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Hotel Room Service: A Billing Precedent for Pay TV. But First, An Auto Insurance Anecdote  
Posted by Mitch Oscar on Jun 23, 11:38 AM
A few years ago on a mild sunny, Saturday afternoon my wife got into a traffic accident with another vehicle. It wasn't her fault. Really. A woman and her young son were in the process of making an indiscreet left turn on a country road when they spied my wife and young son in her leased orange Mini Cooper with the racing strips and convertible top and froze mid-turn. As my wife later explained, she tried to avoid the startled woman -- but given the woman's waffling and the heading-on traffic in the opposite lane, there was little wiggle room. She ground the car to a halt, but unfortunately tapping the other woman's vehicle was a result. The police officers on the scene, and later the insurance company, vindicated her story.
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Remote Control Marketing: Don't Interrupt; Interact 
Posted by Robert Rosenthal on Jun 19, 9:55 PM
Technology allows us to consume information, news, entertainment and more not only with a mouse click, but with the remote control. Enter "remote control marketing," in which viewers are invited to use their TV remote to get product information, receive samples, request coupons, play games, cast votes and watch exclusive video -- without ever leaving the couch.
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See Spots Run? An Addressable Issue (Part II)  
Posted by Mitch Oscar on Jun 16, 12:15 PM
A few weeks ago I wrote a piece for TV Board entitled "See Spots Run? And Addressable Issue" querying our community about the efficacy of the current modes of television ad verification tracking. $70 billions worth. I sighted three companies -- Eloda, Nielsen's KeepingTrac and the 4A's Ad-ID initiative -- that all knocked on my door around the same time last month. They cited me back....
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Is Prime Time a Dying Concept?  
Posted by Julia Casale-Amorim on Jun 12, 12:06 PM
There was a time when you could run a 30-second prime-time television spot and be virtually guaranteed to reach the coveted 18- to 49-year-old audience any weekday of the year in droves. These days, the notion of daypart targeting as it relates to broadcast television is not quite so cut and dried. Consumers are rapidly embracing the flexibility and ubiquity of digital media. They are going online to consume programming on their own terms.
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Digital Commencement 
Posted by David Wertheimer on Jun 11, 12:22 PM
Today, we are nearing an auspicious occasion in all of our lives. Just as our college seniors around the country line up, preparing to walk across the stage to accept their diplomas, filled with pride, excitement, and perhaps a wee bit of trepidation, we all line up too: virtually, digitally. For we, America, are about to cross the stage of history on June 12, transitioning from the analog era to the digital age -- turning our "dials" as the graduates turn the tassels on their graduation caps. We should be just as proud as those college grads who spent the last four (or seven?) years working towards this day.
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Digital Transition Will Remake TV Experience For Diverse Group Of Viewers 
Posted by David Tice on Jun 10, 3:50 PM
Often we only recognize important moments in retrospect -- but we already know that this Friday will be a watershed day in media. When analog TV signals are erased from the U.S. airwaves and replaced by digital, a small percentage of households will lose TV access, despite the availability of converter boxes and government coupon programs; but many others have been or will be introduced to new programming, ads and technologies as a result of the transition -- changes that could shift their viewing behavior forever.
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A Canoe Ventures Commentary: Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum  
Posted by Mitch Oscar on Jun 9, 2:36 PM
Wikipedia links the fabled expression fee-fi-fo-fum to the English fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk" and the closely referenced tale of "Jack the Giant Killer."The story tells of a young man who was sent to the market one day by his parents - Bright House, Cablevision, Charter, Comcast, Cox and Time Warner - to sell their last unexploited possession: the ability to enhance the value of national commercial inventory....
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See Spots Run? And Addressable Issue 
Posted by Mitch Oscar on Jun 2, 10:23 AM
When I began my media career in the mid-'70s in the TV and radio programming department as a secretary at full service advertising agency BBDO, the television buyers rarely talked about the TV spots. The creatives created 'em, the trafficker trafficked 'em and the viewer viewed 'em -- we hoped.
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The Collaborative Alliance 
Posted by Mitch Oscar on May 26, 11:22 AM
On June 2nd in New York City at The Helen Mills Theater, MPG & MediaContacts, Havas siblings, will stage its quarterly forum, The Collaborative Alliance, where content creators, technologists, distributors and researchers meet to vet their interactive televisual propositions (television, broadband, wireless and out of home).
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