AABA Altaba Inc

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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Write to Mike Shields at mike.shields@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 03, 2016 08:06 ET (13:06 GMT)

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