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CBS News relaunched The Early Show today with a new set, a new leader and coverage from the 43 stations that previously ignored 18 minutes of the national feed in favor of their own local programming.
The end to the “blended” format from stations covering 20 percent of the country could help The Early Show begin to compete with NBC’s Today show and ABC’s Good Morning America, executives believe, according to the Associated Press.
Host Harry Smith has been joined by veteran Julie Chen and newcomer Maggie Rodriguez, who worked in Miami local news for seven years and who replaced Hannah Storm.
Today has not lost a week in ratings for more than a decade. The Early Show is averaging 2.78 million viewers, essentially unchanged since last season. Today has slipped from 5.76 million viewers last season to 5.55 million now, while Good Morning America averages 5 million viewers currently, up from 4.94 million last season.
The 18 minutes at the beginning of the show, during which time affiliates showed local news, made it difficult for The Early Show to establish its own identity, says Scott Blumenthal, chairman of the CBS affiliate board and an executive at Lin Broadcasting. Lin Broadcasting owns a station in Buffalo that is No. 1 in the morning ratings and another in Indianapolis that is No. 2. Blumenthal admitted he is nervous about the possibility of losing some audience and revenue due to the switch, but is encouraged by the fact that CBS News plans to put resources behind its stated goal of becoming more competitive in the morning.
Hyper-conservative Rush Limbaugh - heard weekly by nearly 20 million listeners on about 600 radio stations nationwide - renewed his contract with Premiere Radio Networks and Clear Channel Radio, continuing syndication of The Rush Limbaugh Show.
The deal also includes…
WSJ.com’s traffic soared an impressive 94 percent in June compared to the same month last year, according to the company’s internal traffic numbers.
Total page views ballooned 45 percent, to 150 million, compared to the same month last year, writes Mediaweek.…
Kozy Shack, maker of rice and chocolate pudding, is sponsoring the New York Mets, with tubs of the pudding being sold individually at Shea Stadium as well as being included in children’s meals. And the snacks are selling so well…
Though U.K. advertiser investment committed for 2008 is staying put, discretionary spending is becoming shorter-term, at or slightly short of budget; still, WPP’s GroupM forecasts 4 percent growth in 2008 and 3 percent in 2009 for the U.K., thanks to internet…
Email is the most popular form of direct response marketing, with 35 percent of companies using it - compared to 25 percent that use traditional direct mail - according to a new survey conducted by Direct Partners (via Adweek).
The survey…
Without spam protection, the average web user can expect to get 70 spam messages each day, according to a survey by McAfee, the BBC reports (via MarketingVOX).
For the McAfee spam test, 50 people worldwide were asked to web-surf without a spam…
