USA Today has formed a private ad marketplace, powered by AdMeld, for its digital content. The point? "To sell the majority of its unsold online ad inventory in a more controlled environment," writes Jason Del Rey. The paper's move comes nine months after parent company Gannett formed a similar exchange with New York Times Co., Hearst and Tribune.

Have you heard that U.S. TV ownership declined for the first time in civilized history -- or at least, since Nielsen kept track of such data?   And that the number of U.S. households without TVs (3% of the total) is the highest since 1975? According to writer Aaron Barnhart, this information was released, at least to some Nielsen private clients, about six months ago, but is being announced more publicly now. Glad we finally got the memo.

IDG is folding quarterly pub GamePro magazine, one of the last surviving consumer print video gaming publications, with its winter issue. The brand will live on as a consumer channel on PCworld.com (its discrete Web site is also going dark), and as an IDG division handling custom publishing projects.

What if a magazine guaranteed your brand a lift in sales if it advertised in its pages? That was the deal behind Meredith's Engagement Dividend for consumer packaged-goods companies committed to advertising in multiple magazines targeted to women, including Better Homes and Gardens. Yet despite promising what is seemingly the "holy grail" of advertising, "after six months and more than 125 client meetings, Kimberly-Clark is the only one on board," writes Lucia Moses. She goes behind the scenes with quotes from ad buyers on why they passed on the program -- and statements from Meredith, which still reportedly "expects to …

How much does it matter if consumers like your brand? That's the basic question WPP's Milward Brown and Kanter Shopcom are aiming to answer by combining data from brand equity tracking surveys with shopper loyalty-card data "into a single-source database of around 250,000 people," writes Jack Neff. Looking at brand equity through the single-source panel can help companies "predict how creative work and media plans will affect brands' sales, pricing power and profits," according to Ann Green, senior partner-client solutions at Millward Brown. "She expects clients to use the new single-source panel most often to evaluate cross-media effectiveness and planning …