The network averaged 3.41 million viewers in the 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. time slot, despite the fact that Fox drew nearly even for the night.
Fox…
Generation Y is the most self-indulgent, Generation X is the most innovative, and Boomers are the most productive, while the “Silent Generation” and the “Greatest Generation” are the most admired, according to a recent survey by Harris Interactive, writes MarketingCharts.
Conducted for…
To encourage shoppers to buy more back-to-school items, retailers often implement “loss leader” strategies: that is, selling items at a loss or even giving them away in hopes that the reductions will attract shoppers who will then buy other, more…
