TOP STORY
- Comcast Push Teams MLB, Gillette
Comcast Spotlight is undertaking its sixth media promotional campaign with Proctor & Gamble this month by teaming up with Gillette and Major League Baseball to create the “Gillette 2008 MLB Rookie Reporter Showdown.” more » » »
GREAT IDEAS
- A Win-Win
When Hallmark Channel conducted a local ad sales sweepstakes for affiliates to augment the launch of the film March of the Penguins a few years ago, one affiliate wanted to add an online component for a client. more » » »
- Being Original
Ad-supported cable networks’ balance of acquiring existing product with original programming is powering the entire television industry, according to research from the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau. more » » »
BRIEFING ROOM
- SNL Kagan Predicts Cable Ad Growth To Slow
The cable advertising market, coming off of a strong year in 2007, is expected to slow in the second half of year and into 2009, mainly because of continued weakness in the overall economy, according to SNL Kagan. In its report “Economics of Basic Cable Networks,” SNL Kagan said cable ad sales were up 10.5% to $19 billion in 2007. That momentum continued into the first half of 2008, but Kagan believes that the growth will slow in the back half of the year. Kagan forecasts that cable ad sales growth will dip to 4.7% in 2009, rebounding to 11.1% in 2010 on the back of a strengthening economy. more » » »
- CableOne Trialed Web Tracking Technology
In an Aug. 8 letter to the bipartisan leadership of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, CableOne revealed that it conducted last fall a six-month trial of a network-based technology that tracks consumers’ Internet destinations in an effort to collect data considered more commercially desirable to advertisers. Lawmakers have expressed concern that Internet access providers are experimenting with technologies that invade consumers’ privacy. The trial, CableOne said, started November 20, 2007 and ended after 180 days on its cable systems in Anniston, Ala., serving about 14,000 cable modem subscribers. An unnamed outside vendor provided the monitoring technology. CableOne insisted that it had complied with privacy laws and gave consumers appropriate notice through its
acceptable use policy (AUP) at the time they signed up for service, and through its privacy notice sent annually to subscribers. more » » »
- The Secret Bandwidth of Addressable Advertising
Last summer, while talking with a small gathering of muckety-mucks from a cable program network about how cable operators use bandwidth, I was asked what I knew about the “secret bandwidth.” Secret bandwidth. News to me. I asked for particulars. Turns out that this executive had learned from a cable operator contact that in addition to the digital shelf-space dedicated to standard and high-definition linear TV, a special reserve also existed for advanced advertising. I resisted the urge to tell the guy that he’d been tricked into some kind of digital snipe hunt. A year passed. Then, last week, a muckety-muck of the advanced advertising persuasion took a pause from his huevos rancheros to ruminate over the bandwidth implications of addressable advertising, in high
definition. In order to send a 30-second spot that is, for whatever reason, more targeted than what’s already embedded in the linear video stream for that show, he said, operators will probably need to reserve some portion of their existing bandwidth. Tactically, it goes like this: A typical, 6-Megahertz digital-cable channel carries 10 to 12 linear video streams, in standard definition. To do addressable advertising, the substitute ads need some carriage room, too. Like three or four of those 10 to 12 streams. Aha! The secret bandwidth. more » » »
- Stations Face Olympic Ad Hurdles
While NBC nailed its $1 billion goal for advertising sales around the Beijing Olympic Games, it was a somewhat less triumphant story for network affiliates, with many falling short of their local sales expectations. “I think the network had a great Olympics year,” said Michael Fiorile, chairman of the NBC affiliates board. “On the stations side, it’s more of a mixed bag. Some are doing good or great. Some are not doing great.” Among those struggling is News-Press & Gazette Broadcasting’s KTVZ Bend, Ore. “We’re having a tough time of it,” general manager Chris Gallu said. “The economy is very soft here in central Oregon. There just doesn’t seem to be the real desire for advertisers to be there. Sellout rates are 40%-65%
at the NBC affiliates my sales managers are talking to. We’re on the low end, pushing a 50% sellout rate here.” Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst-Argyle Television and Belo told Wall Street in recent days that their NBC-affiliated stations were struggling to reach their goals for local Olympics ad sales. Their Beijing numbers seemed to be in lockstep with the overall media landscape as national advertising is relatively strong compared with local TV. more » » »
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AD BYTES
MTV’s “Rock the Vote” public service announcements will be available through Comcast Media Center’s Ad Distribution Network. ADN's cable and broadcast station affiliates can preview and download RTV PSAs to their local ad insertion equipment for free directly from the ADN Web portal, according to Comcast Media Center vice president of sales and marketing Leslie Russell. ADN has the more than 1,100 affiliated users at cable systems and regional and corporate MSO offices across the country.
Meanwhile, Comcast systems can also access a series of spots that are part of the operator’s ongoing partnership with RTV via the CMC’s Ad Distribution Network. In addition, Comcast and RTV will be registering young Americans online through Comcast’s programming networks’ Web sites, as well as Comcast.net, OurTimetoVote.com, the Comcast voter outreach resource, and Terra.com, Comcast’s Spanish-language Web site.
“Delivering our PSAs via this network is a tremendous benefit to Rock the Vote,” Rock the Vote executive director Heather Smith said in a prepared statement. “It provides organizations like ours with a cost-effective method for getting our PSAs out to local media outlets.”
According to the Campaign Media Analysis Group, the top five programs with the most presidential ad spots in June were: news programming, Jeopardy, the Today show, Good Morning America and The Oprah Winfrey Show. The top five presidential general election markets by number of spots were Cleveland; Philadelphia; Columbus, Ohio; Detroit; and Youngstown, Ohio.
PEOPLE
Comcast Spotlight promoted Lucette Mercer to vice president of sales research. Mercer had been senior director of research and marketing for its West Division. Adam LaRose was elevated to vice president of technology and operations from vice president of operations. Rob Klippel was named vice president of technical operations and advanced advertising trials. He had been vice president of operations. |
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