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In this year of record political advertising spending, Little Rock (DMA 56) has been mostly bypassed and forgotten by candidates and their supporters. The presidential candidates are ignoring Arkansas because Republican challenger Mitt Romney has a lock on its six electoral votes, and there are no major state offices up for grabs. Even the open seat of retiring Rep. Mike Ross (D) in the southern part of the state hasn’t produced much ad spending, with the GOP candidate seen as having an insurmountable lead and the Democrat unable to raise much money. The state’s three other Republican incumbents in the House are breezing to re-election. But that’s how it goes with political advertising every even-numbered year. Some markets — like Little Rock — are virtually shut out, and some in presidential swing states with closely contested gubernatorial or U.S. Senate races and possibly local elections — like Roanoke-Lynchburg (VA) (DMA 68) — have trouble coping with the enormous demand for time.
Political Ad Market: From Feast to Famine
Hundreds of people reported receiving strident, unsolicited anti-Obama text messages in an unusual spamming incident that had Twitter and Facebook users in an uproar.
“Voting for Obama means voting for same-sex marriage,” one message read. Others included “Obama stole $716 Billion in Medicare. We cant [sic] trust Obama to protect our seniors,” “Obama is using your tax dollars to fund Planned Parenthood and abortions. Is that right” and “VP Biden mocks a fallen Navy Seal during memorial. Our military deserves better.” While several people on social media sites angrily posted that the messages were coming from Republican Mitt Romney, there is no indication that the messages were sanctioned or produced by his campaign. The messages do not carry the customary notations of who approved or paid for political ads. The messages did not appear to be sent to particularly strategic targets — several hardcore Democrats were among the known recipients, as were children and people in non-battleground regions — but they came from several email addresses, including republicanett.com, votegopett.com, aiccomett.com and informedett.com. That suggests they were sent from the Internet rather than from other phones. Every domain checked by POLITICO was masked so Internet users could not trace their origins. It’s not known how many people received these messages.
Anti-Obama text ads cause a stir
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned that some of the largest U.S. financial institutions "are actively under attack" from cyber hackers.
While Sec Napolitano sounded the alarm about the attacks at a cybersecurity event hosted by The Washington Post, she declined to provide any details about them. "Right now, financial institutions are actively under attack. We know that. I'm not giving you any classified information," she said. "I will say this has involved some of our nation's largest institutions. We've also had our stock exchanges attacked over the last [few] years, so we know ... there are vulnerabilities. We're working with them on that." When asked by Post editor Mary Jordan about whether hackers are stealing information or money from banks, Sec Napolitano answered "yes" and then quickly added, "I really don't want to go into that per se." "All I want to say is that there are active matters going on with financial institutions," she said.
Sec Napolitano: US financial institutions 'actively under attack' by hackers
Baseball fans may choose to argue the relative thrills of the recent World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Detroit Tigers. What can't be argued are the numbers for the telecasts on Fox: This year's Fall Classic proved to be the least viewed World Series in history, according to Nielsen data, averaging 12.7 million viewers per game.
But despite the ratings, Fox execs strongly believe the Series is still a highly valuable marketing event for advertisers. Mike Mulvihill, senior VP of programming and research, Fox Sports Media Group, says Fox's message to advertisers is that despite the drop, the World Series will continue to be a top 10 show among viewers and do even better among adults 18-49 and among men 18-49. "If you look at the World Series ratings, and compared them to all primetime programming season to date, it would rank sixth among adults 18-49 and second among men 18-49," he says. "There is still a lot of value there even though viewership is not what it was 30 or 40 years ago."
Fox Message to Advertisers: World Series Still Has Lots of Value Despite Softer Viewership
The Federal Communications Commission has set a for comments on various proposals related to its revision of program access rules, including key proposals backed by the American Cable Association.
On Oct. 5, the FCC voted to sunset its ban on exclusive contracts between MVPDs and co-owned programming networks, complaints about which will now be handled under the existing prohibition on unfair practices. At the same time, and as a way to address the concerns of small cable operators, the commission issued a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on various other possible changes, including a proposal to change the FCC's definition of "buying group" to allow the National Cable Television Cooperative (NCTC) to file program access complaints without assuming collective liability for all of its members, and a variety of rebuttable presumptions related to exclusive contracts, both proposals backed by the American Cable Association. Initial comments are due Nov. 30, with replies due Dec. 17.
FCC Sets Comment Deadline on Program Access Questions
Rosetta Stone, a maker of language-learning software, agreed to drop a lawsuit it brought against Google for selling its trademarks to other companies for search-engine advertising.
The companies agreed that all claims in the infringement case will be dismissed, according to a filing in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia. No terms were given with the stipulation of voluntary dismissal. Rosetta Stone had claimed the keywords were being sold to competitors and counterfeiters. U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee ruled in 2010 that the sale of Rosetta’s trademarked phrases as keywords wouldn’t confuse consumers. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in April overturned part of that ruling and sent the case back to the lower court.
Rosetta Stone Agrees to Drop Google Trademark Suit
Many U.S. states regulate who provides online education to their residents to ensure consumers aren't getting stiffed — and now a group of states is brainstorming how to make the process of regulating these online universities smoother and more cost-effective.
States Look to Better Regulate Online Universities
To see how health information technology systems affect workflows, government-funded researchers are planning to descend on six small medical practices in Tennessee. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) says it wants to conduct the study because previous reviews of health IT and workflow have focused on large academic medical centers and health maintenance organizations, according to a notice published in the Federal Register.
Earlier studies failed to properly consider how factors such as training, technical support and organizational culture affect findings, the agency contends. AHRQ proposes looking at six small practices affiliated with Vanderbilt University that are in different stages of implementing health IT systems. The intent is to study how health IT systems affect staff members who care for patients with diabetes.
Health IT at Small-Care Providers Under Review
A new study suggests that newspapers enacting paywalls should emphasize financial need, not profit motives, when announcing them to readers.
The study, “Paying for What Was Free: Lessons from the New York Times Paywall,” is by Columbia University associate research scientist Jonathan Cook and Indiana University assistant professor Shahzeen Attari. They surveyed 954 New York Times readers shortly after the paper announced, in March 2011, that it would enact a metered paywall, and then again 11 weeks after the paywall was implemented. In the post-paywall survey, participants read one of two “justification” paragraphs, one emphasizing a profit motive and one emphasizing financial need (that paragraph concluded, “if the NY Times does not implement digital subscriptions, the likelihood that it will go bankrupt seems high”). Participants then “rated how the information changed their support for the paywall and their willingness to pay.” The results showed that “When participants were provided with a compelling justification for the paywall — that the NYT was likely to go bankrupt without it — their support and willingness to pay increased. In contrast, when participants were provided with a justification that emphasized financial stability, their support and willingness to pay decreased.” The authors conclude, “Our results imply that many NYT readers resisted the newly implemented paywall and that perceptions of fairness are key to helping consumers adapt to abrupt changes in pricing. As other content providers follow the lead of the NYT, they may benefit from providing compelling justifications that convince consumers of financial necessity.”
How to get your readers to love paywalls
MetroPCS’s third-quarter earnings more than doubled as the prepaid wireless-service provider posted higher revenue and saw a $53 million gain from a securities settlement.
MetroPCS, which offers flat-rate wireless services without annual contracts, has seen stronger revenue in recent quarters as launching a 4G network and offering smartphones helped to attract new customers. But its bottom-line performance has been mixed over the past year due in part to higher promotional handset costs. The company's costs per gross addition rose 4.1% in the most-recent quarter from a year earlier. Costs per user fell 6%. MetroPCS reported a profit of $192.7 million, or 52 cents a share, up from $69.3 million, or 19 cents, a year earlier. Excluding a gain on a settlement related to securities, current per-share earnings were 38 cents. Revenue rose 4.5% to $1.26 billion. The customer turnover rate, known as churn, was 3.7%, compared with 4.5% a year ago and 3.4% in the prior quarter. The decrease in churn was driven by the company's investments in its network and lower year-to-date subscriber growth.
MetroPCS's Profit More Than Doubles