CMCSA Comcast Corporation

By Mike Shields 

SPOT JUSTICE: Does Comcast throw its weight around so much in the local cable ad sales world that it's not fair to everybody else? That's a question the U.S. Justice Department is looking into, based on a document known as a civil investigative demand that was obtained by The Wall Street Journal. That document says the feds are looking into whether Comcast has created "monopolization or attempted monopolization" in areas where the company has a big local ad footprint. Wait, isn't cable inherently local in a way that no provider can really mess with another company's territory? And why does the government care anyhow? Well, the government was clearly concerned about how much Comcast could potentially dominate this obscure $5 billion ad market when it was exploring a merger with Time Warner--which ultimately never happened. And Comcast doesn't just influence local ad sales in its markets; it also manages "interconnects"--ad sales cooperatives made up of multiple pay TV providers--in 26 of the top 50 TV markets in the country. So it's already more powerful than you might think. The big question is, what does the Justice Department think it's doing with that power?

MAYER REPORT CARD: On Monday, following a string of recent hits, Yahoo took another body blow, as WSJ published an extensive story on how insiders believe Chief Executive Marissa Mayer has misled people on the company's user--and financial--growth. Yesterday, WSJ's Digits dug a little deeper, holding Ms. Mayer's own statements up for their own reality check. And the pattern isn't good, as Ms. Mayer has made more than her fair share of declarations about where Yahoo's business is headed that haven't come to fruition. For example, over the past three years Ms. Mayer has said that Yahoo's display business would grow faster than the general market (not even close) and build Yahoo Screen into a major Web video destination (again, not even close). While there's not necessarily a new revelation here, all of this adds to the perception that Ms. Mayer's leadership has been erratic and her results have been subpar. That will only make it harder for her to try anything else bold going forward--even if that's what the company needs.

ATTENTION SHOPPERS: Retailers have long hoped that they could track how digital advertising impacts real-world sales. But even with the data online advertising provides, that's never been easy. This year, just in time for Black Friday, Google is introducing some new ad targeting tools that gets this brick-and-mortar businesses one step closer, reports Recode. Specifically, using data from mobile searches and apps like Google Maps, Google says it can provide data that will help retailers gauge how people are searching for products while in stores at a given time this holiday season, and tweak their ad targeting and spending accordingly. This will surely anger the privacy police--and probably delight shoppers on the hunt for that hard to find BB-8 droid toy.

EVERYONE GETS AN AD BLOCKER! The topic of ad blocking makes many Web publishers and ad buyers cringe, and many are quietly hoping the topic will go away soon. So why would a top digital ad executive encourage a bunch of industry colleagues to install ad blockers, unless he wanted to commit career suicide? Well, Joe Marchese, president of advanced advertising products at Fox Networks Group, actually thinks that widespread ad blocking would help him and lots of other folks at top media companies long-term, as he writes in a post for CMO Today. Mr. Marchese's provocative theory is that if everybody had ad blockers, yes, there's be some short-term pain, but it would clear out all the lousy, low-performing schlocky Web ads, not to mention all the fraud, and force advertisers and publishers to focus on quality--which would naturally be good for the Foxes of the world. Of course, this scenario is mostly fantasy--until it isn't. Ad blocking is much bigger in Europe, so it's not out of the question that it could swell here. Mr. Marchese's overall point seems to be that digital advertising needs a major overhaul, which most traditional and even digital publishers--especially those selling banner ads for pennies--would tend to agree with.

Elsewhere

The Federal Communications Commission has hired noted digital security expert Jonathan Mayer as the chief technologist in the agency's enforcement bureau [ New York Times]

Amazon is pulling its controversial Nazi-themed ads--tied to the new series "The Man in the High Castle" from New York City subways [ Variety]

Consumer advocacy groups have filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission over some of the ads on YouTube's new kids app [ TechCrunch]

More than 60% of online advertisers say they will move money out of digital outlets that don't offer third-party measurement, according to a new survey from the Association of National Advertisers [ The Drum]

Shorter episodes of "Sesame Street" will land on HBO in January [ CMO Today]

A programming shakeup is in the offing at HLN as the network's top programming executive departs [ CMO Today]

Some retailers are seeing sizable portions of their traffic come from Pinterest [ CMO Today]

The German media giant Axel Springer is taking an ad-blocking company to court [ TechCrunch]

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 25, 2015 07:23 ET (12:23 GMT)

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