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More local news TV promos spots do not mean more viewers for local TV news programs. In looking at the key 25-54 viewers -- the strongest news viewers -- the optimum promo media plan, according to one Seattle TV market, came from seven to nine exposures. That yielded a 22% increase in tune-in from 10% before the campaign started, according to Nielsen.
Local TV Promos Don't Translate To More Viewers
Austin Schlick, the former general counsel for the Federal Communications Commission, will join Google's legal team.
Google did not provide information about Schlick's new role at the company other than to say he will be on their legal team. Schlick served as the commission's top legal adviser from July 2009 until June of this year. He defended the FCC's regulations in court, including its data roaming requirements and network neutrality actions. Before serving as general counsel, Schlick was the chief of litigation for the state of Maryland and held various legal roles at the FCC. He has also served as an assistant solicitor general and argued seven cases before the Supreme Court. He was a partner in private practice and served as a clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Yale Law School.
Former top FCC lawyer Schlick heads to Google
To turn on the television, open the mail or drive down the highway here is to watch conservatives test the boundaries of how far they can go to disqualify President Barack Obama.
Along the Interstate that connects the beach towns of Florida’s east coast, giant billboards show the president, whom some on the far right have falsely accused of being Muslim, bowing to a Saudi king. Another blares “Stop Obama!” and shows a nuclear warhead with “Iran” painted on it aimed at Israel, a particularly potent message with this area’s many Jewish voters. In one commercial that started running this month, a wealthy businessman and Hungarian immigrant named Thomas Peterffy laments how socialism shackled his native country. “And that’s what I see happening here,” he says. “That’s why I’m voting Republican and putting this ad on television.” And a new anti-Obama DVD is dropping into voters’ mailboxes, claiming that the president is the love child of an illicit relationship between his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party loyalist. The back story of the DVD offers the latest example of how secretive forces outside the presidential campaigns can sweep into battleground states days before the election.
Strident Anti-Obama Messages Flood Key States
The battle for the Senate has proved a boon to broadcasters as campaign spending in key battleground states has skyrocketed in the waning days of the campaign, including from Super PACs and other outside groups.
According to The Sunlight Foundation's latest figures, at the end of August, those outside groups had spent $32.9 million on Senate races. In September they spent an additional $55.7 million, and already in October more than $100 million. Of that $100 million, about $34.5 million went to TV ad time buys and production costs, according to Sunlight reporting on Federal Election Commission data. While Virginia and Ohio are two of the key swing states in the presidential election, they are also drawing a crowd of outside dollars for Senate contests.
Sunlight: $34.5 Million Spent in October on Senate Race Ad Buys
Political advertising is a lot like the weather: People like to complain about it, but nobody ever seems to do anything about it. Now someone actually is. Boca Raton, FL-based MDG Advertising has just launched a pretty cool "interactive infographic" enabling American voters -- or anyone for that matter -- to look at how the projected $5.8 billion in 2012 campaign year spending could be put to better use.
Agency Offers Better Options For Record Political Ad Spend, Includes 'Fun'
The Department of Justice is investigating whether Samsung has misused some of its mobile-device patents in ways that violate antitrust law, rival Apple said in a filing with the U.S. International Trade Commission.
The department is investigating Samsung's use of patents that are deemed essential to wireless-technology standards adopted by the industry, Apple said. According to a person familiar with the probe, the department has been conducting the investigation for several months. The European Commission also has been investigating Samsung's patent conduct, a probe it announced in late January. The ITC is one of several legal bodies that are refereeing patent-infringement disputes between the two companies.
Apple: Justice Department Investigating Samsung's Use of Patents
AT&T reported middling financial results for the third quarter with revenue of $31.5 billion leading to net income of $3.63 billion. Those sales are essentially flat from the same quarter a year before as is income. But behind those numbers is a shift occurring as AT&T’s big bet on wireless starts paying off.
AT&T’s saw wireless revenues rise by 6.6 percent year over year with data revenues up 18.3 percent. Wireline declined as a percentage of revenue by 3 percent. But given the saturation of the U.S. mobile market, AT&T is not taking its wireless success for granted. Instead it’s figuring out how to get existing customers to spend more. On the call it touted its growing base of smartphones (customers with smartphones spend almost twice as much as those with feature phones) and the take rate of its new shared family plans announced in August.
Here’s AT&T’s plan to grow now that everyone has a mobile phone
In a new report on self-publishing, Bowker — the company that handles ISBNs (book identifier codes) and other bibliographic info for books published in the U.S. — says that the number of print and e-books self-published annually is up by 287 percent since 2006 and now totals over 235,000 titles.
Bowker finds that 148,424 print books were self-published in 2011 — that means that 43 percent of all print books published in the U.S. in 2011 were self-published. 87,201 e-books were self-published. Publishers Lunch notes a few important caveats: Bowker only counts titles with ISBNs, so “KDP exclusives and other sources that still don’t use ISBN numbers” aren’t included. That means the number of self-published e-books is likely much higher than 87,201. In addition, the print and digital editions of a single title may be counted twice. Bowker finds that four large companies dominate the self-publishing space. In 2011, Amazon’s CreateSpace was behind the creation of 58,412 titles, or 39 percent of all self-published print books. Smashwords was the largest e-book producer, accounting for 40,608 titles, or 47 percent of all self-published e-books.
Bowker: Number of self-published books up 287% since 2006 Self-Publishing Sees Triple-Digit Growth in Just Five Years, Says Bowke (Bowke press release)
The Army needs to develop offensive cyber capabilities it can wield in battle the same way it uses artillery or air power, top service commanders explained at the Association of the United States Army annual conference.
Lt. Gen. Rhett Hernandez, commander of Army Cyberspace Command at Fort Meade (MD), said cyber threats against Army networks today are “real, growing, sophisticated and evolving . . . they are changing the way we operate.” The threats require sophisticated defensive systems to detect and deter attackers. But the Army also must have the ability to “conduct cyber offensive operations when directed,” he said, adding that the ability to conduct cyberattacks should be integrated with traditional joint fires capabilities such as artillery.
Army Leaders Promote Need for Offensive Cyber Capability
Over the last six months, agencies across the Federal government have been undertaking a coordinated effort to scour their IT budgets to find unnecessary IT spending and develop a plan to root out waste. This effort – called PortfolioStat – has resulted in ambitious plans that will save the government $2.5 billion over the next three years through consolidating duplicative systems, buying in bulk, and ending or streamlining off-track projects.
Under PortfolioStat, agencies have collected and analyzed baseline data on 13 specific types of commodity IT investments, spanning infrastructure, business systems, and enterprise IT. These areas have the most significant opportunities for reducing waste. OMB worked with agencies to review their data and compare their spending to other agencies and private sector benchmarks in order to assess the agency’s current state and develop a list of opportunities to reduce inefficiency, duplication, and unnecessary spending. Based on this analysis, agencies drafted PortfolioStat plans, which were then reviewed in Deputy-Secretary-led PortfolioStat sessions with the Federal Chief Information Officer.
Saving Billions in IT Spending