Microsoft slowly claws back a bit of share from Google, as well as Yahoo, its partner to be. But despite a huge ad blitz, there are probably more than a few people who have no idea that Bing is a “decision engine,” or what that means.
Midway through next year, Google’s $900 million, 3.5-year search advertising deal with News Corp. and MySpace expires. What are the odds that Rupert Murdoch’s social network gets anything close to that with a new contract? Very, very low.
Just like everyone else who racked up lots of loans when the banks were giving cash with almost no strings attached, big media have a debt hangover. Clear Channel, whose private equity owners took on $17 billion in debt to acquire it last year, is getting hammered by investors who think it won’t be able to pay that money back. Next up for scrutiny: CBS, which has a big debt payment due next year and not that much cash on hand.
Glad to see that Google had a decent quarter. But things look grim for everyone else who makes a living selling ads, and there’s plenty of lousy news to come. Just ask Meredith Corp., which says its local TV ads are down 40 percent this quarter.
I keep hearing that 2009 ad plans are in stasis until the end of the holiday shopping season, making any prognostication about next year even more of a guess than usual. But the analysts at Barclays figure they’ve got enough data to revise earlier projections they made this fall. You won’t be surprised to hear they’ve become more negative.
AOL boasts that its traffic rose yet again in October. In the old days, where eyeballs trumped everything else, that’d be great. But today Internet businesses get evaluated on revenue, and those results aren’t anything to boast about.
Online search advertising (i.e., Google) is supposed to be the media business that’s most resistant to an economic slowdown: It’s targeted, cost-effective, measurable, etc. All true. But a lousy economy is a lousy economy, and even Google isn’t impervious. So says Barclay analyst Douglas Anmuth, who has just cut his estimates for the search giant.
Peter Kafka has been covering media and technology since 1997, when he joined the staff of Forbes magazine. Most recently, he has been the managing editor of the tech and media Web site, Silicon Alley Insider. Read more »
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