Week of February 5, 2007

TV Facing Advertiser Rebellion

Friday, February 9, 2007

As we mentioned yesterday, TV networks have agreed to a system of commercial ratings to replace program ratings. Starting on May 31st, Nielsen will be offering 6 different ratings streams:

• Live viewing
• Live viewing + DVR viewing, same day
• Live viewing + DVR viewing within one day
• Live viewing + DVR viewing within two days
• Live viewing + DVR viewing within three days
• Live viewing + DVR viewing within seven days

Much to the irritation of advertisers, this change will take place too late to affect this year's "up front," the period in May when the TV networks put on their dog and pony shows for advertisers about next fall's programming. The networks are asking advertisers to commit upfront to buying advertising.

According to Ad Age, the upfront sales have been down 3 straight years as advertisers have balked at paying premium prices up front when they don't know how many people see the commercials. The big unknown is commercial skipping with DVRs (estimated to be in about 10% of all households now). The second big issue is the timeliness of the advertising. What if a user is time shifting (by 3 or 4 days) a TV program that has time-sensitive advertising (a one-day sale going on "tomorrow")?

Commercial Ratings for TV

Thursday, February 8, 2007

While radio is buzzing about the first tentative steps into electronic ratings, TV is several steps ahead. Late last year one of the most significant events in media history happened with little fanfare outside of the TV industry. The big change was that TV networks have agreed to start selling commercial ratings, not program ratings.

The networks are leading the way, but this will also impact cable. It's not an exact, commercial-by-commercial rating. The numbers will be based on the average of commercial pods throughout a show. That means that what we'll actually be looking at will be a retention number for the show, not a rating of specific commercials.

There are two reasons for this change. The mot obvious is commercial skipping thanks to the use of DVRs (Digital Video Recorders). The other reason is the ability to do more precise measurement of user response to online advertising. The implication for radio in the long term will likely be the implementation of initiatives like the Apollo Project that we discussed last week in this space.

How Resilient Is The Internet?

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Did you know that hackers yesterday launched the second most significantattack against the Internet in history? Did you know that the attack wasso massive that it crashed three of the 13 core servers that service theentire Internet? You didn't? Neither did I. While computer scientistsworked overtime to deal with the onrush of data that led to the crashes,most of the users browsing their favorite websites didn't miss a beat.While the danger of Internet related terrorism is still real, the factthat a huge data assault barely registered with the public speaksvolumes about the resiliency of the Internet's infrastructure.

Apple Loses Again

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

No, not the company that makes iPods but the company created by themembers of the Beatles. A UK judge last year ruled that Apple was notinfringing on their original agreement by selling music via their iTunesMusic Store, as they weren't "creating music" only selling it. TheBeatles appealed the decision, but they recently lost their appeal. Asof today, Apple has offiicially no liability in selling digital musicunder their Apple brand.

While rumors continue to spread that the Beatles will soon allow theircatalog to be available digitally via an exclusive arrangement withiTunes, there was no indication of that in the press release that wentout announcing the resolution of the two sides' legal wrangling.

Viacom Spanks YouTube

Monday, February 5, 2007

The numbers are large and illustrate just how much of YouTube's trafficis of copyright-infringing nature: On Friday, Viacom demanded thatYouTube remove 100,000 clips representing 1.2 billion streams of contentowned by Viacom, including material from BET, MTV, and other Viacomcompanies. This is a big blow to YouTube, which with Google has beenworking on developing deals with existing content providers.

One of the points mentioned in the statement from Viacom was the lack offiltering software for copyrighted material, something that had longbeen promised by YouTube and Google.