New specialty channel adds some flava to the Catholic Church
Anyone who thought that The Da Vinci Code changed the public perception of the Catholic church hasn’t see anything yet. Salt & Light Television, the resurrected (pardon the pun) Inner Peace Television Network, was launched nationally last week. It has already featured programming such as pop-music videos with rapping priests and Cooking with Saints, which is hosted by Grano restaurant’s chef Roberto Martella and is filmed on a stained-glass-window-covered set.
The station will operate on a $1.5 million annual budget which will come entirely from a charitable foundation established by the Gagliano family and Gagliano-owned St. Joseph Corporation until advertisers can step in to help lighten the load. According to the network, Salt & Light has no intention of airing traditional commercials during its broadcasts but instead it will provide sponsorship opps for entire programs similar to what has been done for Cooking with Saints. The specialty station is currently offering a free preview.
BBM Media Snapshot: Internet dating
-19% of Canadians using Internet dating are married
– 695,000 Canadians have used Internet dating in the past year
– 42% of those using Internet dating are 25 to 34 years old
– Males and females are pretty evenly represented – 55% male versus 45% female
-19% of Internet daters are actually married or living common law
– Of the married Internet daters more are male (57%), but females are not far behind (43%)
– Internet dating continues to grow in Canada and is up by 150,000 new daters since last year (Fall 2003)
– In terms of yesterday exposure, the top four media for reaching Internet daters are: radio (90%), TV (86%), Internet (82%) and daily papers (46%).
Source: BBM RTS Canada Fall ’03/Spring ’04
The preceding information is from BBM RTS, a syndicated consumer-media survey of over 55,000 Canadians, conducted twice a year by BBM Canada. For more information contact Craig Dorning of BBM Canada: cdorning@bbm.ca.
ComBase Market Focus: Nova Scotia (Province)
– 68% of adults report reading any edition of a community newspaper in Nova Scotia; 70% of women and 66% of men report the same
-53% of adults report reading any edition of a daily newspaper; only 57% of women and 48% of men report the same
– 88% of those who exclusively read any edition of a community newspaper and not a daily, own their own homes
Source: ComBase 2003-2004 Study
ComBase, the Community Newspaper Database, is a syndicated consumer-media survey of more than 400 Canadian markets that provides consistent and accurate, market-by-market information to assist in the buying and selling of community newspaper advertising space.
It is an initiative of the Canadian Community Newspaper Association and its nearly 700 members across the country. For more information, contact Kelly Levson, senior project manager, kellylevson@combase.ca.
http://www.combase.ca
Canada Post’s new Fetch: for the privacy-conscious
In a time when it appears every time you turn the corner your tombstone information is nabbed for marketing purposes, Canada Post’s new killer app Fetch may be the answer for both the privacy-conscious consumer and marketers alike.
Launching in January in Calgary, Fetch is based on the idea of a trusted third party – Canada Post – acting as an intermediary between consumer and brand. What does that mean exactly? Essentially when you look at a billboard, TV or Web ad and it’s tagged with Fetch plus a keyword (e.g. a BMW ad and the keyword car), consumers who opt into the initiative can text, phone or go on the Web to request more info on that specific product.
Influential bloggers integrate ads
In a bold move, Vancouver-based Marqui Management Systems has hired a team of bloggers to hawk the company’s services. Marqui, whose clients include the David Suzuki Foundation, makes Web-based text editing software.
In the ‘Blogosphere Program,’ a team of heavily read, influential technology bloggers will insert the company’s logo and at least one mention per week (with a link to the company’s Web site) into their blogs. For their efforts, the bloggers will receive $800 a month. An additional $50 is paid with each qualified sales lead.
Coca-Cola takes over Dundas Square
Coca-Cola is celebrating the holidays at Dundas Square in Toronto with the Square’s first ever synchronized holiday advertising display. Every night at 5:30, a 15-second version of Coke’s ‘Real Holidays’ campaign will run on five digital boards in the square.
The TV spot ‘Real Holidays’ is an adaptation of a commercial from Argentina. Originally shown last year, Coca-Cola adapted the storyline for the Canadian market to represent how Canadians feel and what they do during the holidays. The Dundas Square creative was adapted by Cossette and will run for the rest of the year.
Boyce named Playback person of the year
Media in Canada sister publication Playback has chosen Susanne Boyce as its 2004 Person of the Year. As CTV’s president of programming, Boyce has led her network to a banner year, with the station holding the rights to 13 of the country’s top 20 shows. From homegrown hits like Canadian Idol and Corner Gas to prescient acquisitions such as Lost and Desperate Housewives, CTV had the Midas touch this year, and at the network the lion’s share of the credit goes to Boyce. The Playback Year In Review issue profiling Boyce’s accomplishments hits newstands Jan. 3.
Genesis goes to Town
Town Shoes has named Toronto-based Genesis Media for media planning, media buying, database marketing, geo-marketing and distribution management duties. The remit covers the Toronto-based co’s two retail chains, Town Shoes and The Shoe Company. Former media planner and buyer was Toronto-based Carat.
The two chains spent approximately $3 million in 2004.
BBM GRPs
For charts of the BBM Canada Commercial Television Tracking Service in the Toronto and Vancouver conventional markets, click the links below:
http://www.mediaincanada.com/articles/mic/20041214/Toronto.CMR.pdf
http://www.mediaincanada.com/articles/mic/20041214/Vancouver.CMR.pdf
BBM Top 20
For a list of the top 20 TV shows for the week of Nov. 29 to Dec. 5, according to BBM, click the links below:
http://www.mediaincanada.com/articles/mic/20041214/nat12062004.pdf
http://www.mediaincanada.com/articles/mic/20041214/que12062004.pdf
http://www.mediaincanada.com/articles/mic/20041214/ont12062004.pdf
http://www.mediaincanada.com/articles/mic/20041214/tor12062004.pdf
http://www.mediaincanada.com/articles/mic/20041214/van12062004.pdf
Google prepares to put new advertising initiative into motion
Google has begun testing animated .GIF ads to appear on the Web sites of its AdSense publishers. Adsense, Google’s off-site advertising arm, delivers relevant ads based on the page content of a particular Adsense subscriber’s site. Currently the cost for the animated ads will remain identical to the cost-per-click price of non-motion ones, and will have a 50kb size limitation. Similarly, advertisers will still have to battle to outbid each other for top billing keywords to ensure high exposure on relevant sites. Industry speculation has suggested that Google’s decision to test the animated ads may be a result of the launch of Conducive’s exclusively image-based contextual marketing site, adMarketplace, last Wednesday. Conducive includes eBay on its client list.
CornerGas.com launches online store
Canadian hit TV show Corner Gas has unveiled the Dog River Clothing Company on its Web site for fans who’d like to dress like the small-town Saskatchewan natives on the show. Powered by Brüzer.com, the stored was opened just in time for the holidays with orders placed by Dec. 15 to be shipped in time for Christmas. ‘The Dog River Clothing Company is essentially a response to the overwhelming demand by viewers who want to show their support for this series on their sleeves,’ says exec producer David Storey in a release. Offerings include T’s, caps, toques and hoodies (or ‘bunny hoppers,’ along with other non-clothing items like season one of the series on DVD.
Corner Gas, currently in its second season, is the top-rated Canadian series of any kind on television. Nominated for five Gemini Awards, the series airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. on CTV and Saturdays at 8 p.m. on The Comedy Network. The Corner Gas store has received more than 10,000 hits since opening on Dec. 10. But no financial results are available yet. There are no ads on the site, although there is advertising on the CTV parent site.
http://www.cornergas.com/.
CHUM celebrates the New Year with a dozen hot new props
CHUM Television picked up 12 new factual titles to air on SexTV and Space: The Imagination Station. Among the new shows are Outback Strippers and Suburban Strippers, which chronicle the personal and professional lives of male and female peelers; Do You Believe In The Paranormal?, a series that tests whether or not it is possible to communicate with humans post-mortem; and My One Legged Dream Lover, a one-off that profiles the romantic lives of amputees as well as fully-limbed people with amputee fetishes. The various properties are scheduled to begin airing in Spring 2005 and will continue through the year.
SARS crisis gets CTV slot
Plague City: SARS in Toronto is the next title being shot for the CTV Signature Series dramatic movie slate.
Set during the medical emergency that hit Toronto in spring 2003, Plague City takes us from the town in China where a man scratched by a civet cat kicks off a deadly chain of infection that lands, quite randomly, in Toronto, leaving people dead and medical personnel and politicians scrambling.
Nip tucks into W aud
Corus Entertainment’s W is back into Nip/Tuck mode. Canada’s specialty net for women will be re-airing season one (it first appeared on W last spring) beginning Jan. 5 as a lead-in to season two, which will begin in April.
The show will run Wednesday nights at 10.
