Nearly 75% of TV site inventory unsold
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 [...]
Yahoo debuts women’s site
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…
Briefs: NBC, Xbox, Huffington, TechCrunch
- 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 [...]
Local markets to get new ratings data
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.
Automotive industry woes impact TV
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 [...]
Google to TV: We want to work with you
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 [...]
Google adds street view to 13 more cities
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.
Magid: DTV awareness up… but so is confusion
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 [...]
Facebook stealing top Google talent
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 [...]
CBS now testing HD video streaming
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, [...]
NBC to add nightly mixed martial arts show
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 [...]
‘J-Z out’: Zucker tapes intro for ‘Earl’
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 [...]
Why aren’t more web videos captioned?
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 [...]
Did newspapers ignore housing bubble?
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 [...]
NBC to present fall schedule… next week
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 [...]
Baby put up for sale on TV site’s classifieds
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 [...]
The coolest social music site anywhere
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.)
The nation’s most popular local TV site is…
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…
