Weekly Spots

POSTED: November 15, 2010

(White Plains, NY) November 15, 2010 - According to Arbitron, Pittsburgh, PA is the 25th largest radio market with a population of 1,988,200, dropping from 24th one year ago.

• Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by Gen. John Forbes in honor of a British statesman Sir William Pitt. It was incorporated as a borough in 1794.

• Steel production began by 1875, when Andrew Carnegie founded the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works in Braddock, which eventually evolved into the Carnegie Steel Company. Both my grandfathers worked in the Jones & Laughlin Steel Company on the South Side of Pittsburgh.

• Pittsburgh is a headquarter kind of town: Alcoa, Inc., Allegheny Technologies, American Eagle Outfitters, Dicks Sporting Goods, GNC Corporation, H. J. Heinz, Mellon Financial, PNC Financial, PPG Industries and WESCO are just some of the top companies that call the ‘burgh home.

• Museums include the Andy Warhol Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Frick Art & Historical Museum.

• Many universities: University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie-Mellon, Duquesne University, Point Park University, and Robert Morris University.

• Famous people who grew up around the city: Andy Warhol, Charles Bronson, Jeff Goldblum, Kurt Angle, Michael Keaton and Dennis Miller.

• Pittsburgh is home to the first commercial radio station in the United States, KDKA, which went on the air in 1920. Pittsburgh also claims the first non-commercial television station WQED, which produced the highly successful children’s TV show: Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

• The Pittsburgh area has also produced more professional quarterbacks than any other region: Johnny Unitas, Dan Marino, Marc Bulger, George Blanda, Jim Kelly, Joe Montana and of course, Joe Namath.

• Pittsburgh has been called the "City of Champions" for its success in sports: The Pittsburgh Steelers have played in 7 Super Bowls and have 6 championships.

• MLB’s Pirates have won five World Series and NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins have won the Stanley Cup twice. Pittsburgh has no NBA team.

PITTSBURGH SPOT TEN

In the Steel City last week, the #1 radio advertiser was WPXI-TV 11 with 969 spots. GEICO was #2 airing 723 spots, while HIGHMARK BLUE CROSS BLUE SHIELD was #3 with 513 spots. THE HOME DEPOT came in #4 running 462 commercials and GIANT EAGLE ran 452 spots to come in #5. MATTRESS DISCOUNTERS PENNSYLVANIA was #6 with 414 spots, while ESPN jumped from #28 to #7 airing 372 announcements. MCDONALD’S was #8 with 371 spots and WPGH-TV 53 was #9 with 316 spots. VERIZON was #10 with 312 spots.

INSURANCE PROVIDERS SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

GEICO was #1 in the nation with 45,302 spots. PROGRESSIVE was #2 running 12,623 spots on the radio, while MEDICARE (US Dept. of Health & Human Services) ran 8,574 spots to come in #3. FARMERS clocked in at #4 with 6,391 spots and ALL STATE was #5 airing 5,576 spots. MATRIX DIRECT was #7 with 3,030 commercials, while NATIONWIDE was on your side at #8 with 2,715 spots. SAFEAUTO INSURANCE was #9 running 2,202 spots and USAA INSURANCE was #10 with 2,079 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

#1 once again was GEICO with 45,302 spots. THE HOME DEPOT was #2 running 39,356 spots, while MCDONALD’S was #3 with 27,193 commercials. FORD LINCOLN MERCURY was #4 with 20,719 spots and coming in #5 was the HD DIGITAL RADIO ALLIANCE with 20,413.

Posted: November 15, 2010

Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, almost always referred to by the letters: ESPN, is 24-hour cable television network dedicated to broadcasting and producing sports-related programming.

Founded by Bill Rasmussen and his son Scott Rasmussen and launched on September 7, 1979 under the direction of Chet Simmons, the network's President and CEO, became the most powerful force in sports TV in the world.

In 1984, ABC, Inc bought ESPN. In 1987, they began broadcasting NFL games on Sunday night. In 1989, they started broadcasting Major League Baseball games.

In 1990, Hearst Corporation acquired 20% of the network. In 1991, they started ESPN radio network. By 1997, ESPN was big enough to swallow one of its competitors, Classic Sports Network then rebrands it as ESPN Classic.

In 2003, ESPN HD was introduced. On June 11, 2010, ESPN launched ESPN 3D, United States' first 3DTV channel. The first programming in the format was the 2010 World Cup.

ESPN's signature show, SportsCenter, debuted with the network and aired its 30,000th episode on February 11, 2007.

ESPN broadcasts primarily from its original studios in Bristol, Connecticut. The network also operates offices in New York City; Seattle, Washington; Charlotte, North Carolina.

ESPN is a joint venture between (80% Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Corporation (20%). The network includes more than a dozen channels, magazine and web site that carry the ESPN brand.

They also attempted to break into the restaurant business with a chain of sports-themed outlets known as ESPN Zone. These included arcades, TV studios, and radio studios but are not formally owned by ESPN, but franchised and run by different companies. Recently, some of the units have been closed due to poor performance.

As of 2009, ESPN had 5,700 employees. ESPN's ad revenues are generally above $400 million with an average 30-second spot going for $9,446.

Obviously when you are world’s most successful cable sports channel, you would certainly use cable to get your message out. ESPN ran 978,352 spots on Cable in the last 12 months. There biggest month was October with 111,515 spots. October has not only the World Series, but the NFL was in full gear then, as well.

On the Radio, ESPN ran 361,483 spots in the last 12 months, with the biggest blast coming all the way back, back, back in last November with 47,504.

TV doesn’t seem to be their fast ball with only 13,860 spots in the last 12 months.

POSTED: November 15, 2010

Royal Dutch Shell, commonly known simply as Shell, is a multinational petroleum company of Dutch and British origins. One of the six "supermajors" (vertically integrated private sector oil exploration, natural gas, and petroleum product marketing companies), Shell was listed as the world's largest corporation for 2009 by Fortune. The company's headquarters are in The Hague, Netherlands, with its registered office in London (Shell Centre).

The company's main business is the exploration for and the production, processing, transportation, and marketing of hydrocarbons (petroleum and natural gas). Shell also has a significant petrochemicals business (Shell Chemicals), and an embryonic renewable energy sector developing wind, hydrogen and solar power opportunities.

The Royal Dutch Shell Group was created in February 1907 when the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and the "Shell" Transport and Trading Company Ltd of the United Kingdom merged their operations– a move largely driven by the need to compete globally with the then predominant US petroleum company, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil.

In 1919, Shell took control of the Mexican Eagle Petroleum Company and in 1921 formed Shell-Mex Limited which marketed products under the "Shell" and "Eagle" brands in the United Kingdom. In 1932, partly in response to the difficult economic conditions of the times, Shell-Mex merged its UK marketing operations with those of British Petroleum to create Shell-Mex and BP Ltd, a company that traded until the brands separated in 1975.

In November 2004, following a period of turmoil caused by the revelation that Shell had been overstating its oil reserves, it was announced that the Shell Group would move to a single capital structure, creating a new parent company to be named Royal Dutch Shell plc, with its principal listing on the London Stock Exchange and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

Shell has 102,000 employees and in 2009 delivered $12.5 billion in profits.

BP has transformed from a local oil company into a global energy group.

Their history begins more than 100 years ago with the adventurer William Knox D'Arcy, who, in 1908, discovered oil in Persia (now Iran). This was the first oil discovery in the Middle East. In April 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company was incorporated. This company was the predecessor of BP.

In 1935, after Persia became Iran, the company renamed itself Anglo-Iranian Oil. After World War II, the company became the focus of discontent among Iranians, who charged that the dividends they received from oil production were too small. In 1951, under the leadership of Mohammed Mossadeq, Iran nationalized its oil industry.

This led to a 1953 coup that resulted in Mossadeq's overthrow. The British government and the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency were implicated in the coup, which some critics charged was undertaken in part to protect Anglo-Iranian Oil's profits in the region.

By 1954, Anglo-Iranian Oil was renamed British Petroleum and resumed oil production in Iran. BP continued its Iranian operations until 1979, when the regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini confiscated the company's assets in Iran.

The situation in Iran demonstrated to BP leadership the hazards of depending on one country for its oil. During the early 1950s, BP expanded into other parts of the Middle East, as well as Canada, Africa, and Europe. BP became a key player in Alaska after the discovery of oil at Prudhoe Bay. It further expanded its activities in the United States when it acquired marketing and refining capacity from Atlantic Richfield (Arco).

For years, the British government had owned a stake in BP. This changed in the 1980s under the privatization policy of then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. By 1987, the British government had sold its holdings in BP.

Under the leadership of Lord Browne as its chief executive, BP became larger due to a series of major acquisitions. In 1998, BP merged with Amoco, creating a new company, BPAmoco. This new name was short-lived, however, and the company was renamed BP in 2000. That year, BP acquired two other companies: Arco and Burmah Castrol.

BP's growth over the years has not been without its problems. In 2005, an explosion at a BP refinery near Houston, Texas, killed 15 workers and injured dozens more. BP has since admitted that mismanagement on its part played a role in the disaster.

In 2006, a pipeline leak, resulting from line corrosion, spilled thousands of gallons of oil in Alaska. As a result, BP replaced miles of pipeline and closed leaking wells in the Prudhoe Bay area.

On April 20, 2010, the semi-submersible exploratory offshore drilling rig Deepwater Horizon exploded after a blowout; it sank two days later, killing 11 people. Experts estimate the gusher to be flowing at 35,000 to 60,000 barrels per but is a matter of ongoing debate.

During the disaster, BP CEO Tony Hayward became the target of much of the frustration of those who make their money from the fishing and tourist industries. 146 days after the accident, the relief well permanently killed the exploratory well.

On July 27, 2010, BP confirmed that Bob Dudley would replace Tony Hayward as the company's CEO.

BP employs over 80,000 people and had a net income of $16.5 billion in 2009.

In the last 12 months Shell has run 126,908 spots. BP ran 66,953 spots during the same time, which included the advertising that they did after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP ran most of these commercials in July (10,959), August (20,849) and September (12,169), dropping back to levels of 1,000 ads after they capped the well. To put this in perspective, Shell’s biggest months were in January (23,017), Februrary (20,810) and March (23,517).

On the Radio, Shell ran 64,506 ads in the last 12 months, whereas BP ran 142,585 spots in the same period. Shell ran only 42.5% as many spots as BP that ran the greatest number of spots during their crisis: 24,359 spots in July, 25,487 spots in August and 23,572 in September, then dropping off to 19,050 spots in October.

On TV, BP ran 50,883 spots against Shell’s 6,940 spots. The summer certainly was the time that BP was trying to get its message out: June (8,156), July (8,877), August (12,116) and September (8,632). Last month, they dropped to 1,677 spots.

Posted: November 15, 2010

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