• Research Shows Democrats And Republicans Like Different Shows
    Based on new research, Democratic and Republican political consultants have to be crestfallen that HBO and Showtime accept no advertising. If their ads look to convert the non-believers, these pay-TV networks might be ideal venues. Buyology, a research firm that uses neuroscience, has found that across a slew of competitive brands, the biggest gap in emotional connection between Democrats and Republicans came in HBO vs. Showtime. Yet, cementing how varied media research can get, a trio of Showtime series - "Shameless," "United States of Tara" and "Californication" - were in the top 20 by one metric with liberal Democrats.
  • Manning's Return Welcomed -- Less On The Field Than Madison Avenue
    Cranky David Letterman will be happy. Viewers surely will too when Peyton Manning makes a comeback this fall as a member of the Denver Broncos. Forget about on the field as Manning returns after missing all of last season due to injury. It's the prospect of the reemergence of the superstar quarterback in so many ads as that ridiculous, wonderfully self-effacing character that is so welcome.
  • Proposed C7 Currency Switch Could Have Minor Impact
    Thanks largely to NBC's Ted Harbert, networks may push for a currency change bringing more rating points for them to sell in a DVR-expanding landscape. In media-buying argot, he wants to go from C3 as the principal negotiating metric to C7. Is it worth a fight?
  • Second-Screen Experience May Have Helped Canoe
    Could Canoe Ventures have succeeded by focusing on using a "second screen" as the platform for its interactive advertising initiatives rather than the one that has dominated living rooms for decades? It's possible.
  • CNN And CIMM Make News On Multi-Platform Research Front
    Networks have been eager to conduct research on cross-platform consumption of major sports events, be it ESPN for the World Cup or NBCUniversal for the Olympics. Turner has been no different with March Madness, which it now offers in partnership with CBS. Now, Turner is adding a regular cross-platform initiative tabbed "CNN Everywhere" while industry group CIMM is releasing two studies.
  • Social TV Firms Come Up With Different Hits
    Analytics firms working in the social TV space continue to market their methods, each with a secret sauce. That proprietary mix can vary in terms of sources mined; breadth of terms picked up; length of time used in searching; and other factors. The results between research conducted by the likes of Bluefin Labs, General Sentiment and Trendrr can vary dramatically. Perhaps the only commonality among their methods is each not surprisingly relies on Twitter and Facebook.
  • Louisville Station Throws Long With New Sports Hires
    Local TV stations have been trying to upgrade their Web sites to better compete with newspapers online. Yet, not many have moved as aggressively as the Louisville Fox affiliate did this week. WDRB hired the local paper's leading sports columnists away at once. As they move from the Courier-Journal, the plan is for Rick Bozich and Eric Crawford to each write several columns a week for WDRB.com, while turning their work into on-air pieces.
  • Doomsday For TV? Not According To Gotlieb
    Henry Blodget has industry types talking with his TV-is-going-the-way-of-newspapers treatise this week. It's a lengthy piece on BusinessInsider.com, but the upshot put before industry oracle Irwin Gotlieb on Wednesday was on-demand viewing and DVRs will kill the underlying ad model. The argument from Blodget, the Business Insider Editor-in-Chief, is pretty unoriginal. It's a matter Gotlieb has been dealing with since probably the last days of the Clinton administration, if not before. Yet if Gotlieb, the chairman of GroupM, ever had doubts about what ad-zapping could do - he had to, right? - those now seem to be fading. Gotlieb hadn't …
  • Disney Sets Agenda With Anti-Obesity Move
    Disney has set the agenda. When a company of its stature marks such a popular line in the sand in its advertising policies, it will be difficult for its competitors such as Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network not to follow.
  • Airline M&A Could Help Networks, But Not More Than Southwest
    Mergers and acquisitions can be a boon to networks, generating a flood of advertising to introduce the "new, stronger, better company ready to serve you." Networks missed out when AT&T failed to subsume T-Mobile, but could gain as Southwest Airlines melds AirTran into its operations.
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