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| March 8-14 |
NY Times: Radio royalty battle continues. “We’ve had talks. We don’t call them negotiations,” said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the broadcasters association. “For us, this bill is a game changer. You’re talking about hundreds of millions of dollars out of a business that’s struggling.”
KC Star: PPM's impact on KC radio. "Dave Alpert, who oversees eight stations in Kansas City for Entercom Communications Corp., was one of the first to see the PPM when Arbitron was testing it in the 1990s. “So let me get this straight,” he remembers telling the Arbitron rep. “I can turn on the radio, clip it on my dog’s collar and go to work?”
NY Times: How Pandora slipped past the junkyard. "He appealed to venture capitalists, charged up 11 credit cards and considered a company trip to Reno to gamble for more money. The dot-com bubble had burst, and shell-shocked investors were not interested in a company that relied on people, who required salaries and health insurance, instead of computers".
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| Other Industry Stories from Previous Weeks.... |
Reuters: Sirius gets a quarterly profit. "Sirius XM Radio Inc (SIRI.O) posted its first quarterly profit since its merger and said it expects to add 500,000 new subscribers in 2010 as the recovery in the car market boosts demand for satellite radio".
Baltimore Sun: WPOC-FM's Laurie DeYoung profiled. "Laurie has just always been able to talk to her audience as a friend," says WJZ-TV's Marty Bass, who has been giving the weather reports and bantering with DeYoung on-air almost since the day she arrived in Baltimore and at WPOC in 1985. Adds Mark Williams, who has been delivering traffic reports and playing Ed McMahon to DeYoung's Johnny Carson for 13 years: "When the mike goes on, it's like we're just sitting around a dining room table, or having dinner somewhere."
NY TImes: The treasure buried in your TV dial. "Over-the-air broadcasts are becoming a nearly obsolete technology. Already, 91 percent of American households get their television via cable or satellite. So we are using all of this beachfront property to serve a small and shrinking segment of the population".
WSJ: Howard Stern's Next Act "Mr. Stern's decision will be a bet on which direction media is heading, reflecting a big debate that he's seen both sides of. Which is the future–traditional ad-supported platforms like "Idol," or models in which subscribers pay for content?"
Detroit Free Press: Beloved Dick Purton to retire after 45 years. "Attorney Henry Baskin, who has represented Purtan for more than 30 years, said Purtan was so popular because he treated everyone, whether it was the governor or an autoworker, the same. "He never blew his own horn, didn't want anything to do with self-promotion and he couldn't say no to anyone or any charity," Baskin said".
AudioGraphics: Local Advertising on Pandora will shake the industry. "The move comes in response not to a deflated ad market, said Pandora's VP of performance ad sales Brian Mikalis, but to a swell of inquiries from local advertisers that were taxing Pandora's national sales staff." Advertisers are asking for it, so Pandora coupled with AdReady to deliver a do-it-yourself ad platform that helps smaller advertisers place display ads with publishers".
Chicago Tribune: Wireless gridlock lurks as smart phones fill up bandwidth. "The radio frequency spectrum used for moving data to the fast-breeding digital fauna -- soon to include Twitter feeds to the dashboard of your Ford -- is becoming overcrowded by an explosion of wireless broadband. And that endangers newfound luxuries like driving directions and the ability of your boss to thud you with an e-mail just about anywhere".
Fast Company: Ford's MyFordTouch geeks out CES. "But where Ford really brought the party on this model is with a nifty new feature that allows MyFord Touch to communicate with the applications on your mobile device. After hinting they'd be opening up their Sync platform for third-party developers in October, it seems that voice-updating Twitter while driving will finally be a reality".
NY TImes: In this recession, Consumption Down, Experiences Up. "Americans are not just getting by with less. They are also doing more". Shakes- Old Think: Sales Promotions. New Think: Target Consumer Experiences.
NY Times: Google decides to allow ad-blockers. "He explained that the prevailing thinking was that “it’s unlikely ad blockers are going to get to the level where they imperil the advertising market, because if advertising is so annoying that a large segment of the population wants to block it, then advertising should get less annoying.”
NY Times: Radio meters changing things. "The television industry had switched from diary entries to metered ratings in 1987 and had seen similarly surprising changes".
Miami Herald: Marketing looks back to see ahead. "The most valued agency skills now become interactive engagement with the consumer, analytic prowess with the flood of data generated, potent insights gained from the toe-to-toe relationships and all the data monetization schemes that build customer lifetime value for the client".
MediaPost: Nielsen study shows broadcast radio remains dominant. "It becomes quickly apparent that radio holds a special place among media consumers. Broadcast radio is the dominant form of audio media at home, work and in the car. In fact, a remarkable 77% of the population listens to broadcast radio each day for an average of 109 minutes, or nearly two hours, according to the study". Shakes- this is a heck of a better stat than the "over 90% listen every week" that the industry always touts. Isn't it?"
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| The Mystery Box |
| Wired May 2009 has a nice cover article reminding us of the marketing power of mystery. Create a "mystery box" of prizes and use it to inspire a storyline for your morning show. What's inside it? Only the winner gets to open it. Could be something, could be nothing? All we know is....this is fun. More concepts here. |
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| "Tell Me a Story" |
| Don Hewitt's 4-word answer to the question: "What's the secret to your media success?" |
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