eBay, Bid4Spots launch Online Bid for Radio Advertising

eBay began taking bids for radio spots today as the online auction leader expands into offline ads. The company is auctioning advertising airtime on 2,300 participating U.S. radio stations, expanding on an existing plan to sell cable television ads. EBay is partnering with Bid4Spots (Encino,Ca.) to power the eBay Media Marketplace for Radio. The new U.S. auction market for radio advertising will go live today and include both conventional terrestrial radio and Internet radio advertising. Stations in all of the 300 top-ranked radio markets are covered. Available inventory is determined by participating radio stations and what they choose to sell for the next week. Available advertising inventory includes primetime spots. Some 90 percent are in morning “drive time,” midday or evening commute hours from Monday through Friday. EBay’s own radio auctions target last-minute ad buyers. This flexibility enables stations to be extremely aggressive in their pricing,

First Half - Ad Spending Increases

Advertising spending has increased by 5.1% during the first half of this year verse the same period a year ago, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus. Many media categories saw a bump, however the largest gains were led by internet advertising (+49%), Spanish-Language TV (+21.8%) and Local Magazines (+10.4%). Network TV increase 6.3%, while National Cable TV saw only a 0.4% rise. Spot TV in the top 100 markets was up 3.5%; however, the smaller DMAs were down -0.6%. Network Radio continued in its slump at a -3.5%, while Spot Radio saw a modest increase of +1.4%. The largest increases came in the telecommunications field, with AT&T leading the pack with a 51 percent jump to $964 million while half of the top ten advertisers reduced spending including overall No. 1 GM, down 3% to $1.7 billion. Link: MediaDailyNews 09/01/06 - Nielsen: First Half Ad Market Grows 5.1%

Cable Television Advertising - A Guide for the Radio Marketer

Attention Cable Ad Sales groups… your competitors are getting wiser. Remember the good years before you had ever made it on their radars? That time has long since gone and you’re in the cross hairs. Interep has released a new research report on cable advertising to help radio sales people better understand and sell competitively against an advertising medium that has been averaging 14% annual growth since 2003. The report points out that while cable television has seen strong audience growth over the past decade, ad revenue growth is outpacing the organic growth of the medium. This growth is more remarkable considering some of the challenges facing cable, including the growing pervasiveness of DVR’s, viewing fragmentation, and the increasing popularity of satellite dish services, which do not carry local cable advertisements. The report also outlines the complementary marketing benefits that radio brings to cable television campaigns, including local promotional tie-ins, events, the ability to reach consumers outside of the home and increased reach.