Weekly Spots

POSTED: February 6, 2012

(White Plains, NY) February 6, 2012 – According to Arbitron, Indianapolis, IN is the 40th largest radio market with the population of 1,427,500.

• Indianapolis was selected as the new state capital in 1820. Jeremiah Sullivan, a judge of the Indiana Supreme Court, invented the name Indianapolis by joining Indiana with polis, the Greek word for city; literally, Indianapolis means "Indiana City".

• By the turn of the century, Indianapolis had become a heavy automobile manufacturer, rivaling the likes of Detroit. With roads leading out of the city in all directions, Indianapolis, being the center of the state of Indiana earned its motto "The Crossroads of America."

• The Indianapolis 500 Race is the biggest annual event held in this city every Memorial Day. The raceway is nick-named the “brickyard” because the racing surface at Indy was once completely made of bricks. All the bricks have been removed, except for one yard of bricks at the start/finish line.

• Yesterday another event took place in Indianapolis, Super Bowl® XLVI (46th annual) where the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots by the score of 21 to 17 in a real nail-biter.

• Indianapolis is the International headquarters of the pharmaceutical corporation Eli Lilly and Company, wireless distribution & logistics provider Brightpoint, health insurance provider Wellpoint, Roche Diagnostics, Thomson SA, Conseco, Interactive Intelligence, First Internet Bank of Indiana, Peerless Pump Company, CP Morgan and Dow AgroSciences.

• Monument Circle is in the shadow of Indiana's tallest skyscraper, the Chase Tower. Up until the early 1960s, Indianapolis zoning laws stated that no building could be taller than the Soldiers and Sailors Monument.

• Professional sports are big in Indy: Indianapolis is home to the Indianapolis Colts of the NFL, the Indiana Pacers of the NBA, the Indiana Fever of the WNBA and in the USHL, the Indiana Ice.

• Famous people from Indianapolis include: actors Jack Steve Burton, Vivica Fox, James Dean, Brendan Fraser and Steve McQueen;bank robber John Dillinger; singer Babyface; jazz great Wes Montgomery; TV personalities Jane Pauley and David Letterman; and former Vice President, Dan Quayle.

INDIANAPOLIS SPOT TEN

The #1 radio advertiser in Indianapolis was the SHANE COMPANY with 816 spots aiming at the Valentine’s Day crowd. DISTINCTIVE DIAMONDS was #2 with 685 ads, while HARE CHEVROLET was steady at #8 airing 593 commercials. SUBWAY soared from #21 to #4 with 591 spots and H&R BLOCK stayed at #5 with 551 spots. STATE FARM exploded from #59 up to #6 running 529 ads, while KROGER landed in #7 with 479 spots. QDOBA (restaurant) captured #8 with 462 commercials and REIS-NICHOLS appears in #9 with 449 spots. Coming in #10 in Indy was HHGREGG (appliances) in #10 with 439 spots.

FOOD AND BEVERAGES SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

The #1 radio advertiser in this category was GREEN MOUNTAIN COFFEE with 5,822 spots. DIGIORNO pizza was #2 with 5,461 spots, while COCA-COLA ZERO/RITZ snacked at #3 with 3,858 spots. ECKRICH (meats) sliced into #4 with 2,280 and TABASCO was hot at #5 airing 1,477 spots. TOTINO’S took #6 with 1,244 ads, while LIPTON BRISK boiled up from #8 to #7 airing 913 announcements. EFOODSDIRECT was #8 with 893 spots and SABRA (hummus) was #9 spreading 612 commercials over last week. JOHNSONVILLE (sausage) was #10 running 591 spots.

NATIONAL SPOT TEN

NATIONAL STATISTICS -

Must be the season to think about taxes because we have a new #1 national advertiser on radio last week, and the winner is: H&R BLOCK with 40,033 spots. GEICO drops down to #2 with 39,350 ads, while AUTOZONE moved up from #8 to #3 with 27,745 spots. MCDONALD’S was steady at #4 running 26,872 ads and the NBC TV NETWORK lands in #5 with 25,005 ads on the week leading up to the Super Bowl, which they aired.

Posted: February 6, 2012

Intuit Inc. (NASDAQ: INTU) is a software company, headquartered in Mountain View, California, that creates financial and tax preparation software for small businesses, accountants and individuals.

Their big products include Quicken and TurboTax (and its Canadian counterpart, QuickTax), as well as the small business accounting program QuickBooks.

Intuit has R&D centers in Edmonton, Alberta and Bangalore, India.

Intuit was founded in 1983 by Scott Cook and Tom Proulx and conceived when Scott Cook, whose prior work at Procter & Gamble, helped him realize that personal computers would lend themselves as a replacement for paper-and-pencil based personal accounting.

Cook ran into Tom Proulx at Stanford and the two started Intuit, which initially operated out of a modest room on University Avenue in Palo Alto.

The first version of Quicken was coded in Microsoft's Compiler BASIC for the IBM PC and UCSD Pascal for the Apple II by Tom Proulx. They had many serious competitors, but they managed to survive the 80s.

Intuit struggled financially until they found their formula for success, which revolved around direct marketing campaigns, favorable reviews in industry and consumer magazines and word of mouth from satisfied customers. They focused on usability and customer support.

Although by 1988 Quicken became a best-seller in its market, the company wasn't a major success until the advent of Windows 3.0 in the early 1990s, when sales of Quicken grew more rapidly.

In 1993 Intuit went public and used the proceeds to make a key acquisition: the tax-preparation software company Chipsoft based in San Diego. They became so successful they received a buyout offer from Microsoft in 1995; at this time Intuit's market capitalization reached $2 billion.

The buyout fell through because of Department of Justice scrutiny of Microsoft, who proceeded to launch the program Microsoft Money to compete directly with Quicken.

In response, Intuit launched new web-based products and solutions and put more emphasis on QuickBooks and on TurboTax.

The company made a number of investments around this time. Among others, it purchased a large stake in Excite and acquired Lacerte Software, a Dallas-based developer of tax preparation software used by tax professionals. It also divested itself of its online bill payment service unit and extended and strengthened its partnership with CheckFree.

In 2011, Intuit had revenues of $3.85 billion with a net income of $634 million, which represented an 11.5% sales growth in 2011. They have 8,000 employees.

On Local Cable Intuit is obviously a seasonal advertiser with the focus from January to April (tax time). In the last 12 months Intuit ran 145,406 ads on Cable with the largest outlay in January (2012) at 57,173. Last February 2011, they ran 42,205 spots.

On Radio, Intuit ran 319,406 spots in the last 12 months representing 58.7% of all ads purchased. Biggest month again was January (last month) with 144,221 spots.

On TV, Intuit ran 106,852 spots in the last 12 months with last month getting the lion’s share at 46,299 spots.

POSTED: February 6, 2012

NBC, now called NBCUNIVERSAL, 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 1991 Warren Littlefield took over the reins from Brandon Tartikoff 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 branched out with a new show called Rock Center that airs Wednesday night.

The Sunday political talk show Meet the Press, one of the oldest shows on TV, is the most influential network offering. Although plagued by some bad ratings, they have some highly-acclaimed shows like 30 Rock and The Office.

NBC Universal merged with Comcast last year. Comcast was founded in 1963. As of June 30, 2011, its cable systems served approximately 22.5 million video customers, 17.5 million high-speed Internet customers, and 9.1 million phone customers.

In 2011, Comcast had revenues of $56.6 billion, which represented a 6.1% growth in sales. They have 102,000 employees.

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. In 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 enabled them to deliver on some of 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, Grey’s Anatomy and Dancing with the Stars. ABC TV owns 10 stations and has more than 200 affiliates.

2011 figures show the Walt Disney Company produced revenues of $40.89 billion with net income of $4.81 billion, which represented a 7.4% growth in 2011. They have 156,000 employees.

On Local Cable, NBC-TV is playing hardball. In the last 12 months NBC has run 2,233,740 spots to promote their network, while ABC, not a slouch at all, ran 1,292,781 ads. NBC’s biggest month was last month (January 2012) when they ran 214,966 spots. ABC-TV ran hottest in September with 132,216 spots.

Both companies use to own radio groups, but now they use radio to promote their TV product. ABC-TV ran 357,605 spots in the last 12 months, while NBC cleared 307,201 spots. ABC’s biggest month was last September with 49,119 and NBC also ran hottest in September with 63,351 spots.

TV advertising on TV seems like a pretty logical plan. NBC-TV has a slight advantage with 1,616,319 spots, while ABC-TV ran 1,323,114 spots in the last 12 months. NBC blitzed in the month of December 2011 airing 157,595 spots and ABC most visual last month – January 2012 – with 125,271 ads.

Posted: February 6, 2012

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