Promotion Associate Producer, KGO-TV

San Francisco

Read the full post Add comment November 3rd, 2006

So, just how many political ads?

Nielsen Monitor-Plus counted 942,900 political ads that have aired on TV between August 1st and October 15th, up 31 percent compared to the same time four years ago. And that doesn’t count the last couple weeks, which have been, well, ridiculous. (Except if you’re a local TV station in many markets, then it’s Christmas.) If you’re curious, the candidates that have placed the most ads are Florida’s Charlie Crist, the Republican candidate for governor (21,214 ads) and Dick DeVos, the Republican candidate for Michigan governor (20,093). Now that’s frequency.

5 comments November 3rd, 2006

MobiTV up to $100M in investment

TechCrunch is thinking about MobiTV’s latest $30 million round of investment, which added to the $70 million it had already raised, adds up to a cool $100 million. “That’s a lot of money for a startup that lets some people watch a few TV shows on their cell phones,” he writes. “I’m wondering if MobiTV has a major announcement to make in the near future.” His hypothesis? An all-in-one service that allows people to watch TV via the internet on mobile devices, PCs, laptops and their TV sets.

Add comment November 3rd, 2006

Google racing to hold off YouTube legal threat

The Financial Times reports that Google is “engaged in a frantic round of negotiations” with traditional media companies, even offering tens of millions of dollars in upfront payments to ward off any potential copyright lawsuits. Google CEO Eric Schmidt has met with top execs from CBS, Viacom, Time Warner, NBC Universal, News Corp and others with proposals to combine their content with Google’s ad network. “So far people like that message; they are now trying to figure out what to do about it – should they, should they not, under what terms, and those sort of things,” Schmidt says.

2 comments November 3rd, 2006

CNNMoney.com beefs up video

The site has unveiled a new video player with content co-produced by CNN and its magazine partners, Fortune, Money and Business 2.0.

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DVR ratings nearing 20 percent

The number of people watching time-delayed shows on their DVRs is rising fast. On the October 11th episode of Lost, for example, 16 percent of viewers ages 18-49 watched the recorded show within seven days after it aired. Some predict that popular shows like Lost will hit 20 percent in the demographic by the end of the season. (And in some markets with high DVR penetration, that number is even higher.) So naturally, broadcasters want to be compensated for time-shifted viewing, but media buyers are refusing to pay. After all, most people watching recorded shows are skipping commercials — some estimates have it as high as 75 percent. Watch for this battle to intensify in the next few weeks with buyers finally agreeing to pay, but at a much smaller cost per point.