NBC has already sold 80 percent of its Super Bowl XLIII inventory, according to the network’s vp of sports and Olympics sales and marketing, Seth Winter. Thirty second spots are selling for $3 million, up 10 percent from about $2.7 million last year, and about “a dozen or so” advertisers have signed on so far.
“Call to Action” advertising, spawned by a combination of mobile TV and a cellular communications backchannel - and virtually non-existent in 2007 - is expected to grow to $419 million in worldwide revenue by 2012, according to a MultiMedia Intelligence study, MarketingCharts reports.
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Time Warner Cable does not plan to chase NBCU after it splits with Time Warner Inc. at the end of the year, Time Warner Inc. CFO John Martin told investors at a conference. Martin also said digital is not cannibalizing DVD sales, and warned that AOL’s third-party ad network momentum is slowing.
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Katie Couric, network TV’s number-three news anchor, apparently still has the unflagging support of CBS. Following the conventions, CBS pres and CEO Les Moonves said he is proud of Couric’s performance at the conventions and that he is willing to be patient as he waits for ratings to rise.
Back to You...The upcoming television shows that generate big buzz bomb just as often as non-buzz worthy shows, according to a new study from Magna.
NBCU, which in 2007 pulled its programming from the iTunes store in a snit over pricing, is once again allowing shows from its broadcast and cable nets to be available on iTunes.
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The project from Comcast, Time Warner and four other cable operators that will ostensibly allow advertisers to target specific areas of the country, specific neighborhoods - even specific homes - is progressing well, said Comcast COO Steve Burke at an investor event.
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Citi is introducing a mentoring program that pairs four rookie golf players with pros Paul Azinger and Nick Faldo. The rookies, known as Team Citi, will be given guidance from the pros not just on how to improve their games, but also how to survive as a young pro on tour, when cash is not necessarily easy to come by, writes The New York Times.
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NBCU has signed a multi-year partnership with Google to have the search giant sell advertising on some of NBCU’s cable nets.
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Arbitron has signed another client for Arbitron Custom Research, its out-of-home measurement business. LevelVision, operator of more than 300 screens in college bookstores, has signed the group to measure student engagement across its College Bookstore Network, writes MediaPost.
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Wilmington, North Carolina, became the first market to make the transition to digital TV transmission, when its two stations switched from analog to digital signals at noon yesterday, a full six months before the rest of the country will switch on Feb. 17, 2009.
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An overwhelming majority (81 percent) of U.S. small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) say they will maintain or increase their ad spending in the next 12 months, according to the latest wave of the Local Commerce Monitor from The Kelsey Group and ConStat - via MarketingCharts.
The syndicated Bonnie Hunt Show, from the little-known actress-comedian, debuts today (Monday), and it is one of the few shows in syndication that media buyers are optimistic about, writes Media Life.
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Two issues of the Food Network Magazine will debut in coming months, as Hearst tests the waters for market interest in yet another foodie title.
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Following an enormous gaffe last week, in which a Carat “people officer” sent a memo detailing upcoming layoffs to the entire staff rather than only to senior management, the media agency has been scrambling to manage the repercussions.
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Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews are being removed as anchors of live political events on MSNBC, following growing criticism that the two are too incendiary to serve as unbiased commentators.
Fox says that viewers’ attention to commercials is higher when fewer commercials are aired. The revelation comes as a result of testing the network has done for its freshman thriller, Fringe, which will premiere Sept. 9 with limited commercials and shorter commercial pods.
General Motors posted sales of 308,817 vehicles in August. That’s a drop of 20 percent from August of last year - but 31 percent better than July.
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An unfortunate email blunder alerted Carat staffers that their jobs could be in peril, and shared with them the specifics on how they would be told of the news.
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Global online video revenue is expected to surpass $4.5 billion by 2012 - up from $1.2 billion in 2008 - as it continues grow rapidly, according to the World Report on Online Video from In-Stat (via MarketingCharts).
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