Marketers Want Cable to Move Faster on Addressable, VOD Projects

At NCTA: Project Canoe CEO to Be Named June 1

National Cable and Telecommunications Association Cable Show
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- If Deborah Wahl Meyer, chief marketing officer of Chrysler, seemed impatient during her keynote speech Tuesday at the National Cable and Telecommunications Association Cable Show in New Orleans, it's understandable. Addressable advertising, the industry game-changer marketers like Chrysler have been asking the operators to create for them for years, is still nowhere near wide deployment. FULL ARTICLE

Disney Lures Families With VOD Channel

One Click and Consumers Get Connected to Travel Rep

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Disney Travel On Demand is an interactive video-on-demand channel that launched in May 2007 with distribution through Cablevision and Time Warner Cable. Last week, the channel joined the Comcast lineup, more than doubling its distribution to 26 million homes. FULL ARTICLE

ABC, 'Desperate Housewives' Win Sunday

Long-Running Hit Loses Finale Viewers, but Is Still a Ratings Leader

Rash Report
MINNEAPOLIS (AdAge.com) -- In a puzzling plot twist, the last scene of last night's two-hour "Desperate Housewives" finale fast-forwarded five years with a peek into how their lives had changed. ABC, however, probably wished the show could have rewound to 2005, when the breakout hit's finale delivered a 13.4/31 rating and share in the ad-centric adult 18-49 demographic. FULL ARTICLE

3 Minute Ad Age: May 20, 2008

News Corp.'s Chernin: 'Stop Trying to Protect Your Existing Businesses'

VIDEO
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- If you think audience fragmentation is bad now, just wait until you see what happens in five years. That's the warning News Corp. President Peter Chernin offered at this week's Cable Show in New Orleans. He sees fragmentation as something that will grow exponentially without end. In other news in this 3 Minute Ad Age, Nutrasweet is pushing into the tabletop coffee sweetener business with packaging that clones the colors and look of its competitors. FULL ARTICLE

TD Ameritrade Moves Media Account to MediaVest

Agency's Second Major Win in Recent Weeks

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Online broker TD Ameritrade is shifting its $157 million media account to Publicis Groupe's MediaVest from WPP Group's Mediaedge:cia. FULL ARTICLE

What You Should Have Read, May 20, 2008

Netflix to Sell a Device for Instantly Watching Movies on TV Sets

The New York Times reports that Netflix, is now offering its 8.2 million subscribers an option to watch movies easily on their TVs without involving the post office. Working with Roku, a small Silicon Valley company, Netflix will begin marketing a $99 device that will allow customers to play thousands of movies and shows on their TVs instantly, for no charge beyond their normal subscription fee. The biggest drawback to the Roku device is the selection available. Right now, Netflix offers instant Internet viewing of 10,000 movies and television episodes, compared with its inventory of 100,000 DVD titles. Because of the way Hollywood sells rights to its products, most of the Internet titles are more than five years old, although there are some newer independent films and TV shows. FULL ARTICLE

What You Should Have Read, May 19, 2008

Analysis of the Monthlies' Ad Pages--First-Half-2008: June Is -11.13% U-G-L-Y.

In MIN's exclusive look at the feared advertising-page collapse finds that it strikes hard in June. This follows a weak economic 2007 and an even weaker early 2008 with a cumulative monthly differential not seen since the "upscale recession" in 1991 (after the first Bush Administration's brief "luxury tax") and in the fourth-quarter-2001/first-half-2002 aftermath to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. A bad omen for the women's-fashion magazines as the critical September "Fall Fashion previews" near, and for nearly all in the fourth quarter with its emphasis on holiday-season advertising. Even worse, the analysis suggests a "delayed effect," with cumulative ad pages up each quarter last year even after the economy went south. FULL ARTICLE