Turner Broadcasting has joined the race among networks to broadcast sports in the emerging 3D format in the home. The programmer will deliver a third-dimension feed of a NASCAR event on July 3 that will air partly in prime time. To be sure, the term "broadcast" could be a misnomer. The Turner TV feed will be available only to subscribers of DirecTV, who also own one of the new 3D sets and accompanying glasses. Nonetheless, as 3D sets proliferate, Turner will be able to garner some learnings about the challenges of a 3D-cast, notably on the different camera angles needed to maximize a 3D experience. Its 3D feed will feature two streams -- one of the race, the other from pit row. Turner does not plan to offer commercials in the 3D stream. ESPN has launched a 3D network that is carrying the World Cup. MSG network in the New York area became the first network to deliver a 3D sportscast into the home this spring with a hockey game. The Turner race -- the Coke Zero 400 -- will also be carried on its TNT network in standard and HD formats, while a 3D version will be available online for people with 3D-compatible computers, as part of the TNT RaceBuddy offering on NASCAR.com. TNT uses RaceBuddy during NASCAR events to provide additional camera angles and hopes viewers will use it while also watching on TV. Jay Abraham, COO of the NASCAR Media Group, said "fans have been asking us about 3D for several months" and the 3D-cast "will likely change how NASCAR is consumed moving forward."
Arbitron revealed two major additions to its radio ratings capabilities on Monday, with the acquisition of Integrated Media Measurement, Inc. and the unveiling of a new version of its portable people meter -- the passive electronic measurement device that anchors its electronic ratings for radio audience size in top media markets -- called PPM 360. Arbitron hopes to introduce the new PPM 360 device in PPM markets next year. Announced late in the day, the acquisition of IMMI -- including its technology, assets, trade name, and intellectual property -- gives Arbitron access to IMMI's cellular phone-based technology, which is designed to capture consumer cross-platform media usage. IMMI's system allows media clients to track panelists by location, for a more detailed picture of their out-of-home media consumption. Its measurement capabilities include television viewing outside the home, time-shifted and on-demand viewing, radio, DVDs, audio CDs, theatrical films, live concerts and sporting events, and cell phone videos and games. Two years ago IMMI had a pilot measurement program for TV viewing outside the home in partnership with Arbitron rival Nielsen, but this was canceled due to worsening economic conditions. Also on Monday, Arbitron unveiled the new PPM 360 device, with a new design that promises to make it easier for Arbitron panelists to participate in radio ratings measurement. This in turn could help resolve some of the sample size issues which Arbitron has wrestled with over the last couple of years. Smaller and sleeker than its predecessor, PPM 360 doesn't have to be returned to a docking station in the panelist's home to transmit its measurement data, which is instead communicated via wireless signal. Together, these improvements should make it more practical for panelists to carry the PPM device with them on their daily routines (some balked at the size of the old device -- with female panelists, for example, complaining it took up too much space in their purses, while the home docking requirement made it hard for panelists with irregular work schedules to participate). The addition of wireless communication also addresses one of the complaints of Arbitron's radio ratings clients, who noted that the old PPM device -- a cutting-edge technology when it was first developed in the 1990s -- had fallen behind the times, surpassed by even the cheapest cell phones. The real-time wireless updates should allow Arbitron to deliver ratings for big events to clients more quickly. On that note, it may also help head off potential competition from rival radio measurement systems based on smartphones, like that proposed by Ipsos earlier this decade. The unveiling of Arbitron's new PPM 360 device comes just a week after the ratings firm announced a multi-year deal with WPP/GroupM, giving all of the agencies under the GroupM umbrella (including Maxus, MEC, MediaCom and Mindshare) access to Arbitron's PPM and diary ratings services, as well as Tapscan, Arbitron's software sales tool incorporating customized demos, geographies, dayparts and overall audience averages. Earlier this year, Arbitron apparently reached a tentative resolution of a longstanding conflict with a number of minority radio broadcasters, who charged that Arbitron's PPM sampling methodology under-represented certain key minority demos, especially among African-American and Hispanic listeners. The rapprochement follows Arbitron's commitment to enhance minority audience sampling, and the decision by some groups -- including the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies -- to join the Media Rating Council, which oversees accreditation for media ratings.
As media researchers grapple with the colossal, cumbersome data from set-top boxes, one measurement company will look to assure them its data can be used with a notable degree of confidence. Perhaps as early as this fall, Rentrak plans to seek approval from the Media Rating Council (MRC) for its TV Essentials product that offers data from millions of the boxes. The MRC is an independent industry body that evaluates and determines the stability and effectiveness of audience measurement products. The judgment process can take years, but Rentrak could be the first company to submit a product based on set-top-box (STB) data for the valuable MRC accreditation. "We do believe in transparency," said Rentrak's chief researcher Bruce Goerlich at an Advanced Advertising 2.0 event Monday sponsored by publications Broadcasting & Cable and Multichannel News. The MRC submission will come after Rentrak integrates STB data from millions of homes served by Dish Network as it expands the scope of its TV Essentials product. By summer's end, TV Essentials is expected to be based on data culled from 17 million sets in homes served by Dish, AT&T and Charter Communications. Still, Goerlich said agencies such as Zenith, Starcom and MediaVest have been using it to negotiate deals in the upfront market. Some 47 networks -- many unrated by Nielsen -- use the data. TV Essentials offers second-by-second data with insight into commercial performance for the networks. A derivate product -- that the MRC would also evaluate -- is known as StationView Essentials, which provides similar STB data in local markets. While some believe the promise of STB data still remains to be shown - partly because it is so difficult to sort through -- Goerlich said the "data is delivering today." Goerlich also said at the B&C/Multichannel News event that for local markets, Rentrak is working with companies such as OneDomain and MediaBank to sync with their systems to assist agencies in using it. Stations owned by Post-Newsweek in Houston and Miami recently signed up to receive StationView Essentials data.
This week brought more trouble for the Associated Press, with an announcement from CNN that it has stopped using AP content in favor of its own original reporting. This desertion follows a series of challenges to the AP's position as the dominant newswire service, motivated by the financial woes of its subscription clients. As part of the strategic shift and cost-cutting move, CNN said it will expand its own CNN Wire division, including distribution of content across television, mobile and Internet platforms. In fact, CNN Wire represents a potential competitor to the AP: back in November 2008, CNN pitched newspapers on CNN Wire as a low-cost alternative to the AP. Although CNN said the most recent move was intended to differentiate CNN from other news providers that use AP content, the cable network also announced a new partnership with Reuters, suggesting that simple cost may be the main factor behind the decision. Over the last couple of years, a growing chorus of publishers has complained about the high cost of membership in the AP, especially as their finances have been pressed by the rise of the Internet and the economic downturn, leading to a number of services and agreements competing with the AP. Most recently, Publish2 launched a new online news exchange that allows publishers to create customized content-sharing networks of varying size. In a blog post on the site, CEO Scott Karp was clear about the purpose of the new service, calling it "a platform aimed at disrupting the Associated Press monopoly over content distribution to newspapers," which he described as an "obsolete cooperative." At launch, the Publish2 News Exchange includes newswires created by TechCrunch, Engadget, Politics Daily, Daily Finance, AOL Small Business and the Huffington Post Investigative Fund. Also last month, a dozen newspapers in Georgia announced they are teaming up for coverage of political campaigns. And this is the latest in a series of news-sharing partnerships created by newspapers and other news publishers separate from the AP. In December 2008, The Washington Post and The Baltimore Sun struck a deal to share articles and photos beginning in January, while McClatchy Co. said it would share foreign news stories with The Christian Science Monitor. In February 2009, five big regional daily newspapers in New York and New Jersey, including The New York Daily News, formed a content-sharing club, the Northeast Consortium, which allows them to borrow stories, photos, and graphics from each other. In August 2009, at least 49 daily newspapers joined a national consortium that will allow them to share sports content, in a move to expand the array of sports coverage available to each newspaper while reducing costs. The sports content-sharing site is modeled on an earlier news-sharing alliance, the Ohio News Organization, created by the Plain Dealer and other Ohio papers in 2008.
After nearly three decades -- mostly helming all of NBC's marketing efforts -- John Miller, chief marketing officer of NBC Universal Television Group and president of The NBC Agency, is moving toward a slow fade-out in the position. Miller has been giving up much of the day-to-day marketing activities in recent years at NBC Universal. In July 2008, Adam Stotsky came on board from Syfy as president of marketing for NBC Entertainment. Stotsky will continue in this role. Miller will keep the title of chief marketing officer for some time -- but will be working full-time on the integration of the coming NBC Universal-Comcast business merger. One of Miller's major efforts -- along with senior executive Vince Manze -- was in creating the "Must See TV" campaign for NBC in the mid 1990s, when NBC had its long run as the number one network. That campaign mostly drew attention to NBC's powerful Thursday night lineup, which included a string of big-rated comedies -- from "The Cosby Show", to "Cheers," to "Seinfeld" and then to "Friends." "After 25 years of running marketing for NBC, and with good teams in place at NBC News, Sports and Entertainment, it seemed like a good time to finally hand things off. However, I will not remove the peacock tattoo obtained some time during the 'Must-See TV' years," said Miller in a release. Miller and Manze also help create what NBC called the first full-service in-house advertising agency for the network, The NBC Agency, in 1999. Manze was co-president. In addition to the NBC network, the agency would do work time to time for virtually all NBC divisions and businesses. In recent years, Miller chaired a company-wide marketing council which would meet regularly. Diverse NBC Universal divisions such as theatrical, licensing, television, home entertainment, theme parks, would share marketing efforts and opportunities to help promote each other's efforts. He will continue to chair that group through the end of the year. Miller joined NBC in 1982 as vice president of affiliate promotion services, West Coast. He rose to president, advertising and promotion for NBC in June 1999. In 2004, Miller became chief marketing officer of Universal Television Group.
After being rejected by the Federal Communications Commission in its request for more time for the federal agency to review the NBC Universal-Comcast deal, media company Bloomberg LP now says it opposes the proposed joint venture. In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski and Christine Varney, who is overseeing the Justice Department's review of the deal, Bloomberg and other interested parties -- including Free Press, Media Access Project (MAP), and small cable network WealthTV -- are worried about the deal's effect on small and independent programmers. One of Bloomberg's main worries, according to executives close to the company, is what this means for NBC Universal's CNBC, the dominant business television network, and its affect on Bloomberg TV. Executives believe the Comcast joint venture with NBC Universal would give the network even more influence in the marketplace. Comcast Corp. is the largest U.S. cable operator, with 25 million cable subscribers. Up until this letter, Bloomberg did not express an opinion on the deal -- just that it wanted more comments to be extended until Aug. 5, which would push the deadline for opposition to those comments to Sept. 4 and reply comments to Sept. 19. The letter, which was supplied by Bloomberg, said: "[W]hat is completely predictable is that a company of this size will be able to exert an unhealthy degree of influence over the media landscape absent strong efforts to limit that control," they write, specifying the potential for editorial control over news, increased power in labor negotiations, control of ad messages, and even "determining how the Internet evolves." The letter was released as the FCC's midnight June 21 deadline for initial comments on the deal approaches -- and after the FCC rejected Bloomberg's effort to delay the process for a possible approval of the deal.
NBC won a weak summer Sunday -- with a stronger-than-expected U.S Open golf event. The event's prime-time Nielsen preliminary 2.3 rating/9 share among 18-49 viewers was up 35% in ratings from a year ago. Two top golf personalities --Phil Mickelson and a better-playing Tiger Woods -- helped to lift these results. But with repeats of "Minute To Win It" and sister channel's USA Network's "Law & Order: CI", NBC couldn't get over the 2 rating mark, the network averaged a 1.8/6 for the night. ABC offered up two new scripted dramas on Sunday night. While the network gave these shows -- "Scoundrels" and "The Gates" -- some marketing push in recent weeks, it was not enough, with "Scoundrels" earning a 1.3/4 and "Gates" only doing a bit better, with a 1.4/4. While most of the networks were in repeat mode, Fox did sneak in a couple of originals. Its much maligned and long-suffering comedy, "'Til Death" had its series finale. But it almost went unnoticed -- earning a 0.6/3 numbers, the second-worst-rated TV show of the night. Another departing Fox show -- "Sons of Tucson,", which still has not finished its run -- had the lowest numbers, with a 0.6/2. After the big golf event, Fox's big Sunday night animated comedy "Family Guy" offered up a decent 2.0/6 for a repeat airing. Behind NBC, Fox came in second place among 18-49 viewers with a 1.3/5; followed by ABC at a 1.2/4; CBS with a 1.0/3; and Univision, at 0.7/2.