Traditional media is in the throes of transformation, seeking to diversify beyond legacy models and serve customers with an array of new products and services. At BIA/Kelsey’s Leading in Local conference, Gannett Digital Marketing Services President and CEO Vikram Sharma reintroduced the monolith as something much more – a full-fledged “digital marketing services company” buttressed …

As I argued in a recent TV Technology article, “It’s inescapable that today’s video consumer expects cross-platform access to content. If that’s where the audience and advertisers are, then broadcasters need to be there, as well. What broadcasters need to do is create a positive experience for their audiences and advertisers as seamlessly as possible, …

For traditional media companies with legacy businesses to harvest, mobile platforms offer a critical opportunity to forward-shift toward tangible growth. At MLM SF, digital media executives and vendor partners shared a variety of actionable mobile successes that indicate that, at long last, mobile’s time has arrived.
Media can deploy effective mobile solutions to clients big and …

Elevation Partners‘ Roger McNamee — friend of Bono’s, the lead in the failed resurrection of Palm and a winner in the Facebook IPO to the tune of $1.5 billion — is known as a contrarian thinker. He did not disappoint in a keynote address yesterday at the San Diego Venture Group’s annual summit.
His main …

Nielsen reported yesterday that ad spending on national cable networks has caught up to where their broadcast network brethren now stand.
That’s a big acknowledgement that the investments in programming and promotion that have been made by the content providers have shown an excellent return. Cable has always suffered the “little brother” syndrome in …

What does a popular urban magazine franchise tailored to the digital world look like? New York Media’s GM of Digital, Michael Silbmerman, shared his vision at ILM East 2012, and it includes healthy doses of synergy (with the core print product), utility and verticalization.
The website and related digital properties still drive much of their identity …

Headlines in the media world have been full of analysis about Barry Diller’s eight-figure investment in Aereo. 
Aereo plans to offer MDU (multiple dwelling unit) residents in New York City the chance to view their local, over-the-air TV stations over the Internet and on their IP-connected TV sets, tablets and mobile devices.  Aereo follows along on …

We have been meeting with a number of media salespeople, tracking articles about the transformation of the sales process, developing a number of theories specific to transforming the media sales process plus what is needed to support the transformation. We will be exploring a number of these theories and observations supported by sales rep interviews …

The news came over the wires this weekend  that Bob Pittman has been named as the new CEO for radio and outdoor giant Clear Channel Communications. Pittman, who is the opening keynoter at ILM West Dec. 12 in San Francisco, steps up from Chairman, Entertainment and Media Platforms.  Pittman is the first CEO of Clear …

The session Spectrum: The Air We Breathe at the NAB Convention last week examined the issue of the proposed incentive auction for some of the spectrum now used by local TV stations. The question-and-answer format between the audience and my fellow panelists — Bill Lake (FCC), Alan Frank (Post-Newsweek), John Hane (Pillsbury Winthrop) and Jane …

One of the big themes in local this year is the increased amount of localization in national ad campaigns. We saw it with U-Haul and Progressive Insurance a couple of weeks ago on our podium at ILM East in Boston. Those have been mostly search plays. But we also see it with display ads on …

When it was launched in 2004, Gannett’s Planet Discover was a pioneer in local search and later, the development of local online marketplaces. But it has lately had a lower profile, dating to a temporary mid-2007 mandate to focus on Gannett newspaper and broadcast properties. That mandate ended in mid-2008, and the company has since …

Local and vertical content is eagerly sought by national players, from The New York Times to Yahoo, MSN/Bing to AOL. Now, Thompson Reuters is leading the local, vertical charge for wire services.
In an aggressive push to lure traditional U.S. media away from the Associated Press, the information industry giant is moving into aggregation with Reuters America, striking …

At ILM:10, Pandora’s Cheryl Lucanegro (senior VP of ad sales) and Brian Mikalis (VP of performance sales) made it very clear where the popular Internet radio service is headed next — to your car dashboard.
The company is leveraging two fundamental insights in driving (pardon the pun) its migration into the vehicle: More than 50 percent …

If the first two decades of the local Internet were primarily about on-boarding traffic, then CBS Local Digital Media President Ezra Kucharz foresees that the next decade will be about “opening doors to consumers, getting them the information they want, and getting them to transact.”
This philosophy drives CBS Local’s digital philosophy across its 28 owned-and-operated …

Local media brands continue to look for ways to populate their sites with local bloggers and Twitterers. In return, they provide them with a bigger platform.
The latest to jump into the game is NBC Universal, which paidContent reports has developed “The 20” to highlight selected Twitterers in all 10 of the markets where it has …

High school sports have been the centerpiece of many hyperlocal efforts. They bring to the table highly passionate fans, families and players in the hard-to-reach 12- to 17-year-old demo.
But the economics of school-by-school efforts don’t always work, whether for branding, region-wide advertisers and advertising sales, production needs, data and content acquisition, or site infrastructure. Just …

The latest attempt to make hyperlocal a sustainable reality came today with Allbritton Communications’ launch of TBD.com, a hyper metro site for the Washington, D.C., area. Allbritton, which has sunk “under $5 million” into the project to date, hopes it will grab hold of the D.C. audience in the same way that its Politico has …

Everyone is fighting for a better, more cost-efficient way of producing content for Web sites. But is the so-called “content mill” search optimized approach of a Demand Media, Associated Content or Examiner.com the only way to achieve this?
Whether you agree or disagree with the characterization of these companies (we largely disagree), alternatives are out there. …

FreshGuide.com, which includes the BookFresh.com scheduling service, has been acquired by Sugar Inc., a diversified media company that includes a TV network and programming aimed at women, as well as ShopStyle, a “social shopping service.”
FreshGuide.com founder Ryan Donahue says the acquisition will enable the company to expand beyond its four existing markets — San Francisco, …