It took three or four decades, but the PBS network has finally signed up for full Nielsen demographic ratings for its TV programs. Now, for the first time, marketers will be able to access and review full demo data on who’s watching what on the Public Broadcasting System – information that has been crucial in making decisions on where best to promote products on broadcast TV.

And it’s about time. For far too long, advertisers could rely only on educated guesswork to weigh the effectiveness of promoting their products and services on PBS’s leading programming fare.

Of course, PBS doesn’t present advertising the same way as do other networks, because it’s ostensibly commercial-free programming. But even though PBS is a commercial-free broadcasting service, in recent years it has offered sponsorship deals with major advertisers in the form of comprehensive messaging that is broadcast before and after the shows air.

Indeed, veteran watchers of PBS programming have noticed more extensive promo messages that have gotten awfully close to out-and-out commercials – even though they aren’t ads in the “traditional” sense.

And up until now, PBS has not officially released any extensive form of demographic data, making promotional efforts more of “crap shoot” for advertisers than anything else.

But now PBS has signed up with Nielsen for full demos. The new rating service began on PBS with the Ken Burns series on national parks earlier in the year. According to Nielsen, that documentary scored an overall household average audience rating of 3.5, with an average of 5.5 million viewers tuned in per episode. And the internals provided some interesting clues as to the age, income and educational characteristics of viewers — older, more affluent, and better educated.

Which programs are on tap for Nielsen demo ratings going forward? PBS staples, of course – Masterpiece Theater, Antiques Roadshow, NOVA, Nature and Frontline. They’ll all have weekly demographic rating information, along with several of PBS’s famed kids programs including Sesame Street and Sid The Science Kid.

What’s a little ironic about the latest news is that, after all these years, PBS has finally gotten on the Nielsen bandwagon … just at a time when when broadcast TV audience stats are mattering less and less. The ever-growing non-TV alternatives provided by the Internet have seen to that. And coupled with that, the overall audience for PBS programming has been shrinking.

More and more forecasts are coming in on what to expect economically in 2010.  Of course you have the most popular saying we are in recovery and from the stated fed action early 2010 they must believe it.  Bernake’s plan as of now is to shut off the lending spigots by the end of March.  This will mean an increase in interest rates and is probably the real reason for tightening up.  We need to finance a ton of money and whose is going to buy it at 0% interest.   So the fed is going to tighten up, the banks have never loosened up, the consumer is tapped out, wages are falling, foreclosures are increasing, credit card debt is increasing , unemployment is approaching The Great Depression levels at about 22% and rising.  Yet we are in recovery????  WANNA BUY A BRIDGE???

Gerald Celente in a recent Trend Alert lists his expectations for 2010.

1. The Crash of 2010
2. Depression Uplift.  An idea we will return to “ELEGANCE” which he sees as a shift away from Gansta Pants, (utts hanging out, horseshoes in your , tats in places the sun don’t shine, and tats where I don’t wanta see em,  2000 calorie hamburgers, 55 gallon sodas, french fries for 2 acres of spuds)(stuff in ( ) is me being cute??  A return to quality and individuality and a return to do it yourself activities to make up for lower incomes.
3. Terrorism Attack- Celente sees one coming- I don’t because I do not see where they can gain a thing but some bombs on top of them by doing it.   bin-Laden has already brought us to self destruction why would he want to do more.. Anyway I hope he is dead wrong..
4. Neo survivalist – will be forced on us by everything around us failing.  Financial systems, pension systems, medical systems , infrastructure , everything will collapse.
5. Not Welcome Here-  and anti immigration movement and this will be world wide- you can already see this rising as the big issue on the far right.
6. TB to fail- everything is America is too big to fail- from waist lines, credit lines, mortgage lines, to state , federal, military budgets all too big too fail!!  Wanna bet??
7. Mothers of Invention- Forced by a lack of jobs good ole American ingenuity  take over and invent new lines of products that lower wage folks can afford.
8. Not Made In China- Hot damn Celente is on my band wagon (he always was) but now it’s a trend . A Buy Local /My Country First will lead to protectionism and and trade wars (who cares) and it will force the TPTB to give up their Free Trade song and return to the Years of Yesterday.
9. The Next Big Thing-Another information/Entertainment revolution.  We have seen the destruction of the major print media and next up will be TV/Cable networks which are self destroying at about the same rate.  We all (who have a TV) know essentially this is well underway right now. 200 channels with hardly anything to watch.  Except as a friend says “The Chipmunk Channel”

You can watch a Celente Interview on the above here

Mike Whitney joins those who says 2010 will be a downer . Not near as complicated as Celente.  In fact damn simple, the fed is going to cut the spigots off by March and down she’ll come if something doesn’t get it first.

Microsoft® BizSpark™ is a global program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage startups by providing key resources when they need it the most.

EnContext Media’s new, patented advertising medium merges both video and Internet technologies by identifying items in a video frame and encoding these objects with advertising opportunities. Each encoded item becomes clickable as it travels through the frames of the video, and when a viewer clicks on that item, a request is sent to a database with the code corresponding to that particular item. The database matches this request with a link to one or many advertisers and, based on the business rules in place and the viewer’s geographic location, sends back the best possible match in the form of the advertiser’s Web page, or a list of options from which the viewer may select.

EnContext Advertisingä has commercial, informational and educational applications since the destination URL for any given item may be encoded to call a great variety of Web pages.

EnContext Advertisingä (www.encontextadvertising.com) is patent pending and is developed by EnContext Media, LLC.

For more information, contact Jean Touboul at 561-306-8300 or via e-mail at jeantouboul@encontextmedia.com.

Bill Frogarmeni, a reporter on staff at the prestigious South Florida Business Journal mentions EnContext Advertising as an example of an upcoming startup that may become part of EDC in Boca Raton

Click Here to read extract of the article

EnContext Advertising was invited to present at Tech Venture inaugural conference on November 16 in Tampa, Florida. The conference’s objective is to introduce emerging companies in a variety of industries as well as offer advices from experts. This year, Tech Venture’s speakers include Tom Wallace, Barry Shevlin and Brent Britton. We were very excited to present our concept, and, for the first time, be able to show a demo of EnContext Advertising.

Click Here to visit the Tech Venture website

EnContext Advertising was one of the new companies invited by Enterprise Development Corp. (EDC) to show its concept at the 12th Annual Emerging Technology Business Showcase (ETBS). This year’s theme was “Celebrating 15 years: Reflecting On Our Past… Creating our Future”. We were very much in our elements in this year’s ETBC since we are introducing EnContext Advertising, the technology that enables existing media advertising to tap into the future today.

Click here to visit EDC website and learn more about their program

EnContext Advertising is selected by Microsoft BizSpark to be part of this start-up virtual incubator.

Microsoft® BizSpark™ is a global program designed to help accelerate the success of early stage startups by providing key resources when they need it the most:

Watching TV or WEB-TV? See Cute Purse? Click on Purse and Buy It(TM)

EnContext Advertising Brings Instant Gratification to Viewers and Considerable Revenue to Advertisers

Palm Beach, FL, December 2, 2009 – A new advertising medium for film and video has the potential to bring in billions in revenue for advertisers and producers with the introduction of EnContext Advertisingä.

EnContext Advertisingä offers a commercial-free solution that allows consumers to purchase or get instant information on products or services they see as they watch a program on WEB-TV, broadcast television or on video. Advertisers will be able to promote products to consumers in a highly contextual environment allowing viewers to purchase an item they see in their favorite sitcom, reality show, live sports event, or movie the instant they want it.

These are not ads or pop up banners as currently established. Consumers will watch their favorite shows as usual but, for example, if a woman notices her favorite TV star carrying a cute bag, the viewer can point and click on the item and be taken instantly to the bag manufacturer’s Web site to purchase it.

“Television viewers often complain about intrusive advertising such as commercial breaks and the same is true for WEB-TV — people have to sit through ads, banners and pop-ups,” says Jean Touboul, CEO of EnContext Media. “EnContext Advertisingä gives viewers a choice by allowing them to choose which product or item they want to buy or learn more about. Advertisers love EnContext because they know that those who click on their ads are highly motivated buyers. In addition, since every click is tracked, advertisers can evaluate the performance of their advertising campaigns very effectively.”

The company has created prototypes of the system to show potential advertisers and film/video producers how EnContext Advertising works and brings in revenue.

EnContext was selected this week as Microsoft BizSpark’s startup of the day, promoting the company’s solution and featuring an interview with EnContext’s CEO Jean Touboul.

EnContext Advertising also was featured in November at the Tech Venture Conference 2009 in Tampa Bay, Florida, and was a premier presenter at the 12th Annual Emerging Technology Business Showcase in Deerfield Beach, Florida.­­­­

About EnContext Media

EnContext Media’s new, patented advertising medium merges both video and Internet technologies by identifying items in a video frame and encoding these objects with advertising opportunities. Each encoded item becomes clickable as it travels through the frames of the video, and when a viewer clicks on that item, a request is sent to a database with the code corresponding to that particular item. The database matches this request with a link to one or many advertisers and, based on the business rules in place and the viewer’s geographic location, sends back the best possible match in the form of the advertiser’s Web page, or a list of options from which the viewer may select.

EnContext Advertisingä has commercial, informational and educational applications since the destination URL for any given item may be encoded to call a great variety of Web pages.

EnContext Advertisingä (www.encontextadvertising.com) is patent pending and is developed by EnContext Media, LLC.

For more information, contact Jean Touboul at 561-306-8300 or via e-mail at jeantouboul@encontextmedia.com.

G.E.’s decision to sell NBC Universal reflects the shifts in fortune that are battering the media business, especially network television. The broadcast division of NBC Universal could lose big, a remarkable downturn for a network that had earned roughly $400 million in past years.

Problem: the Internet has fractured audiences and few viable business models have emerged for the distribution of content online.

What the new Comcast venture looks like: Comcast will contribute its own cable channels, which include Versus, the Golf Channel and the E Entertainment channel, and a modest amount of cash, about $5 billion, to a joint venture in which it will own 51 percent. G.E. will retain a 49 percent stake, and would likely reduce its ownership over several years and in theory, Comcast-NBC Universal will be a company separate from Comcast’s cable assets.

Some interesting possibilities could be:

It could use its power in film, with Universal Studios, to expand video-on-demand offerings by altering movie release windows to make movies available on demand the same day they are released on DVD.

It could use its power in film, with Universal Studios, to expand video-on-demand offerings by altering movie release windows to make movies available on demand the same day they are released on DVD to all active basic cable subscribers that buy HBO and SHOWTIME or purchase at least 1 on-demand film per month.

Buying Netflix: Stream movies through this service coupling subscription on cable with certain consumer benefits through Netflix, i.e. day and date with DVD or perhaps even a scheme to stream films just released in theaters 1 time only to ‘frequent flyers’ or renters of the service, but at a big ticket price on-demand.

But here is the real reason why Comcast is buying NBC: TV Everywhere. “TV Everywhere” model, which promises to give their subscribers exactly what they want: anytime, anywhere access to any TV content. They have to do this to keep their customer bases and compete. In a TV Everywhere world, the role of the multi-system operator is diminished. Your cable or satellite TV provider will no longer be your only (legal) means of watching the current episode of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. In a TV Everywhere world, Curb Your Enthusiasm will be available on literally thousands of websites and mobile apps, as long as you can authenticate yourself as a paying cable or satellite subscriber with the HBO package. Comcast risks becoming a “dumb pipe,” providing little more than bandwidth. To avoid that fate, Comcast recognizes that it needs to move upstream and own or control the content itself, thus NBC/Uni. More to the point, a consumer COULD elect to turn off his cable basic subscription and turn around and subscribe to TVE thereby allowing him to see his basic cable channels but on his PC, phone etc. Now that Comcast owns content and some of those channels it can monetize the consumer whether or not they subscribe to the cable in the house or not.

In a TV Everywhere world, it will be a terribly crowded space, with a ton of noise and websites with similar content. The sites that perform best will be the ones that create the best user experience for viewing TV content – and right now, that’s Hulu ( and who knows, maybe Clicker ?). If Comcast buys NBC, Comcast will own about 1/3 of Hulu, providing an ideal launching pad for TV Everywhere it has a very passionate and loyal audience.

This online world is a very splintered and exceedingly difficult to measure, especially when you are asked to sell advertising against the content. The real problem is a lack of tools to properly bring the right economy of scale to online which equates to buying media in a traditional way. Therefore, instead of trying to monetize a cable channel online one by one, with TVE, you can monetize the whole package in a similar way that cable already is monetized. Its a structure already understood by the consumer now. Bundle a bunch of cable channels for a small monthly fee and let consumers have access to them everywhere, including home or NOT.

The Internet while very big, does not yet command the equivalent kind of media rates and fees that Cable or Network gets today. No agreed upon means of measurement exists to give advertisers a definitive ‘rate card’ for the internet. There is no Nielsen for the web, (yet, although it was announced yesterday by Nielsen that eventually, there will be). comScore, even though they do a great job with data can’t extrapolate the data to equate to viewers ‘watching a TV set’. Making the comparison when placing an ad on a video online and the same ad on TV impossible to compare TODAY. Hulu streamed 855 million video stream last month. What does that really mean? Did all 855m viewers who watched those streams watch ALL of each stream or were many of them counted as they ‘surfed’ through Hulu clicking on various videos for a few minutes or even seconds – were they counted among the 855m? What does 855m stream equate to in Nielsen ratings/eyeballs? Does anyone really know? Nielsen despite its shortcomings has some measurable statistics for this, but its still not apples to apples.

Furthermore, Hulu still has a long way to go to prove it can monetize its audience as effectively as its parent companies can do with programs viewed on-air. Why? Its uniques are flat. Hulu’s uniques are scarcely better than they were 6 months ago. Unless the unique number jumps in the coming months (which I doubt it will), Hulu will have to meaningfully enhance its value proposition to grow its audience (can you say “Hulu to-the-TV-via-Xbox/Roku/Apple TV/etc?”) says Will Richmond of Videonuze (Nov 30^th 2009). He goes on to ask “What happens to Fox’s programs on Hulu should Rupert Murdoch expand his focus beyond his newspapers’ online content going premium? What if Disney decides to launch its own subscription services? What if Google or Microsoft or Netflix (or someone else) decides to open their wallet and make a bigger play in premium online video?” And, these questions become somewhat less mysterious now that Comcast has bought NBC/Universal.TV will NEVER be the same again.

Comcast chart above courtesy of VideoNuze.com

Posted via email from williamsager’s posterous

The MSM feeds us all the Michael Jackson, party crashing crap we can handle , but do they ever do any real news.  If it don’t bleed or slime we don’t know of it.  One of my favorite bloggers Juan Cole takes on the problem and gives you one solution.