Adbiz

For those wondering how Nielsen would leverage Gracenote's media and entertainment metadata following its $560 million acquisition of the East Bay-based entity, a big reveal came from Nielsen's New York headquarters early Tuesday. Gracenote's Real-Time Smart TV Data will now be used to enhance the audience targeting, consumer analytics and measurement capabilities of Nielsen Marketing Cloud's Data Management Platform (DMP).

Thus far into the 115th U.S. Congress, multiple efforts to bring additional royalty payments to radio stations across the U.S. appear to be flailing and twitching like one of the Walking Dead. Now, it appears that any tax reform measure that would change a business' ability to fully deduct the costs of advertising in the year they are incurred may be as equally challenged from gaining support of legislators on both side of Capitol Hill.

Walgreens is in a battle with CVS/Pharmacy, as CVS Health ponders an acquisition with Aetna. The drug store/convenience store marketplace is hypercompetitive, and Walgreens wants to stay top-of-mind with all customers. This could explain its activity at radio stations tracked by Media Monitors for the week ending Oct. 29.

What's as tasty as an exciting extra-innings thriller of a World Series game? Some of the menu items at Taco Bell, the QSR hopes. This could explain its activity of late at cable television, Media Monitors notes in its latest Cable Spot Ten report.

FOX Sports is making sure that nine commercials set to air during its Thanksgiving Day NFL game from Ford Field in Detroit aren't total turkeys. That's because it's sliced down the air time of each of these spots to a swift 6 seconds.

Gen Media Partners and The Tacher Company have formed a joint venture that brings together the sales and management resources of both companies. It has taken the name of GMPT Media, and its first radio partner to sign on for the collaborative ad sales representation is the 53-station group Cherry Creek Media.

Here's something that's cool, and definitely establishes Radio as the one media that can truly connect with local listeners in ways Spotify, Pandora, and even TV stations and newspapers can't do. It's all about going live -- and that includes all on-air elements, including commercials. Entercom is the company behind this "more than just a stunt" opportunity — and it's something that could get your stations get noticed, and more listener love, too.

Here's a news story that broadcast media executives eager to drive dollars back from digital media should read with keen interest: The Ranking Member of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee has asked the heads of the three largest digital and social media companies to hold a meeting to discuss content management and advertising policies on their respective platforms.

In last week’s Media Monitors Radio Spot Ten report, GEICO held strong once again and is on pace to be one of 2018's top radio advertisers. However, it's Vistaprint that deserves notice for using AM and FM radio to reach consumers.

Auto dealers are revving up their engines in the hopes that Q4 will bring big register receipts and commissions for their sales associates. Based on the most recent Media Monitors TV Spot Ten report, an American brand and a Japanese auto maker are the most active at broadcast TV at the moment. 

In last week’s Media Monitors Cable Spot Ten report, GEICO was No. 1 again with 53,028 spots and Burger King moved up to No. 2 with 34,407 ads. But it was Country Crock that gained the most notice in the most recent report.

Democratic Senators Mark Warner and Amy Klobuchar, along with Republican co-sponsor John McCain, introduced legislation Thursday that would extend the FEC and FCC’s disclosure rules for broadcasters and other media to online ads. Dubbed the "Honest Ads Act," the trio of politicians say their bill is designed to “bring needed transparency and accountability to online political ads.” But, does it go too far? TechFreedom President Berin Szóka says yes.

What is the relative contribution that a campaign’s creative and media factors might have on sales? That's the key question recently put to the test by Nielsen Catalina Solutions (NCS) as part of a report that quantifies the impact of advertising. NCS looked at nearly 500 CPG campaigns that ran in 2016 and in Q1 of 2017 on linear and addressable television, online digital and video, mobile, magazines and radio. It offered five key takeaways, the biggest perhaps being the following conclusion: For large cross media campaigns, reach still comes primarily from television.

The independent measurement of subscription-based streaming content has taken a giant leap forward, as Nielsen has officially flipped the switch on Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) Content Ratings. Nielsen calls this "a game-changing service," and it has received widespread support from key players in the TV industry. It puts a solid metric on Netflix viewership, for starters.

In Great Britain, media and entertainment group Global is known for such iconic radio brands as LBC, Heart, Capital FM, Smooth FM, Radio X, Gold and Classic FM. As of today, in the U.S., Global will be known as the company expanding its digital audio sales platform Digital Audio Exchange (DAX) with the acquisition of New York-based AudioHQ.