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Watch Shelly’s commentary on the GOOGLE (NASD: GOOG)-NBCU (NYSE: GE) advertising deal and how it will affect the way television ad spots are sold.
GOOGLE has begun digitizing newspapers to make them searchable online. The web giant has been scanning microfiche from archives with plans to add the articles to Google News and the individual paper’s site. Google will package searchable articles with ads, and will share revenue with newspaper publishers.
The Justice Department has hired litigation powerhouse Sanford Litvack to investigate GOOGLE’s growing advertising business. The deal is a sign that the government could be cracking down on the GOOGLE-YAHOO (NASD: YHOO) search deal that would account for more than 80% of online search ads. While outsiders are rarely hired by the Justice Department, a similar situation occurred in 1998 when the government brought in David Boes to build an anti-trust case against Microsoft.
FOX (NYSE: NWS) will begin its “Remote Free TV” campaign today with the premiere of Fringe. Fox will package Fringe with roughly half the amount of ads of a typical prime time show, however, those ads cost significantly more than usual. Under the Remote Free TV banner, no ad breaks will contain more than two advertisements.
WILMINGTON, NC is officially broadcasting in Digital. While there have been a few complaints, mainly about setting up set-top converters, the transition has gone smoothly so far.