Apple Zeroes In on iTV
Some speculation (and new details) about Apple’s pending and well-expected reboot of Apple TV found its way last week into The New York Times just before the holiday break. My guess is that the new and obvious name will be…
TV Proves Itself Into Our New Decade
Today we announced our revised forecast for the television industry. Previously we had been somewhat more conservative in our estimates because it was difficult to read which way the economic winds were blowing. And while the first half of this…
Gannett Broadcasting Goes Hyperlocal via DataSphere
DataSphere, which creates hyperlocal blogs and sells advertising packages to small businesses on behalf of local broadcasters, will now do the same for Gannett Broadcasting, The deal initially covers ten of Gannett Broadcasting’s 19 markets, including Atlanta, Washington D.C., Tampa,…
Deal Current Hopes to Level ‘Daily Deal’ Playing Field for Local Media
Daily deals are one of the hottest new areas for local advertising and promotions, with Groupon, Living Social and more than 150 other players rolling out their own versions. At least two companies, Click-N-Shout and Deal Current, are targeting local…
Deal Current Hopes to Level 'Daily Deal' Playing Field for Local Media
Daily deals are one of the hottest new areas for local advertising and promotions, with Groupon, Living Social and more than 150 other players rolling out their own versions. At least two companies, Click-N-Shout and Deal Current, are targeting local…
CBS Local Launches Auto Portal With High Gear Media
CBS Local has launched an auto shopping guide on the Web site of WCCO-TV Minneapolis, using vertical content and services from High Gear Media, a Palo Alto, California-based auto specialist publisher launched two years ago by Daily Shopper founder Hesky…
Launching Our New Advisory Service for Local Broadcasting
Local radio and television stations are in various stages of extending the broadcasting business model from traditional over-the-air to an array of digital platforms. This allows both new inventory with different attributes to be sold and a critical revenue growth…
Fisher Communications Lands 1,000 Hyperlocal Advertisers
DataSphere, a hyperlocal enabler and sales agent for local media companies, says that Northwest TV and radio giant Fisher Communications has now sold more than 1,000 hyperlocal advertisers using Datasphere's neighborhood-specific content and sales system. The system is now in…
Zvents Sees 35% Growth; Touts Power of Newspaper Network
Zvents, the events lister, is reporting 35 percent year over year growth with over eight million unique visitors, largely due to its powering events for 285 local media brands, including major newspapers and the NBC owned-and-operated TV stations. CEO Ethan…
Allbritton Ups the Localism Ante Via Cross Platform
By Steve Passwaiter and Rick Ducey For broadcasters, it is an article of faith that “localism” is a point of differentiation that adds value to their operations. Localism tends to mean local news, sports, weather, traffic, local events, coverage of…
Outsell: Digital News More Cannibalistic Than Complementary
Digital media is more cannibalistic than complementary and is seriously eating into the demand for traditional news sources such as newspapers, TV and news magazines, according to the third annual survey of news users done by Outsell Inc. The survey…
Expert Kelsey/BIA Commentary: Buono Says ‘TV Stations More Adaptable’
At The Kelsey Group, we’ve come to appreciate that our new owner, BIAfn head Tom Buono, is a major strategist. While Buono’s roots are in the finance of traditional TV, radio and newspapers, he’s mostly thinking about their next steps…
Behind the Forecast Numbers
Earlier this week I went to hear an economist offer his take on the current economy and how soon it would recover. Long story short, I believe the speaker, who had outstanding credentials, was overly optimistic. (I really believe he may…
ITV Lives! Gray TV Stations Set for ‘Clickable TV’
Interactive television once vied with the Internet (and dedicated online services) as the best conduit for interactive content. That fell by the wayside in the mid-1990s. Today, ITV solutions are largely limited to simpler Internet-like apps like photo collections, Yellow…
Fisher Communications Sells Pegasus News
Pegasus News, the Dallas hyperlocal site, was seen as a great model for other markets when Fisher Communications, a leading broadcaster in Seattle and the Northwest, bought the site in July 2007. But the roiled market in broadcasting apparently stifled…
Comcast Teams With Mixpo in Push for Online Video
Comcast, the nation’s largest cable TV company, is set to upsell its vast body of video advertisers via a new deal with Mixpo, the Seattle-based venture-backed company dedicated to making video "actionable" across multiple platforms. For Mixpo, the deal represents…
Merrill Brown and the Internet: Still the Visionary
"Extraordinary change means extraordinary opportunity," Merrill Brown, founder and principal of MMB Media, told the audience at last month's Drilling Down on Local conference. Few people are more knowledgeable about the impact of new technologies on society than Brown. Before…
TV and Cable Cos. Take Page From Online
Two separate but related news items caught my eye today. First, Comcast has acquired social networking technology provider Plaxo in order to integrate social network-like features that let viewers share programming, among other things. Second, Turner Entertainment Networks announced a…
CBS-TV Extends Ad Reach Via Local Blogger Net
The CBS-TV owned and operated stations are making a pitch to local bloggers and hyperlocal sites to add value to their sites with various news headline and video widgets, and take a share of ad revenues. The CBS effort to…
Pittman Eyes TV Stations as ‘Newspapers Online’
Former AOL President and MTV founder Bob Pittman has lately focused on investments as head of the Pilot Group (he is a pilot). In an interview with broadband consultant Will Richmond's VideoNuze on the eve of the NATPE show in…