Full story from AdAge here.

This effort makes sense. It is just hard to have a lot of confidence in newspapers when they team up for new ventures- their track record is horrible. However, let's hope this works- clearly there is a need. By the way - does this mean that newspapers are for SOPA? Just a few days ago editorial organizations all came out against it.

New York Times, Washington Post Expand Policing of Article Pilfering Online

Newspapers Form NewsRight, a For-Profit Company Tracking Sites That Scrape Content

The New York Times Co., The Washington Post Co., The Associated Press and 26 other news companies began a joint venture today to police websites that use their articles without consent and demand fees for legitimate use.

The NewsRight venture is a for-profit entity spun out of an Associated Press program started two years ago to explore ways to stem content pilfering on the web -- a practice known as "scraping" -- and to capitalize on a news-reading audience that is migrating online. Large news organizations have been suffering financial losses as a result of scraping, according to David Westin, 59, the former head of Walt Disney Co.'s ABC News who became NewsRight's chief executive officer in April.

From Marketingcharts.org - full story here

Also see story below we linked to about the gross overestimates routine for online advertising.

US Online Ad Spend Set to Exceed Print (Update)

US online ad spending will exceed the total spent on print magazines and newspapers this year for the first time, according to a January 2012 eMarketer estimate that projects $39.5 billion in online ad spending, $19.4 billion in newspaper ad spending, and $15.4 billion in magazine ad spending. eMarketer estimates that online ad spending will continue its dramatic growth to reach $62 billion by 2016, while the print total will continue to decline to $32.3 billion that year.

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US online ad spend is expected to grow by 23.3% this year, with double-digit growth continuing through 2014 before slowing to 8.9% in 2015 and 7.8% in 2016.

TV Growth Unaffected

As online ad spending grows, so will TV, albeit more slowly, notes eMarketer, which estimates that US TV spending will reach $72 billion in 2016. At that point, the gap between TV and online ad spending will be $10 billion, compared to the $28.7 billion gap seen in 2011.

Overall, eMarketer projects total media ad spending to grow 6.7% this year to $169.5 billion, boosted by national election campaigns and gains in mobile spending. Growth will remain between 3-4% through 2016, with spending reaching almost $200 billion by then. And while online will be a major driver of that growth, traditional ad spending will for the most part stagnate during the period.

Q1-Q3 ‘11 Ad Spend Up 1.5%

Total US advertising expenditures in the first 9 months of 2011 increased 1.5% from the previous year, finishing the period at $104.7 billion, according to December 2011 data from Kantar Media. Spending growth slowed during Q3, up 0.4% compared to 2010, after rising 4.1% in Q1 and 2.8% in Q2. Spending among the 10 largest advertisers in the first 9 months of 2011 was $11.8 billion, representing a 1.4% decline compared to the previous year. Procter & Gamble maintained its top-ranked position with spending of $2.1 billion through September, down 5.6% compared to 2010, although its Q3 spending was flat compared to the previous year.

Meanwhile, expenditures for the 10 largest categories grew 3.1% in the first 9 months of 2011, to $59.5 billion. For Q3, the aggregate increase was 1.8%, although quarterly growth rates for 7 of the 10 categories trailed their year-to-date average. Automotive was the top category with $9.9 billion of spending during the 9-month period, up 7% from 2010. However, the bulk of the gain came early in the year, and from April through September automotive budgets grew just 1%.

TV Ad Spending Rises

Most forms of TV displayed spending gains in Q3 2011: expenditures on cable networks rose 6.5% during Q3, while year-to-date outlays grew 9.9%. Network TV registered its first quarterly gain of the year, as Q3 expenditures inched up 0.2%, although year-to-date expenditures remained down 5.7%. Kantar insight suggests higher budgets from movie studios and consumer package goods marketers accounted for the Q3 increase for network TV, while the year-to-date decline can be attributed to the loss of marquee college football and basketball programming to cable networks in Q1.

Meanwhile, ad spending in Spanish Language Television jumped 18% during Q3 2011 compared to Q3 2010, while syndication TV was also up 14.8% for the period. The only TV segment to lose ground was spot TV, where spending fell 5.7% year-over-year in Q3, and was also down 2.7% for the year-to-date.

Overall, compared to the corresponding periods in 2010, TV ad spending grew 2.3% for the year-to-date, and 3.2% for Q3.

The top 10 TV advertisers, led by Procter & Gamble, spent $7.3 billion in the medium during the first 9 months of 2011, up 0.1% from a year ago. The group accounted for 15% of total TV expenditures by all advertisers.

Most Other Media Also Post Gains

Outdoor spending slowed during the third quarter, but still registered gains of 3.2% for Q3 and 8.6% for the first 9 months. The pace of spending in radio media was more muted, but remained steady, up a modest 1.1% in Q3 and 1.2% for the year-to-date, driven by over 2% growth in local radio and network radio advertising.

Magazine media spending declined 1.2% for Q3, but rose 1.5% for the year-to-date. The top 10 magazine advertisers invested $2.7 billion in the medium for the year-to-date, a decrease of 2.8%. As a proportion of total magazine ad spending by all advertisers, the top 10 accounted for 17.1%.

Although the internet sector posted a Q3 2011 drop of 2.9% compared to last year, overall expenditures for the year-to-date were up 2.8% compared to a year earlier. Display ad expenditures soared 15.8% in Q3 and 10.1% for the year-to-date, offsetting paid search drops of 14.4% and 2.1%, respectively. The 10 largest internet advertisers, led by General Motors, invested a total of $1.8 billion in paid search and display campaigns, up 11.1% versus a year ago, and accounting for 10.8% share of all internet ad dollars.

Newspapers Fare Poorly

The newspaper sector posted the worst figures of all media, experiencing a 3.7% decline in spending in Q3 2011 compared to Q3 2010, and 3.8% decrease for the year-to-date. Local newspapers, despite robust budgets from local auto dealers and an uptick in financial advertising, saw a 4.4% spending decline in Q3, and were down 3.9% year-to-date.

Print Media Get Spending, Lack Consumption

Meanwhile, according to December figures from eMarketer, although newspapers accounted for 15% of all US ad spending in 2011, they held just a 4% share of adults’ daily media time. Magazines also held a much larger share of ad spending than daily media time, at 9.7% and 2.8%, respectively.

By contrast, eMarketer estimated that mobile accounted for 10.1% share of adults’ media time each day, but less than 1% of ad dollars. TV (42.5% vs. 42.2%), internet (25.9% vs. 21.9%), and radio (14.6% vs. 10.9%) all also displayed a higher share of adults’ daily time than share of US ad spending.

eMarketer notes that time spent with the internet excludes internet access via mobile, but online ad spending includes mobile internet ad spending. As such, the total of the ad spending share for all the media adds up to more than 100%.

From AdAge in an article entitled: "ComScore Study Confirms What We Already Knew: You're Wasting Money on Ads No One Sees"

One of the key findings: 31% of the 1.7 billion ad impressions were never in view. The number is probably not a shock to many in the space, and is the main reason why so-called remnant inventory sells for a fraction of the space above the fold. But with this knowledge, advertisers can more accurately manage expectations and calculate ROI, said ComScore CEO Magid Abraham. 

Not a huge surprise- online display ads have always produced very poor results. Full story here

As a newspaper or magazine professional, what is your opinion of the Stop Online Piracy Act? Yesterday, the America Society of News Editors came out in opposition of the bill. It is pretty clear that some of the remedies suggested by the bill for online piracy are over-the-top when applied to mundane copyright infringement but in general, wouldn't it benefit the producers of original content (newspapers and magazines) to have a law in place that helped them protect the stories they pay for? 

 

 Interesting story today from DigiDay on online ad forecasts entitled "Lies Damn Lies, Ad Industry Growth Forecasts"

Jack Marshall - the author points out some of the gross overestimates that are routinely made. It is worth keeping in mind when you hear the huge numbers often thrown around for new media.

Here is a portion of the story:

In March 2008, for example, eMarketer predicted U.S. mobile ad spend would reach $5.2 billion by 2011. By October 2011, however, the company had downgraded those estimates by a whopping $4 billion and, instead, suggested total spend would reach just $1.2 billion that year. In eMarketer’s defense, it probably didn’t foresee the economic difficulties that kicked in later that year, but that fact just helps illustrate the point: It’s impossible to predict the growth of such immature markets.

“There are known knowns and there are also known unknowns,” said eMarketer analyst Noah Elkin, quoting Donald Rumsfeld. “The issue with the unknowns is that there are more of them in an emerging market like mobile compared to relatively more mature markets such as TV or print. As a result it’s always possible some forecasts will be off, but you do your best to predict the future with the knowledge you have today.”

This is all true and a general guard against taking any economic forecast as gospel. After all, imagine all the data sitting in front of the Federal Reserve about the housing market in 2006. The foremost stewards of the U.S. economy saw nothing but growth ahead. Instead, the market lost trillions of dollars in value. Oops.

Online advertising is small potatoes in comparison, yet it’s hard to predict with the accuracy of, say, the TV upfronts. Too many changes from year to year. It is still a young medium. And yet there’s a heavy demand — from journalists, venture capitalists, publishers, agencies and others — for forecasts in the most nascent of industries. In 2007, for example, eMarketer estimated 2011 U.S. video ad spend would reach $4.3 billion. By June 2011, that prediction had been reduced by 50 percent to $2.16 billion. Oops again.

By no means is it just eMarketer’s estimates that appear inaccurate, either. In October 2007 Forrester Research forecasted U.S. video ad spending would reach $7.1 billion by 2012. Last week the company expressed very different views, stating it now expects the market to generate $5.4 billion in revenues in 2016. Might want to check in sometime in 2014 for an update.

full  story here

‘Print Has a Pulse’: Buyers Taking a Second Look

by Steve Smith (Min Online)

While TV, Internet and (surprisingly) radio are top of mind among media buyers and planners coming in 2011, according to a new STRATA survey for the fourth quarter of 2010, print media is getting a nod. When asked which medium they are focusing most on in the coming months, 7% of buyers said print. “"Print has a pulse,” STRATA marketing chief J.D. Miller told Radio Sales Today. “It was almost nonexistent, now it has a pulse.”

Spot TV remains the most attractive venue for buyers (44%) in this survey, followed by Internet and Digital channels (21%) and spot radio (16%).

On the digital side there is surprisingly strong interest in display (80%), followed by social media (61%) and search (60%). For all of the hype around mobile, however, only 29% showed special interest. Within mobile the iPhone attracts the most interest (80%), and Blackberry (51%) is outpacing Android (45.8%). The iPad attracts interest from 31% of advertisers, up from 22% in the previous quarter. Overall, digital media actually suffered its first drop in enthusiasm. According to STRATA CEO/president John Shelton, “We see that the focus on digital has fallen off a bit. While still hot, it is used more in a solid media mix than more dollars heading its way.”

The “emerging platforms” are being met with some skepticism. STRATA found that 90% of its clients are showing no interest in the iPhone iAd, Google TV or Apple TV. Location-based advertising is not even in about 70% of plans for 2011, and most interest is going to Facebook Places, followed by Foursquare.

STRATA, a Comcast subsidiary, sells media planning and buying software.