Round-up, Jan 3

Here we are with the New Year-and the third year of operation for this blog!-and I thought one new thing I could introduce is a (fairly)regular round-up of news and information I find as I read around the media (though mostly from the Benton CommPolicy listserv, which is an excellent source of news and information about the media). Anyway, here we go:

Reports are coming in (e.g., on NPR's marketplace) that Viacom is separating the business activities of its CBS network television from Paramount and most everything else; MediaWeek's Year in Review gives some interesting predictions on digital/convergent media, cable a la carte, and the future of the 30-second ad spot; Broadcasting & Cable also looks to the digital future in 2006, with the focus on Video on Demand (VOD), either on cable or on iPods; B&C also proclaims that, with 12 million HDTV sets now in US homes, High Definition TV has finally "arrived".

Finally (for now), the Wall Street Journal today asks the question, As the 30-second ad disappears, what will advertisers do next? The paper points to some of the more obvious advertiser strategies that will be tried out in the 2006:

1) advertising everywhere
2) mobile devices such as cellphones and video iPods are fast emerging as new ad vehicles
3) advertisers seeking to market new TV shows, movies and songs are exploring other media
4) marketers have become obsessed with finding ordinary people to endorse, criticize or simply spread the word about new movies and new products on blogs or other consumer-created media
5) going well beyond buying a single TV spot or ad page in a magazine, advertisers want ideas that bind their messages inextricably with the media outlets they choose.