• Bristol-Myers Squibb Picks MediaVest
    Bristol-Myers Squibb has awarded its estimated $420 million media assignment to MediaVest after a review. Through the first four months of this year, the client spent $172 million, per Nielsen. The incumbent is Mindshare, which participated in the review that began in April. Other contenders included MPG. Mindshare won the business in 2001 after a review. Previously, the company had handled its media planning and buying internally. The company's top selling brands are Plavix and Abilify.
  • NYT Co. Retirement Plan Stung by $154 Mil Loss
    The 401(k) retirement plan for New York Times Co. employees, including workers at The Boston Globe, suffered $154 million in investment losses in 2008. Net assets of the plan fell to $417.7 million. The plan was particularly hard hit by some $171.5 million in losses at several mutual funds. On the other hand, investments in fixed income and insurance assets generated $5.3 million in income. Dividend income of $11.6 million also helped offset losses. The Times matches a fraction of Globe employees' contributions to their 401(k) accounts, however a proposal in front of Boston Newspaper Guild leadership would …
  • Editor Susan Casey Replaces Susan Reed at 'Oprah' Mag
    Less than a year after being named editor of O, the Oprah Magazine, Susan Reed is out. The Hearst magazine is replacing her with Susan Casey, effective July 20. Hearst says Reed "decided to leave the magazine to pursue other opportunities." During her Time Inc. tenure, Casey served as overall development editor and editor of Sports Illustrated Women. Earlier in her career, she was creative director of Outside. Following a successful run, the 9-year-old O has struggled on the newsstand lately. In the second half of 2008, its total paid circulation declined 1.7% to 2.4 million, with single …
  • Marketers Look for Smaller Upfront Discounts
    Advertisers are backing off their aggressive pricing demands in the upfront marketplace, say insiders. As the July 4 holiday stares marketers in the face, a sense is emerging that they need make deals soon to get on the air in the fall. Instead of holding out for double-digit price decreases as threatened, most agencies could well settle for 5%-9% decreases from NBC, the most ratings-challenged network, and 2%-6% decreases from CBS, ABC and Fox. Cable outlets could see things shake out in similar fashion, depending on whether they are first- or second-tier operations. Magna is in discussions with …
  • Gannett to Cut More Than 1,000 Jobs
    Newspaper publisher Gannett Co. will cut more than 1,000 jobs, per company sources. Since last week, the industry has been buzzing with rumors about thousands of new job cuts at the company, which owns USA Today. Gannett, the largest U.S. newspaper publisher by daily circulation, will reportedly make the cuts at its U.S. Community Publishing division, which consists of more than 80 local daily papers. Like other newspaper companies, Gannett is suffering from a decline in advertising revenue. The company cut more than 10% of its 41,500 employees last year, and since then had been widely expected to …
  • Cablevision's Rainbow Media To Launch Wedding Channel
    Rainbow Media, the programming arm of Cablevision, will launch a new wedding-themed cable channel in August. The company's WE TV channel carries a slew of wedding shows, including its signature series "Bridezillas," which is in its sixth season. Currently, WE TV airs a Wedding Sunday block, incorporating some of those shows. The plan is to use the popularity of the WE TV shows to get the new cable channel off the ground, and then to add more parenting-oriented programming to WE TV. The channel already carries some parenting shows, including "The Mom Show" and "Raising Sextuplets." Observers suggest …
  • DVR Ad Skipping Stymies Ad Execs
    The ad industry feels threatened by ad-skipping DVRs but is still uncertain about what it can do to counteract the trend, per the DVR Research Institute A new four-part report reveals that more than three-quarters of marketers and ad agency execs surveyed believe DVRs will hurt the effectiveness of TV advertising in the next three years and is the biggest challenge to the current ad model. About 26% of U.S. TV households subscribe to a DVR service. But fears are inflated, says Tom Schultz, head of the DVR Research Institute. "Our calculations show a mere 5-6% of ads …
  • Philip Anschutz: Stealth Media Mogul
    Denver tycoon Philip Anschutz not only doesn't grant interviews, his company releases virtually no information on sales or strategy related to his newest foray: media. His latest acquisition was The Weekly Standard. Anschutz has been giving away newspapers since 2004, when he bought the San Francisco Examiner for $11 million. He used the 139-year-old paper to create brand extensions for two other free papers, the Washington Examiner and Baltimore Examiner. Last year he rolled out Web sites targeting 90 cities under the Examiner name, packed with local user-generated content from "examiners." But at the start of this year, …
  • MSNBC's New "Dr. Nancy" Aided by Jackson's Death
    The death of Michael Jackson offers an opportunity for Nancy Snyderman, who yesterday began hosting "Dr. Nancy," a daily medical and health series on MSNBC. While the death of Michael Jackson was a natural jumping-off point for the first day -- and maybe this week as well -- Snyderman says health and wellness stories are a hot topic in general. She notes President Obama's health-care package, the swine flu emergency and changes at the FDA. "There's the realization that as a nation we're not very healthy," she says. It also helps that medical shows themselves are hot …
  • Turner Sells Shows Rather Than Network
    To please advertisers that want to hit powerful niches, rather than the mass audience, Turner cable networks are selling ad time on a group of programs that pull a strong male audience. TBS, TNT, TruTV and Cartoon Network and Adult Swim Turner offer ad packages for men 18-34 as well as those 18-49. The packages focus on male-friendly programming such as "The Office" "Family Guy" "NFL 360," action movies, NBA games and CNN. Turner's digital properties can be included, and Turner will work with individual marketers to produce sponsored content that can travel across its online and offline …
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