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Fox, in a bid to keep viewers watching during commercial breaks, will begin running short, animated snippets of programming between ads.
The tiny bits of programming will be about a taxi driver called Oleg, who will share words of wisdom and will chat with spoof versions of celebrities like Tom Cruise and Donald Trump, writes The Wall Street Journal. Two eight-second clips will begin airing on Monday.
The other broadcast networks are working on similar initiatives. At its development meetings with advertisers, for example, ABC showed off an idea that it hopes would make the break between programming and commercials seamless. The idea involves having characters watching an ad on TV. The ad would then expand to fill the whole screen.
NBC is also planning new ways to keep viewers engaged. One idea involves trivia, and will take place during multiple episodes of Scrubs.
The CW’s content wraps, which involve mini-programs that run during commercial breaks, have worked so well at keeping viewers watching that the network is nearly doubling the number of wraps it planned to use next season, according to the article.
CBS Radio and Yahoo, two of the largest online radio providers, are combining their online radio stations, beginning early next year.
CBS Radio’s 150 stations and LaunchCast’s 150 online stations will be integrated into Yahoo’s music site, powered by CBS…
Cox Enterprises, Inc. announced today that the company is bringing together its three media units - Cox Newspapers, Cox Television and Cox Radio - under a new organization named Cox Media Group, Inc., effective January 2009. The subsidiary will be headquartered…
Target is one of the first brands to create an iPhone application. The Target “gift globe” allows iPhone users to shake their phones to launch a snow-fall effect.
When the snow clears, a gift idea from Target is revealed. Users…
ABC is set to launch a slew of new series in a midseason shuffle. Primetime: What Would You Do? returns Tuesday, Jan. 9, in the 10pm time slot. The show is a hidden camera experiment in which actors stage scenarios…
Only 28% of the audience of an average news program, website or magazine gets valuable information about products and services advertised there, making news venues less effective at conveying ad messages than all forms of media combined (see chart), according…
Effective immediately, any telemarketing call that delivers a prerecorded message must include a quick and easy way to opt-out of receiving future calls. The opt-out must work both for consumers who answer these calls in person and for those whose…
