RTDNF names First Amendment Award winners
The Radio Television Digital News Foundation says the awards will be presented at a ceremony in Washington, DC on Wednesday, 3/12. Here are the...
Changing of the legal guard at CBS
It has been almost 40 years since Louis J. Briskman started cashing payroll checks from CBS Corporation. In fact, at the time, the company name on the checks was Westinghouse Electric Corporation. He’s now set to retire, and a replacement has already been named.
Programmatic buying coming to TV
Earlier this year, Interpublic Group announced that it was working to automate more of its media transactions. To this end, IPG announced that it would like to see 50% of all its media buys, not just online buys, transacted in a programmatic manner by 2016. According to IPG’s subsidiary Magna Global, there is a need to automate the buying of both national and local inventory in most media, including TV and radio inventory. We estimate the size of the media marketplace to be approximately $182 billion in 2012, including print media, consisting of newspapers, magazines and yellow pages (none of which are mentioned in IPG’s need for automation). For those not familiar with automated buying, one should think of machine to machine transactions, with computers making trading decisions within milliseconds.
Confidence gasses up ahead of holidays
One of the reliable factors to consider when assessing consumer confidence is the price at the pump. The National Association of Convenience Stores has been reporting counterintuitive results of late in the face of a falling price per gallon, but notes that the worm has finally turned. Caveat: It’s still not all that great.
Home media gateway boxes hit 24 million by 2017
MRG, an SNL Kagan company that specializes in video and media ecosystem research, has released its latest report, “Demand for Home Media Gateway Set-Top...
NRF likes latest jobs report
October employment statistics bode well for the economy in general, said the National Retail Federation, and on top of that, were very positive for its own retail sector. It sees strong holiday and general economic implications.
Dean Dillon recognized as BMI icon
Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) presented the 2013 BMI Country Awards, honoring the prolific songwriting career of BMI Icon Dean Dillon, as well as the...
NETIA MAM adds MediaSpeech speech-to-text
NETIA announced a partnership with Vecsys, a leader in the speech-to-text market, through which the latter company's MediaSpeech "speech2text" engine will be integrated into...
House Democrats go after e-cigarette marketers
House Energy and Commerce Ranking Member Henry Waxman (D-CA) and two key subcommittee heads have sent a letter to the FDA sounding the alarm about efforts to sell e-cigarettes, particularly to young consumers.
Entravision sees minor Q3 downturn
Entravision’s net revenue dropped to $57.8 million in the quarter, from $58.5 million in Q3 2012, a decrease of $700K or 1%. Of the overall decrease, $1.2 million was from the television segment and was blamed on political ad comps, partially offset by increases in local ad revenue and retransmission fee dollars. This decrease also offset by a $500K increase (3%) in the radio segment, which saw an increase in local ad revenue, even though political ad comps were down as well.
Nielsen names Mitch Barns as next CEO
He’s a 28-year marketing vet who has spent the last 16 years at Nielsen building its core
Saga grows revenue, but profits slip
The lack of political income took a bite out of Saga’s Q3 2013 comps, but the radio-leaning multimedia group still managed to post a positive net revenue number. However, expenses were also up, punching a hole in operating income
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler issues his opening statement
Wheeler was short on specifics in his initial remarks after assuming his new job. He noted the challenge of staying on top of a communications universe where rapid change is the rule of the day; and said the FCC’s challenge “…is to secure the future through the actions of the present.”
Clarion Capital Partners completes SQAD buy
SQAD, TV, radio and digital cost analysis provider, says Clarion Capital Partners, LLC has completed its acquisition of the company. The existing shareholders, including...
Washington dampens holiday spending enthusiasm
Financial services firm Edward Jones is getting contradictory results in its analysis of this year’s holiday