GM's New Commercial Spot

I guess desperate times call for desperate measures because General Motors is measuring their new commercial spot with some new methods. Years ago (yes, back when the economy was good....) an automakers commercial would have been measured by weekend sales and foot traffic to the dealership. Not today, it's measured by positive feedback from bloggers and analysts.

The spot features Chairman/CEO Ed Whitacre walking through a dealership and speaking to you, the buyer.

AdAge.com wrote this article earlier in the week and I'm stunned by the fact that GM actually is speaking on how successful the spot was from a consumer and blogger point of view, as opposed to the fact that it actually moved units!

Click here to read the article.

Couric Isn't Leaving CBS Anytime Soon...

Early Morning television was designed for someone like Katie Couric, not hard hitting headline news. While I do think she has some talent and her one on one interviews are often great, the headline news crowd is not one for Katie Couric.

TVWeek is reporting that she is staying through the end of her contract which is over in 2011. I don't expect that to happen though as we typically see networks get antsy months in advance.

I think it's safe to say that the experiment hasn't worked out so well....

Will We See More Talk Shows in Prime?

The big debate started last week on whether Jay Leno's new 10pm time slot would be successful. Many within the industry believe it will either make NBC look brilliant, or it will absolutely bomb and people can say, "told you so!"

Advertising Age brings up a good point though, no matter what it does, the Jay Leno show is cheap and it replaces 5 hours of programming that would otherwise be expensive. So while some call the move cheap, the other big 3 will be copying it very quickly if Leno turns out to be a hit in that time period.

Seattle Times Latest to Announce Layoffs

Less than an hour after I posted about the death of the newspaper, the Seattle Times Company announced layoffs of more than 100. The Seattle PI is breaking the news and I'm sure the Times will have something to say later in the day. The story is still developing.

Read the full article at SeattlePI.com.

How Long Will Print Survive?

This is a question that these days we are all asking. I personally believe that Print has another 7-10 years before we see major newspapers (USA Today, NY Times, LA Times, etc.) start to crumble.

The definition of crumble at this point is objective. Cut backs, lay offs, paper shrink, etc. can be all used to define crumble. The day we see one of these newspapers completely stop printing and go all on-line is the day when I say it's over for Print.

Wait a minute, we already watched that happen last week...although the Christian Science Monitor will continue to print the paper once per week, this is a sign that the end is near for Print.

Advertising Age is asking the question, "Will Print last another 5 years?" There is no doubt that the landscape is changing in the media world but I still have faith in radio and broadcast television. The internet is making us all rethink the way we reach consumers and Print is stuck in a limbo between the internet and the printed paper.

Think about it, in order to keep some revenue they have turned to the internet to publish the news. The best revenue model for them at this point would be to charge you to read their stories online. The only problem is, their competition is not charging you. Therefore in order to stay competitive with page views and unique users they have to give you a reason to come back online. Although the cost to publish news online is far cheaper than the paper, the revenue opportunity is far less compared to the revenue that print has been used to.

Should He Stay or Should He Go?

When Ben Silverman arrived on the scene at NBC in 2007, he was dubbed as "The Next Generation" in Television programming. He was the Cadillac in a position that had slowed down and needed a re-boot. But now after a year on the job, many people are discussing his lifestyle more than his programming. Which has many people at NBC Universal a little nervous.

Click here to read the article at the LATimes.com

I'm still confused....

NBC Sells Super Bowl Spots at $3 Million

It's a steep increase from what CBS garnered last year per spot, but NBC has already sold 80% of the spots at a cool $3 million, per :30. Which is surprising being that we're in the middle of a "down economy."

NBC and General Electric are thrilled though, especially since the inventory has been flying off the shelf and we're still over three months away from the game. Sales tend to pick up in the 45 days prior to the game but this year has seen a different trend.

Expect to see your typical Pepsi and Coke ads, as well as the hilarious beer spots and automotive marketing. However they are expecting another infuse of movie trailers. Last year we saw trailers for movies that weren't set to hit theatres for several months but the buzz was started early.

NBC also said they used the Super Bowl as a way to bring in revenue for other parts of the organization, such as packaging the spot with sponsorships and or spot deals.

Read the article at AdAge.com.

Google Takes Next Steps Into Television

Google announced Tuesday that they have signed a partnership agreement with NBC Universal to begin selling ad space on their cable networks. The deal will give Google another foot in the door on the television ad sales race that they began around 17 months ago. Google will be able to sell space on the Sci-Fi channel as well as other lower rated cable channels.

Google calls the deal a huge win in order to increase their distribution and reach.

Click here to read the full article at NYTimes.com.

Newspaper Earnings Continue To Drop

The outlook continues to dwindle for newspaper companies including Gannett and A.H. Belo Corporation. While Gannett announced today that their total revenue fell 8.4%, Belo gave a warning that their announcement will be "substantially below" the original forecast.

We've been talking about it now for five years and we'll continue to talk about it for another 10 before the newspaper industry completely goes down the drain.

Click here to read the full article at the NY Times.com.