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Canoe Should Have Bought Inventory To Prove Itself Or Get Rich While Trying 

When networks moved slowly at working with it, Canoe should have showed it believed in its core request-for-information (RFI) offering by putting its money where its mouth was. Canoe executives may have all kinds of valid reasons why this suggestion would have fallen flat. (CEO Kathy Timko said two months ago: "I think 2012 really marks a shift from building a platform and technology to a much more go-to-market strategy.") But, the company should have proved to networks what it could do not via presentations or in a laboratory or even through tests, but with cash. The well-funded Canoe should ...
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Civility Rare Enough In Public Debate It Deserves An Award 

It has come to this: the partisanship in Washington has become so toxic that an award has been established to honor those who simply are respectful. The award from Allegheny College cites those who are advocates, but also have an ability to listen and disagree with an understanding that answers may lie outside personal ideology. "PBS NewsHour's" Mark Shields and David Brooks are the inaugural winners. They are most definitely deserving. Will there be anyone to honor next year?
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Discovered: iPads Can Offer Two-Screen, Simultaneous Marketing Opportunities 

New research indicates iPads offer marketers an opportunity to reach consumers simultaneously on both TV and the devices. A survey from Discovery Communications found 43% of iPad owners say they watch TV and go online concurrently "all" or "most" of the time (compared to 33% of non-owners). During its Shark Week last year, Discovery offered apps for the iPad and iPhone that allowed a viewer to interact with added content that was synched to the shows. (ABC has experimented with the sync-to-broadcast concept with several shows, including "Grey's Anatomy," where Lexus served as a sponsor and Nielsen technology powered the ...
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NBCU's Wurtzel: More Research Dollars Needed, 'Single Source' Faces Challenges 

In a speech at a cross-platform measurement event this week, NBCUniversal top researcher Alan Wurtzel not surprisingly urged industry executives to invest more in research. But, just two days after NBCU announced an initiative to pursue a "single source" metric tracking viewing on multiple platforms for this summer's Olympics, Wurtzel wondered if this "holy grail" is "realistically attainable in the new media world." Separately, he called on the industry to move away from relying on data about who watched and shift towards who watched and what did they buy. Behavioral targeting methods are needed - fast -- he said.
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Mobile Devices Might Upend DRTV  

As consumers increasingly watch TV with a smartphone in hand, it bears asking whether the direct-response TV (DRTV) business will suffer. The device-in-hand behavior gives advertisers a chance to get the immediate sales results DRTV can generate, while avoiding the associated spots with D-list endorsers and a 1-800 number filling half the screen. Marketers are benefiting from a "bounce" effect, where a TV spot builds interest and a viewer swiftly taps the smartphone or tablet keypad to search for more information or, better yet, make a purchase.
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Cross-Platform Measurement Initiative Looking To Drive Ahead 

The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement (CIMM) hopes to rev up TAXI - an initiative announced in late 2010 -- this fall. Plans call for a pilot study on developing a Trackable Asset Cross-Platform Identification (TAXI) method to launch as the new TV season kicks off. The aim: establishing a type of UPC code to track content and advertising as it moves from screen to screen. There are ways to do that now - watermarking, fingerprinting, wrapping - yet when Arbitron uses one way, Nielsen another and Kantar a third, how do cross-platform metrics move from the research department to ...
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'Mad Men' Gets Publicity It Couldn't Buy 

Don Draper's iconic free fall dominates a big chunk of New York's Grand Central Terminal. The image of the "Mad Men" character dropping uncontrollably -- symbolizing his unending conflicts -- covers expensive billboards AMC has purchased to promote the show's March 25 return. Yet, just a few blocks away, there's publicity the network couldn't buy, courtesy of Billy Parrott, a managing librarian at the New York Public Library's art and picture collection.
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Bark Out Loud: Dogs Get Their Own Network 

Dogs can't fill out a Nielsen diary or light up a people meter, so data on what programming they enjoy would seem to be scant. Intuition might suggest this week's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show on USA would be a smash, while Animal Planet would be a favorite network, especially when "America's Cutest Dog" is on. But if a dog is really a person's best friend, shouldn't people push harder for information on what their pets enjoy.
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High-Profile ESPN Ad In USA Today Is Yesterday's News  

It's been disorienting reading the USA Today sports section these last few weeks without ESPN's ad on the front page, where it had been since January 1, 2000. But, the 12-year arrangement, which also involved ABC Sports in the early years, wrapped at the end of last year. ESPN's decision to pull out is curious and surely dispiriting to USA Today, where circulation has been declining, but still averages about 1.8 million. The ad, which ran in the upper right corner, was relatively small, but with so many newspaper ads unnoticeable, this one was unavoidable.
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Eastwood's Chrysler Spot Throws Jab At Cable News 

West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller had to be pleased with Clint Eastwood's Chrysler spot in Sunday's Super Bowl. As a Democrat, the clear pro-Obama message about auto bailouts was surely welcome, but there was a little-noticed shot at cable news that may have heartened him more. In late 2010 at a Senate hearing, he railed against Fox News and MSNBC for sowing division. And midway through the "Halftime in America" spot, there was an image of a man pointing angrily that resembled a railing "analyst" on one of the networks. It only lasted about a second. Yet, the message was ...
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