Archive for March, 2008
That’s one of the nuggets from a new Borrell Associates study conducted for TVB. Local TV stations are expected to make more than $1.1 billion for online advertising this year (+45% over last year), staying ahead of the pace to continue to grow online share. The report also illustrates the vast divide between stations in the same market: for example, one station pulls in $4M in online revenue compared to the next closest competitor at $1.4M. Three others make less than $500,000 each. Lots more good tidbits in the report, summarized by PaidContent here.
By the way, you have to wonder — local TV sites on average have more ad positions than the vast majority of news/information sites on the web. If about three-quarters of that ad inventory is unsold, perhaps a good strategy would be to reduce the number of ad units, improving the user experience while creating more punch for existing advertisers. Just a thought.
March 30th, 2008
Yahoo Shine launched today, a new site targeted to women ages 25 to 54 — the first new Yahoo site designed to target a specific demographic, reports the WSJ (sub. req). Partners include Hearst (Cosmopolitan, etc.) and Rodale (Women’s Health, etc.) Screen grab below…
March 30th, 2008
- NBC owned-and-operated sites to nearly double sales teams
- Veteran Hollywood producer set to make original shows for Xbox
- The story behind HuffingtonPost.com’s rapid rise to internet stardom
- MPAA calls on ISPs to proactively pull the plug on copyright offenders
- Behind-the-scenes in the Engadget vs. Gizmodo gadget blog battle
- TechCrunch poised to crack 3M uniques a month, now #1 on Technorati
March 30th, 2008
Beginning in May, local LPM/metered markets will receive live-plus-three-day ratings, in addition to the live and live-plus-seven-day ratings as before.
March 30th, 2008
For both network and local TV, there’s nothing more important than automotive advertising. U.S. car manufacturers are struggling and spending less. But some analysts predict that TV will keep its share of ad dollars despite automotive’s increasing investment online. “Research shows that TV advertising drives a lot of Web usage, so I think TV will remain important for automakers,” said Charlie Rutman, CEO of MPG North America, a media buyer. “I think the places you going to see a decline are in magazines and radio” as well as outdoor.
March 30th, 2008
In a presentation to TV execs at the annual TVB marketing conference in New York, Google’s Michael Steib (formerly from NBC) said he wants to partner with broadcasters on targeted TV ads. Steib said he estimates there are 6,000-7,000 national advertisers that don’t buy TV but should. “They think TV isn’t for them. We think TV is for them,” he said. Google’s system involves targeting TV ads via set-top boxes. As we’ve written about before, Google has tested a product on a Bay Area cable system and Dish Network. “It’s now poised to partner with local television,” writes Michael Malone in Broadcasting & Cable. It’ll be a tough sell, that’s for sure, as many worry Google could commoditize TV ad buys and push down rates. But if it truly brings more advertisers to the table — leveraging the upsell capability of Google Adwords — then it’s worth exploring.
March 28th, 2008
That’s the cool feature that allows you to peruse street-level photos embedded in Google Maps. Google has expanded 6 cities and added 13 more cities — plus, it even added street-level photos of Yosemite National Park.
March 28th, 2008
Great. With broadcasters in full-court press mode to get people to make sure their analog TVs get those critical converter boxes before next February - a new Magid study shows that people are… confused. The study found that six out of ten viewers are now aware of the cutover, a huge jump from September when the number was just four in ten. However, the study found that only about one-third knew that some consumers would not be able to get TV without an upgrade. The study also suggested many didn’t know the difference between DTV and HDTV. Anyone want to bet that there are millions of Americans with a digital or HD set that don’t get any HD programming because they don’t know the difference?
March 27th, 2008
Forbes notes that Google has been losing several key staffers to Facebook lately — including engineers, execs and others. One of those that left, engineer Justin Rosenstein described the appeal of Facebook, calling it “the Google of yesterday, the Microsoft of long ago. That company where large numbers of stunningly brilliant people congregate and feed off each other’s genius. That company that’s doing with 60 engineers what teams of 600 can’t pull off.”
March 27th, 2008
CBS Labs has begun streaming select HD video clips on their site at http://labs.cbs.com/HD_video/. The video quality is impressive, streaming with H.264/AVC format at 480p, according to TechCrunch. The player itself reminds me a lot of Hulu, with a clean page that dims when the video starts. I appreciated not having to install a plugin, as I had to with ABC’s video player. While this is a positive step for CBS, it does seem like they are playing catch-up to the other networks’ online streaming efforts.
March 27th, 2008
NBC announced today it would add a mixed martial arts show at 0-dark-30 - “Strikeforce on NBC” will air after Poker After Dark at 2:05am. The move gives NBC 4.5 hours of post late-news programming, with Leno, Conan, Last Call, PAD and Strikeforce.
Also: Jimmy Kimmel Live to air at 11:35pm April 3rd to celebrate its anniversary
March 27th, 2008
DeadlineHollywoodDaily reports NBCU president Jeff Zucker is set to appear in the season premiere of My Name is Earl - recapping the season before the strike. The clip is on NBC.com… and is… something else:
Update: I just noticed that after watching the clip, the first “related video” that comes up is called “Don’t Quit Your Day Job.” Man… those related content engines get better and better all the time.
March 27th, 2008
Aaron Barnhart at TVBarn points out that networks (and — ahem — others) should do a better job of providing captions for online video. He makes the case that many already pay to caption video (thanks, FCC) - but don’t pass along the data to their online video streams, even though the FLV format makes that entirely possible. He points to a site from accessibility expert Joe Clark that has links, rants and resources on the topic.
March 26th, 2008
The real estate industry in most of this country is a mess — just don’t ask your neighborhood real estate agent — who will bury you in stats and figures that make it look “not that bad” or “better than you think.” Many newspapers across the country had very little coverage of the housing bubble and fallout as Dan Gillmor points out. A recent E&P piece has editors pointing to a smattering of stories on the now-crisis - but Gillmor calls that story “tripe:”
Newspapers and broadcasters were raking in billions in advertising from the real estate and banking industries as this bubble inflated. I do not believe this is a coincidence. I also don’t believe it was deliberate malfeasance; but you just don’t see lots of tough coverage in media of the people and companies paying the bills.
(Disclosure: My father, aunt, grandfather and greatgrandfather all served in the family business… selling real estate. And yes, we get along just fine.)
March 26th, 2008
So we’ve got Daylight Saving Time early… Easter early… why not present the fall sked early? NBC will get a big jump start on the traditional upfronts set for late May — and will roll out the slate of shows next week at a news conference. NBC says its ongoing effort to move to a 52 week season - with new stuff hitting the air year-round.
March 26th, 2008
Speaking of classifieds offerings in the Salt Lake City market — KUTV.com is working with police in the Utah capital in an attempt to track down the person who posted the ad — complete with picture. The ad was posted March 22 — and KUTV says it was up for a short time before administrators removed it. The site’s news account says the listing put forth a six-month-old for $6,560 “listed as ‘used,’ but ‘beautifule [sic] and affectionate with so much love to offer.’” Right now police don’t know if the listing was real - or a hoax.
March 26th, 2008
Have you seen Muxtape.com? Super mega coolness. Potential legal problems, you say? Um, yeeeeah. But that’s what makes it cool, right? (Thanks to Rex/Fimoculous for the linkage.)
March 26th, 2008
A TV site in the nation’s 35th largest market has a secret, and it will astonish you. Every month, Salt Lake’s KSL.com serves up 130 million… yes MILLION… page views from 1.4 million unique users. From a page view perspective, that puts KSL.com squarely at the top of the heap of local TV sites in the country. So how is this possible? KSL.com launched free classifieds using an off-the-shelf product in 2000, well before Craigslist gained a foothold. In 2006, they upgraded to their own technology — a clean, quick and user-friendly classifieds platform. Today, 75% of those 130 million page views are generated by free classifieds, and KSL.com ranks #8 in Nielsen-Netratings’ list of top news sites ranked by “sessions per person.” Just about everyone in Salt Lake goes to KSL.com to buy or sell just about anything.
Stephan Bergen, KSL.com’s director of online content, answered a few of our questions via email, which follow below…
Read the full post March 26th, 2008
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