Weekly Spots

POSTED: September 13, 2010

(White Plains, NY) September 13, 2010 - According to Arbitron, Louisville, KY is the 54th largest radio market with a population of 960,600. Louisville is Kentucky's largest city. The name is often pronounced far back in the mouth, in the top of the throat. Remember, when Louisville is pronounced, the 's' is always ssilent.

• The settlement that became the City of Louisville was founded in 1778 by George Rogers Clark and is named after King Louis XVI of France.
• In 1803, explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark organized their expedition across America at the Falls of the Ohio in Louisville. The city attributes its early growth to the fact that river boats had to be unloaded and moved downriver before reaching the falls.
• Louisville is famous as the home of "The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports": the Kentucky Derby, the widely watched first race of the Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing. The first Kentucky Derby was held on May 17, 1875, at the Louisville Jockey Club track (later renamed to Churchill Downs).
• Louisville had the first human hand transplant, the first self-contained artificial heart transplant and the development of the first cervical cancer vaccine. Louisville has emerged as a major center for the health care and medical sciences industries.
• Louisville is home to several major corporations and organizations: Brown-Forman Corporation, Hillerich & Bradsby (known for Louisville Slugger baseball bats), Hilliard Lyons (investment firm), Humana, Kindred Healthcare Incorporated, Norton Healthcare, Papa John's Pizza, PharMerica, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Yum! Brands, Inc. (owners of KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silver's and A & W Restaurants).
• One third of all of the bourbon whiskey comes from Louisville.
• Notable residents have included inventor Thomas Edison, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, boxing legend Muhammad Ali, newscaster Diane Sawyer, and writer Hunter S. Thompson.
• Louisville is home to several institutions of higher learning, including the University of Louisville, Bellarmine University, Spalding University and Sullivan University.

LOUISVILLE SPOT TEN

In Louisville last week the #1 radio advertiser was THE KIA STORE with 1,272 spots. CHEVROLET was #2 with 690 spots, while THE HOME DEPOT was #3 airing 580 announcements. GEICO was #4 with 579 spots and SHANE COMPANY was #5 running 484 commercials. Come in at #6 was KROGER with 457 ads, while SAFELITE AUTOGLASS was #7, up from #19, airing 432 spots. HYUNDAI was #8 with 335 ads and SUBWAY was #9 with 332 spots. And in at #10, AUTOZONE ran 331 spots to make the SPOT TEN.

COMPUTERS SOFTWARE & HARDWARE SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

In the category of Computers/Software/Hardware the #1 advertiser in the USA last week was BARRACUDA NETWORKS with 1,791 spots. CYBERDEFENDER was #2 with 1,708 spots, while GOTOMYPC was #3 with 582 spots. NUANCE was #4 with 434 spots and ASCENTIVE was #5, up from #18 with 341 spots. TREND MICRO was #6 with 241 ads, while PENTELEDATA was #7 with 238 commercials. IBM was down from #1 to #8 with 185 spots and GOTOASSIST (Citrix Systems) was #9 airing 166 spots. INTERNETSAFETY.COM was #10 with 152 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

#1 for another week was THE HOME DEPOT running 45,368 commercials. GEICO stayed #2 with 42,545 ads, while SAFELITE AUTOGLASS was #3 with 32,527 spots. MCDONALD’S was #4 with 27,530 spots and coming in #5 was AUTOZONE with 23,331 spots.

Posted: September 13, 2010

Ace Hardware Corporation is a hardware cooperative based in Oak Brook, Illinois, United States.

What began as a small chain of stores established by a group of Chicago-area retailers in 1924 has evolved into the nation’s leading retailer-owned cooperatives. Ace Hardware was named after the Ace fighter pilots of World War I, who were able to overcome all odds.

Its retail network expanded to hundreds of dealers by 1949, when annual sales reached about $10 million.

In 1973, Ace was sold to its retailers, becoming a cooperative which means that each store is independently owned and the dealer-owners are the shareholders in the privately held company. Because it's a co-op and not a franchise, each Ace store looks different.

Ace has placed a new focus on Ace stores exhibiting some similar characteristics with things like core product lines. The “Vision 21” program is an in-company program attempting to a visually brand all stores as Ace Hardware outlets.

In 2005, Ace brought about $13 billion retail sales. Throughout the years, many things have changed. From a few Chicago-area hardware stores, Ace has grown to include more than 4,800 stores in 50 states and 70 countries.

The long-time slogan, “The helpful hardware place” was recently replaced with “The helpful place.” Another change came when their longtime jingle — "Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man" — was modified with the more gender-neutral "folks" replacing "man." Much of their advertising since 1987 features John Madden, a former NFL coach and announcer.

Let’s see what they have been up to in the last 12 months in marketing:

On Cable, Ace Hardware ran 26,747 spots in the last 12 months. They ran no cable ads in the months of January and March, while they ran the most ads in June with 7,704 spots.

On the radio, Ace ran 230,552 ads in the last 12 months with the up-swing coming this spring with 19,383 spots in March, then to 26,481 in April, up to 33,618 in May, then topped in June with 34,996 spots.

On TV, we see the same surge in April and May, but lessening in June, then July. Ace Hardware ran 31,629 spots in the last 12 months on TV. Radio is certainly their place.

POSTED: September 13, 2010

The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox is a TV network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

Since its launch in 1986, Fox has grown from an upstart part-time network to the highest-rated broadcast networks in the coveted 18–49 demographic.

The Fox network began with News Corporation's $250-million purchase of 50 percent of TCF Holdings, the parent company of the 20th Century Fox movie studio. In May 1985, News Corporation agreed to pay $1.55 billion to acquire independent television stations in six major U.S. cities from John Kluge's company, Metromedia. This gave the News Corporation a major-market network base.

They continued their quest by buying up several smaller market TV groups, which helped them grow their network affiliate list faster. But they have grown faster than the big three networks could have ever expected.

In the early 90s, they had some really significant hit TV shows that not only got good ratings, but launched the careers of scores of actors: The X-Files, In Living Color, Ally McBeal, That 70s Show and Married with Children. They also made TV history by launching a whole night of animation TV shows like The Simpsons, King of the Hill and Family Guy.

They lured the NFL away from CBS, and developed a strong group of regional sports channels on cable. FOX Sports produces some 20,000 plus sporting events per year. Fox News, legendary for their political slant uses the slogan “Fair and Balanced” although most critics would call them far to the right.

They continue to air big hit TV shows, like American Idol, 24 and House, a show that NBC Universal created that FOX got away from their own network.

There are 27 stations owned by Fox TV, consisting of 17 Fox stations and 10 MyNetworkTV (a positioning slogan) stations. There are more than 200 My(channel number)TV affiliates nationwide, many used to be part of the UPN network. And there are more than 200 stations affiliated with Fox. Fox TV only provides two hours each night of programming, with all their stations running news or syndicated programming at 10PM local time.

The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) was created in 1943 out of what was called the NBC Blue radio network. In 1940, the FCC decided that broadcasting was dominated by too few companies, so they urged NBC, then owned by RCA, to divest itself of a network. RCA sold the radio network to Edward Noble for $8 Million. Noble owned Life Savers candy and Rexall drug stores. In 1944, he changed the name to American Broadcasting Company and made deals to get call letters WABC away from CBS.

In 1947, in a move that seemed genius, they applied for channel 7 in all their markets, under the assumption that 2-6 would go away. They never did. April 1948, ABC went on the air. ABC running out of money, merged with United Paramount Theaters that was recently spun off from Paramount Studios by court order. Leonard Goldenson, former head of Paramount, became the president of ABC and was able to tap all his studio connections to get top shows to fill his network schedule.

In 1961, they kicked off the ABC Wide World of Sports that gave them a hook and they delivered on some of the most memorable events in sports history throughout the decades. In 1984, they acquired controlling interest in ESPN, which boosted their sports footprint on both cable and over-the-air TV. It also helped them maintain Monday Night Football on an ABC property.

In 1985, Capital Cities broadcast bought ABC and ran it for ten years, until 1996 when the Walt Disney Company bought the giant network. Recently, the ABC radio group has been sold, with Disney keeping the film, studio and TV side of the business.

ABC blockbuster shows include Desperate Housewives, Gray’s Anatomy and Dancing with the Stars. ABC TV owns 10 stations and has more than 200 affiliates.

On Cable, ABC-TV certainly out promotes FOX-TV. ABC ran 1,284,819 ads in the last 12 months, while FOX ran 670,209 spots. FOX-TV’s biggest month was January with 54,683 spots and ABC ran hottest in the month of last September with 139,384 ads.

On the Radio, ABC-TV has a slight edge with 561,047 spots against FOX-TV’s 346,875 ads. The biggest ABC month for radio was last November with 75,207 spots, while FOX-TV’s biggest month was last November with 61,334 spots.

TV promoting itself on TV seems like a no-brainer. ABC-TV ran 1,092,739 spots against FOX-TV with 592,473 ads.

Posted: September 13, 2010

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