CMO Today: Yahoo Signals It's Open to a Sale
February 03 2016 - 8:21AM
Dow Jones News
By Mike Shields
YAHOO'S ALTERNATIVES: Well, it looks like the posturing is over.
Yahoo has been brushing off sale talk for a while despite mounting
pressure from investors, claiming the embattled portal would go
ahead with its 'reverse spin' plans. But now Yahoo has announced
plans to seek "strategic alternatives," reports The Wall Street
Journal. Translation: ok fine, we're open to a sale. So it's time
for the media to roll out the usual list of potential buyers--
Verizon Communications? AT&T? Private Equity? For the sake of
Yahoo's advertising and media partners, the company needs to get
this settled fast. But buyer beware. We knew Yahoo's core display
ad business was declining, but yesterday the company took a $4.5
billion write-down for the fourth quarter, which was blamed partly
on Tumblr (which failed to reach its $100 million revenue goal in
2015). Not to mention Yahoo's ongoing leadership exodus.
PATCHED UP: Tim Armstrong may have had the right idea and just
the wrong execution. Not only is the AOL CEO's former pet project
Patch back from the dead, but it's also growing and profitable. How
did this happen? When AOL sold a majority stake in Patch to Hale
Global two years ago, the turnaround specialist sought to
completely rethink Patch's bloated business model, reports CMO
Today. "Our job was to fix what made this such a money-losing
business," said Hale Global CEO Charlie Hale. For starters, that
meant cutting Patch's staff down from 540 under AOL to under 100.
Now, Patch claims it's pulling in more traffic than it did during
the AOL era with one-tenth as many editors. To be fair, Patch
doesn't have the breadth and depth it once had (much of its
audience is concentrated in the Northeast). But the fact that it's
still breathing when so many had given up on local digital content
is rather remarkable. AOL still owns a minority stake in Patch. And
to his credit Mr. Armstrong says he's been impressed with Hale
Global, calling them "excellent operators."
DEAR DIARIES: There is an uncomfortable fact in the TV business
that many know about but don't like to discuss. It's that fact that
in some markets, Nielsen still tracks TV viewership using paper
diaries. The New York Times looks at the pressure on the
measurement company to up its game, especially as rivals Rentrak
and comScore promise to become a formidable tag-team following
their merger. Now, it's easy to exaggerate how vulnerable Nielsen
is. The diaries are only in local markets, not a huge part of the
business. And when it comes to measuring national viewership, the
company's panel of roughly 41,000 households still provides the
ratings currency for some $70 billion in ad spending. Meanwhile,
Nielsen has a new "total audience" metric coming that it says will
capture viewing streaming and mobile viewing. The thing is, it has
been promising such advances for a while and now its rivals could
try to make a better mousetrap.
REALLY SHORT FORM: Lots of media companies are experimenting
with original video content that is designed to be 'native' to
specific social outlets. But Instagram is producing something
really customized: Shield 5, an original scripted show that will
consist entirely of 15-second videos on the Facebook-owned
platform, reports Fortune. Somewhere, Michael Eisner is smiling.
The former Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive oversaw the launch of a
digital production company, Vuguru, which in 2007 rolled out "Prom
Queen," a teen-aimed soap opera that featured 90-second episodes.
The just-getting-its-first-look-at-smartphones world wasn't ready
for that show--but the Instagram/Snapchat-loving generation seems
just right.
Elsewhere
Comcast added 89,000 video customers in the fourth quarter,
compared with 6,000 in the prior-year quarter [ WSJ]
IBM's artificial intelligence software, Watson, helped Kia
identify which social media influencers to enlist to help promote
this year's Super Bowl ad [ CMO Today]
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel said he is still wary of going too far
with digital ad targeting on the popular social app but is
interested in exploring commerce opportunities [ AdExchanger]
The Intercept says it has found several instances of a former
reporter fabricating stories published on its site [ The
Intercept]
Amazon plans to open hundreds of physical stores [ WSJ]
Harper's Magazine has fired its editor-in-chief after just three
months on the job [ New York Times]
The $5 million an advertiser might spend on a Super Bowl ad
could go a long way in digital media [ Digiday]
Meredith Corp. says it is looking to make possible acquisitions
in the TV or digital media sectors after its attempted merger with
Media General went south [ New York Post]
Time Inc. is launching Motto, a new content website aimed at
young women [ CMO Today]
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 03, 2016 08:06 ET (13:06 GMT)
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