 | | | | Friday • June 20, 2008 | READ ALL NEWS AT ADAGE.COM | | Obama Asks NBC to Draw Up Olympics Ad Packages But Could Such a Media Buy Be Too Much, Too Soon?
WASHINGTON (AdAge.com) -- Those tuning in to NBC Sports' Olympics coverage this year will see spots from General Motors, McDonald's, Budweiser, Nike and -- just maybe -- Sen. Barack Obama.  FULL ARTICLE
| | With No NBA Finals, Prime-Time Ratings Drop 26% Rash Report: Viewers Pull a Disappearing Act
MINNEAPOLIS (AdAge.com) -- Missing the big tent of Tuesday's NBA Finals, Wednesday night's prime-time ratings plunged as the week's roller coaster continued. Indeed, a roller coaster would have fit right in with Wednesday's prime time, which looked a bit like a carnival, with a midway including NBC's "Celebrity Circus." FULL ARTICLE | | Local TV Spending Down 1.6% in First Quarter Network Up 1.7%; Syndie Spending Up 11.2%
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Advertiser expenditures on local broadcast TV fell 1.6% in the first quarter of 2008, even as ad dollars continued to flow to network and syndicated TV, according to an analysis of TNS Media Intelligence figures for the top 100 population markets by the Television Advertising Bureau. FULL ARTICLE | | Here's a Model for Profitable Social Networking DigitalNext
There's been a lot of talk and advice on this blog about how social networking sites will make money. One major network, LinkedIn, is using a variety of models to drive revenue, which amounts to $100 million a year, according to VentureBeat. FULL ARTICLE | | Viewers Still Don't Want to Work to Watch TV MediaWorks Viewpoint: Hallmark Channel's Jess Aguirre
Back in the heyday of broadcast TV, viewers could come home after work, enjoy dinner, then sit back, relax and enjoy that night's shows with family and friends. These days, viewers are going to great lengths in using new technologies like the DVR, VOD, DVD and PPV to try to hold on to the TV experience of days gone by. FULL ARTICLE | |
What You Should Have Read, June 20, 2008
Intrigue at Hearst's castle
Fortune's Richard Sikos notes that the abrupt departure of Hearst CEO Victor Ganzi offers a rare look inside one of America's most mysterious media companies. Hearst is private -- which isn't just to say that it's privately owned, but that its highest echelons have the mystique of a kind of secret society. And one of the qualities of this society is that its members don't leave. This culture stems from the trust that The Chief, as William Randolph Hearst was known, set up. The trust is basically run for the benefit of heirs who The Chief would never know; it's meant to dissolve when the last remaining Hearst who was alive when he died passes on -- actuaries hired by the company have pegged that at 2045. Today, there are some 60 beneficiaries, but Hearst wanted the trust in the care of non-family members. Of 13 trustees, his will mandated that eight of them are non-family. Accordingly, most of the current trustees are current and former Hearst managers, and the board of trustees oversees a separate 19-member corporate board. Frank Bennack Jr., 75, Hearst's vice-chairman and Ganzi's predecessor as CEO for a 23-year-run during which some of the company's game-changing investments in cable channels were hatched, will take over as CEO while a search committee is formed to find a replacement for Ganzi. FULL ARTICLE | | > > Read All News at AdAge.com | | | | |
Back to newsletter list
