Weekly Spots

POSTED: August 2, 2010

(White Plains, NY) August 2, 2010 – According to Arbitron, Memphis, TN is the 49th largest radio market with a population of 1,069,100.

• Memphis is probably known best as the home of Graceland, the king of rock ‘n’ roll, Elvis Presley’s home attracting over 600,000 visitors a year.
• Memphis was founded in 1820 and was named after the ancient capital of Egypt on the Nile River. The cotton economy of the antebellum South depended on the forced labor of large numbers of African-American slaves, and Memphis became a major slave market.
• Tennessee seceded from the Union in June 1861 and Memphis briefly became a Confederate stronghold. Union forces captured Memphis in the Battle of Memphis on June 6, 1862, and the city remained under Union control for the duration of the war. Memphis became a Union supply base and continued to prosper throughout the war
• Memphis grew into the world's largest spot cotton market and the world's largest hardwood lumber market. And today, Memphis serves as the major hub and distribution center for FedEx.
• During the 1960s the city was at the center of civil rights issues, notably the location of a sanitation workers' strike. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968 at the Lorraine Motel.
• At the center of the “Memphis Soul” sound was Stax Records founded in 1957. Along with Stax, many notable blues musicians grew up in and around the Memphis and northern Mississippi area. Memphis musicians include: Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Donald “Duck” Dunn, Aretha Franklin, Booker T. Jones, Aretha Franklin, Justin Timberlake and Maurice White.
• In sports, Memphis is home to several professional sports teams: Memphis Grizzlies of the National Basketball Association, Memphis Redbirds of the Pacific Coast League, a Triple A baseball farm team for the St. Louis Cardinals, Mississippi River Kings, a professional hockey team of the Central Hockey League and the Memphis Panthers, a football team that plays in the North American Football League.
• Other famous people from Memphis: actors, Kathy Bates, Dixie Carter, Morgan Freeman, Fred Thompson and George Hamilton, from the sports, NBA’s Penny Hardaway and MLB’s Tim McCarver.

MEMPHIS SPOT TEN

In Memphis last week the #1 advertiser was SAFELITE AUTOGLASS with 556 ads. STEVE COHEN FOR US CONGRESS was #2 with 481 spots, while FORD LINCOLN MERCURY was #3 with 472 commercials. GEICO was #4 running 468 spots and the HD DIGITAL ALLIANCE was #5 with 387 announcements. KROGER was #6 with 381 spots, while GOSSETT KIA was #7 running 352 spots. TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY was #8, up from #93, with 293 announcements and THE HOME DEPOT was #9 airing 272 spots. GOSSETT HYUNDAI was #10 with 262 spots.

FINANCIAL PRODUCTS & SERVICES SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

In the category of financial products, the #1 advertiser was JOHN CUMMUTA with 4,733 spots pitching his Wealth Building Programs. #2 in the nation was HK TURNAROUND with 1,395 spots. PEACHTREE SETTLEMENT FUNDING was #3 with 1,298 spots, while AUTOMOTIVE LOAN ASSISTANCE was #4 airing 851 announcements. THE LAMPO GROUP was #5 with 807 spots and BANK ON YOURSELF was #6 running 711 commercials. DOLLAR LOAN CENTER was #7 with 578 spots and PEACHTREE PRE-SETTLEMENT FUNDING was #8 with 501 spots. RICH DAD played 412 times to land #9, while REDNESS FINANCIAL was #10 with 375 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

GEICO leaps back into #1 with 48,565 spots. SAFELITTE AUTOGLASS hits #2 with 42,210 ads, while THE HOME DEPOT moves down to #3 with 28,696 commercials. MCDONALD’S was #4 with 25,047 spots and FORD LINCOLN MERCURY was #5 with 24,013 spots. NOTE: HONDA was #6 with 23,606, TOYOTA was #16 with 10,690, Chevrolet was #19 with 8,349 ads. And BP was #24 with 9,163 spots.

Posted: August 2, 2010

Office Depot was founded by three partners: Stephen Dougherty, Pat Sher, and Jack Kopkin in 1986. Their vision was a warehouse-style store for office products where customers could purchase items in bulk for discounted prices.

This concept lead to starting Office Depot, and the company opened its first store in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida in 1986. They have their headquarters in Boca Raton, Florida.

In late 1987, David I. Fuente assumed the post of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the fledging company, and took Office Depot public in 1988.

Office Depot quickly expanded into key U.S. markets. By the end of 1990 Office Depot had 173 stores in 27 states. That same year, Office Depot announced its merger with The Office Club, Inc., becoming the largest office products retailer in North America.

Early 1992 the company acquired H.Q. Office International, Inc., which included the Great Canadian Office Supplies Warehouse chain in western Canada. Growing steadily, the Office Depot also opened new retail stores in Israel and Colombia under international licensing agreements.

In 1998, Office Depot merged with Viking Office Products, a public company and the world's leading direct mail marketer of office products. The addition of Viking to the Office Depot organization not only vastly expanded Office Depot's international presence, but also made the company the leading provider of office products and services in the world.

In early 2005 Office Depot launched a strategic marketing campaign which consisted of new advertising, brand positioning and the reintroduction of the company's famous ‘Taking Care of Business’ tagline. Office Depot next announced its multi-year agreement with NASCAR to become the sport's first-ever Official Office Products Partner.

Today, Office Depot has 41,000 employees and last year posted revenues of $12.14 billion, but showed a loss of $-596.47 million.

Well, in Cable, Office Depot started out with a BANG at the beginning of this year, with 7,872 spots in January and then 6,018 spots in February, then pulled all their Cable advertising so far this year.

In Radio, the picture is brighter, with a big blast last August with 33,107 spots, then another strong flight in January of 34,171 spots. March dropped to 4,180, then to levels under 800 spots since April. We will see if they rebound.

On TV, January and February, as in Cable were big months with nothing since then. The total number of spots run for the last 12 months totaling only 11,141 spots.

POSTED: August 2, 2010

CBS Corporation is a mass media giant that reaches back to the beginning of the broadcast industry. The name is derived from the initials of Columbia Broadcasting System, its former name.

The origins of CBS date back to the creation, on January 21, 1927 in Chicago of the "United Independent Broadcasters" network, established by New York talent agent Arthur Judson. Some of the very first radio shows on CBS were My Favorite Husband Starring Lucille Ball, I love Lucy, Gunsmoke and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Some of the radio shows made the successful translation to TV, while others did not.

In 1939, CBS bought Hytron Labs in order to compete with RCA already broadcasting TV in New York City. CBS also had Columbia Records, which they sold in 1988 to SONY. There was a time when CBS owned the New York Yankees baseball team and also Fender Guitar Company. Always moving and changing with the business currents, CBS divested itself of divisions they felt were not as productive.

Ironically, a small company originally formed to syndicate CBS programming VIACOM, rose up and purchased CBS in 2000 for about $37 Billion. But in 2005, the mega-communications company thought it was best not to be one large company and split themselves in two. CBS focused on the broadcasting side, while Viacom kept certain networks, movie companies and cable channels.

CBS has operations in virtually every field of media and entertainment. In radio: CBS Radio owns 140 radio stations in 31 markets; most of these are in the nation’s top 50 markets. And according to latest figures, CBS made revenues of $13.01 billion with a net income of $226.50 million. They have 25,580 employees.

NBC, now called NBC UNIVERSAL, started as the National Broadcasting Company in New York City's Rockefeller Center. It is sometimes referred to as the Peacock Network because of its logo.

Formed in 1926 by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA), NBC was the first major broadcast network in the United States. In 1986, control of NBC passed to General Electric (GE), with GE's $6.4 billion purchase of RCA.

The famous three-note NBC chimes came about after several years of development. The three note sequence G-E-C was heard first over Atlanta's WSB. The triplet is known by musicians as a second inversion C Major triad. Someone at NBC in New York heard the WSB version of the notes during the networked broadcast of a Georgia Tech football game and asked permission to use it on the national network.

In 1984, the huge success of The Cosby Show led to a renewed interest in sitcoms, while Family Ties and Cheers, both saw their viewership increase from having Cosby as a lead-in. The network also had big hits in the 1985-86 season with The Golden Girls, Miami Vice, Night Court, Highway to Heaven, and Hunter.

In 1991 Warren Littlefield took over the reins from Brandon Tartikoff’s and after losing David Letterman to CBS, some people were counting NBC out. But the peacock came back with hits like Friends, Mad About You, Frasier, ER, Will & Grace and of course, Seinfeld, which put NBC in the driver’s seat for almost a decade.

NBC’s Today show continues to be the biggest morning draw, while the NBC Nightly News; under the watch of Brian Williams has taken the lead, against the CBS experiment with Katie Couric.

The Sunday political talk show Meet the Press, one of the oldest shows on TV, compares to CBS’ SIXTY MINUTES as the most influential network offering.

NBC Universal is in the midst of a merger with Comcast. Presently the FCC is attempting to sort out the merger. NBC Universal has 16,000 employees. Comcast Corporation is the nation's leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services, with 24.4 million cable customers, 14.7 million high-speed Internet customers and 6.1 million Comcast Digital Voice customers and they have 100,000 employees.

NBC TV seems to have a greater investment in Cable to promote their TV shows. With NBC’s 1,893,858 spots on cable in the last 12 months, they tower over CBS that only has 59,072 spots. The biggest months for CBS were September and November, while NBC started biggest January with 195,894 which might have been their ramp up for the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Radio is the step-child to TV and the way the two networks use it is sparingly. NBC ran 239,684 spots in the last 12 months, while CBS, still an owner of radio stations, was a bit more aggressive with 348,828 spots.

Using TV to promote TV is a natural. NBC ran 1,216,054 ads, while CBS hit 1,690,078 in the last 12 months.

Posted: August 2, 2010

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