Advertising Industry May Not Recover Until 2010, Citigroup Says

Finally, a MSM outlet gets to the self-evident point.

This isn't a 2009 advertising slow down problem, this is going to go well into 2010.

If you take the ad revenue forecasts below, and apply them to NYT and IHT revenues re. 2007 (see the last annual report for details) you can well see that something don't add up.

Bottom line, when the NYT Company comes to renegotiate its debt who is going to lend it and at what price?

This is going to get brutal or it's going to get clever, clever meaning some game changing ideas for the NYT OR some sort of private philanthropic bailout leading to Newspaper Capitalism 2.0.

My money is currently on brutal.

Advertising Industry May Not Recover Until 2010, Citigroup Says
By Philipp Schlaeger
Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Advertising in the U.S. may not recover until 2010 if businesses wait for the economy to bounce back before boosting marketing spending, analysts at Citigroup Inc. said.
Ad spending across all media, including print, broadcast and the Internet, may fall 1.8 percent this year and 3.6 percent in 2009, Citigroup's Catriona Fallon and her colleagues said in a report yesterday. Citigroup had originally projected growth of 0.2 percent in 2008 and a decline of 0.3 percent next year.
Because campaigns take time to plan and execute, an ad recovery can lag behind a resurgence in the economy, the report said. While the Beijing Olympics and political campaigns contributed to ad revenue this year, local and national ad media have experienced ``severe slowdowns,'' the report said.
``We now see a sharp falloff in consumer spending and economic output and a high likelihood of a recession through most of 2009,'' Fallon wrote. ``We believe U.S. advertising spending will see the first back-to-back annual declines since at least the 1950s.''
Newspaper spending may suffer the biggest drop, slipping 16.3 percent this year and 12.5 percent the next, Citigroup forecast. Internet spending growth, projected at 11.4 percent for 2008, could slow to 5.8 percent in 2009, according to the report. Search-based ads and digital video are among the few bright spots in online advertising, Fallon said.
The U.S. economy will probably grow 1.6 percent this year and 1.1 percent in 2009, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists. The same survey suggests fourth-quarter gross domestic product will contract 0.35 percent, following last quarter's 0.3 percent drop.
To contact the reporter on this story: Philipp Schlaeger in New York at pschlaeger@bloomberg.net Last Updated: November 11, 2008 11:02 EST

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LOOKING FOR A CHRISTMAS BOOK GIFT TO BUY?
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'I read A Place in My Country with absolute unalloyed delight. A glorious book.'
Jeremy Irons (actor)

‘Ian Walthew was a newspaper executive with a career that took him round the world, who one day did a mad thing. He saw a for-sale sign on a cottage in the Cotswolds, bought it, resigned and moved in. For the first few weeks he just lay on the grass in a daze. Then he started talking to his neighbours and digging into the rich history of this beautiful part of England. Out of his inquiries grew this affecting and inspiring memoir.What sets it apart from others of its ilk is the author’s enviable immunity to cliché and his determination to love his homeland better than he used to.

His elegiac account of relearning how to be an Englishman should be required reading for anyone who claims to know or love this country.’

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WPP predicts "very tough" 2009 (IHT)

Reuters
Thursday, October 30, 2008
LONDON: WPP Group , the world's second-largest advertising firm, on Thursday predicted 2009 would be a very tough year after reporting third quarter revenue growth broadly in line with expectations.
The warning, including the acknowledgment that the Olympic Games had not produced the "Beijing Bounce" that was expected, follows similar dire predictions from other advertising groups such as Omnicom and Publicis .
WPP also said its headline operating margin was flat in the first nine months and said it would not now be easy to attain its margin target for 2008 of 15.5 percent.
WPP, whose agencies include JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, posted like-for-like revenue growth of 3 percent and reported revenue growth of 16.2 percent to 1.72 billion pounds.
Analysts had been expecting like-for-like revenue growth of 3.3 percent according to a Reuters poll of 7 analysts and reported revenues of 1.66 billion pounds.
WPP shares hit near 10-year lows in recent weeks on fears about the economic downturn and after Omnicom, the world's largest ad firm by market cap, reported retail and automotive clients beginning to push back and even cancel some ad plans.
"It is still likely that rates of like-for-like revenue growth, particularly by region, will vary significantly in 2009, as in 2008," the group said. "Whatever the pattern, it is not likely that our budget will reflect the Armageddon currently predicted by the fall in stock prices."
(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by David Cowell)

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Advertising groups issue dire slowdown warnings (IHT)

Reuters
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
By Kate Holton and Paul Thomasch
Three of the world's largest ad groups have issued dire warnings about an industry slowdown, as economic upheaval throws planned spending on advertising from TV commercials to Web searches into doubt.
The forecasts from Publicis , Interpublic Group and Aegis on Tuesday followed solid-third quarter results by each of the groups, showing they have so far weathered the storm.
But with economic troubles deepening, the advertising market is now at risk of suffering its biggest slowdown since 2001.
France's Publicis, the world's third-largest ad group by market capitalisation, reported third-quarter results in line with expectations but forecast a difficult end to 2008 and worse for 2009.
U.S.-based Interpublic Group, the world's fourth-largest, posted higher-than-expected quarterly profit and strong organic growth, but warned that the financial crisis had jeopardized marketing budgets.
Britain's smaller peer Aegis completed the trio, reporting solid organic growth before saying it could no longer predict how much companies would spend on advertising and was therefore cautious on its full-year outlook.
"We believe our industry will face a difficult end of 2008 and a marked slowdown in 2009," Publicis Chairman and Chief Executive Maurice Levy said.
Interpublic Chief Executive Michael Roth said the group was still set to achieve its 2008 financial goals but noted that the impact of the "increasingly unsettled and volatile business environment" on the sector was not yet clear.
Last week, Omnicom Group , the world's largest advertising company, said retail and automotive clients were beginning to push back and even cancel some advertising plans.
The results follow moves by leading media buyers, such as ZenithOptimedia, to slash global advertising spend forecasts for 2008 and 2009.
STATE OF PLAY
At 1:38 p.m., shares in Publicis were up 3.5 percent at 16.35 euros, having recovered from an earlier fall, while shares in Aegis fell 9.1 percent to 57.75 pence in a higher market.
Shares in IPG were up 11 percent at $4.56, recovering a small portion of the 50 percent the stock lost in the last month on fears about the state of the advertising market.
WPP , the world's second-largest ad group which reports on Thursday, was up 3 percent after initially falling on the European companies' outlooks.
Publicis, whose clients include food group Nestle , energy giant Total and airline Emirates , pledged to tap the digital sector and emerging countries to grow market share and protect its margins.
Its sales rose 5.1 percent at constant exchange rates, with organic growth of 3.9 percent. The company said the third quarter had ended with higher organic growth than expected given the global financial crisis.
Interpublic posted third-quarter organic revenue growth, a closely watched figure that excludes the impact of recent acquisitions and foreign currency, of 7.6 percent and a rise in revenue of 11.5 percent to $1.74 billion (1.1 billion pounds).
Aegis, which posted 9-month organic revenue of 7.3 percent, said it would manage its cost base tightly and said it still expected to benefit from the strength of the euro and the U.S. dollar in relation to sterling.
"Clearly slowing growth is not intrinsically positive, but it is no surprise and we believe that these (Publicis) results and comments should prove reassuring relative to some concerns in the market," UBS analyst Alastair Reid wrote in a note.
Reid described the Aegis organic growth as robust but forecast full-year growth of 4.9 percent, implying a significant sharp slowdown in the fourth quarter.
"Aegis currently trades on around 7.5 times 2009 earnings, broadly inline with Publicis," he said. "Whilst this appears inexpensive ... we believe that with consensus earnings downgrades coming through and the lack of visibility for the company, the stock is likely to come under further pressure near-term."
(Additional reporting by James Regan and Cyril Altmeyer in Paris)
(Editing by Erica Billingham)

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"Books about cosmopolitan urbanites discovering the joys of country life are two a penny, but this one is worth a second glance. Walthew's vivid description of the moral stress induced by his job as a high-flying executive with the International Herald Tribune newspaper is worth the cover price alone…. Highly recommended." The Oxford Times

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Luxury brands and 2009 Advertising forecasts for IHT

There is a hardly a piece of good news for anyone putting together a 2009 advertising budget for the IHT.

But for the IHT a couple of headlines caught my eye hard.

Japanese buy less, and European fashion houses suffer

Outlook seen challenging for luxury goods in 2009
http://www.iht.com/articles/reuters/2008/10/21/business/OUKBS-UK-LUXURY-OUTLOOK.php


Luxury brands, fashion and renewable energy have been the backbone of the IHT's 2008 advertising revenue, and all are in retreat.

Time to re-do those forecasts - again. But where are the cost cuts going to come from? Over at the FT, there is news of 60 layoffs.

To the Power of the Times - NYT Trade Campaign

On the subject of the NYTMG being pro-active in hard times, I don't think I posted on their new trade campaign.


I'll just make two comments.


If you're the marketing director of the NYTMG and this is your first trade campaign in a decade, you're taking your consumer base for granted. And that's not good, whoever you are.

The FT dominated the international senior business decision making market for as long as I worked in it, and they never took their foot off the pedal with trade campaigns, even if could have done so given their earnings and dominance of the market and market research numbers. Ditto The Economist.

It isn't so much that hard times aren't detering the NYTMG from running a trade campaign now (sorry, yet), it's that good times did. So when the bad times come and you need to advertise, you look weak and out of brand character.

Media buyers smell this sort of thing.

Secondly, what's the spend on this campaign? We don't know. And Denise doesn't know if it will continue into 2009.

I'm going to take a pint of best bitter bet it won't, outside of in-paper/site executions.











Hard times don't deter 'New York Times'
Newspaper launches trade ad campaign, expands online coverage of business
By Marie Griffin
Story posted: October 13, 2008 - 6:01 am EDT
OAS_RICH('Middle1');

At the end of last month, The New York Times launched its first national trade advertising campaign in more than a decade, even as the stock market was tumbling and a financial bailout plan was being hotly debated in Washington.
The media plan was finalized before a string of failures among financial institutions started to shake the nation in mid-September, so the crisis could have justified a reduction, delay or cancellation of the trade campaign, said Denise Warren, senior VP-chief advertising officer of the New York Times Media Group. “We decided not to pull back,” she said. “We said, "This is really the time to send a message of strength and stability to our advertisers and the advertising community.' ” The campaign targets “the whole food chain” of advertising decision-makers, Warren said, from media planners and buyers to CMOs at major companies. The print and online effort includes such vehicles as Advertising Age, AdWeek,WWD and MediaBuyerPlanner.com.
The trade campaign is scheduled to run through the end of the year. “We're still planning budgets for 2009, so I can't say if it will continue,” Warren said. The budget for the campaign was not disclosed. The concept behind the creative is “to the power of the Times,” executed as if it were a mathematical formula in which (nyt) takes the place of a numeral (such as a superscript 2, indicating squared). In the first creative wave, three words are spotlighted: influence, innovation and ROI.
“We really wanted something that was distinctive and flexible . We're very happy with the concepts, the creative and the execution,” Warren said. “There are many other executions that have not yet been seen. You can imagine, for example, "technology to the power of the Times.'

” The trade campaign debuted less than a week after The New York Times made two announcements about its Web site, NYTimes.com. One was the public beta launch of TimesPeople, a social networking feature that allows registered users to share and view each other's thoughts and recommendations on New York Times content. The other was a significant expansion and deeper segmentation of its online business coverage.

On Sept. 23, The New York Times rolled out a redesigned “Technology” section with subsections on enterprise technology, the Internet, venture capital and start-ups, and company-specific news. The Bits blog, backed by an expanded staff, and content from the IDG News Service are more prominently featured. The same day, a new “Economy” section and Green Inc., a blog on energy and the environment, debuted.

Over the coming months, NYTimes.com plans to expand sections on small business, personal technology and Your Money; to deepen coverage within its DealBook franchise; and to continue to add new tools and multimedia features. Frannie Danzinger, VP-media at b-to-b marketing agency HSR Business to Business, said she has delved deeply into the metrics for The New York Times for her clients. “It's very clear to me that the Times truly is a business newspaper, even though that isn't necessarily the general perception,” she said. “The [deeper] vertical segmentation will be helpful because marketers really are honing in on smaller segments within a larger universe. Green is one of the topics they are expanding, and it's really top of mind in business today.”The TimesPeople feature, which is free, includes a toolbar that appears at the top of users' pages on NYTimes.com. The toolbar links to profile pages, which display the public actions of the user and other network members who have opted in. The public activities included in TimesPeople are readers' comments, recommendations, reviews and ratings. Danzinger said social media tools are “extremely important, but they can't become a commodity. If they're everywhere, it takes away from the value social media provides.” As for TimesPeople, Danzinger said, “They're a little late to the game, so they might have an uphill battle.” Vivian Schiller, senior VP-general manager of NYTimes.com, noted that Cisco Systems is the launch partner for TimesPeople. “The long-term business model for monetizing social media is not fully formed, to say the least,” she said. “We want to get the technology right, to get the features and functionality right, and to build an audience now while we're sorting out the business model.”

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Resolved to keep on marketing, even in tight-fisted times (IHT)

I blogged on this exact point yesterday:

Joseph Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at the Coca-Cola Company, whose Coca-Cola brand is the strongest in the world, according to a new survey by Interbrand, evoked imagery from the Great Depression."Don't go to the ledge," Tripodi said. "Don't let the urgent overwhelm the important.""It's very easy now to panic, and we cannot panic," he added. "Invest in your brands now, especially in these dry times. The easiest thing is to shut down, and that's the worst thing."


By Stuart Elliott
Monday, October 20, 2008
ORLANDO, Florida: Attendees of a big annual conference for marketers, held here last week, could have been forgiven for believing they had stumbled into a symposium for scholars of American history in the 1930s.
These are some of the words and phrases heard during the conference, the 98th annual meeting of the Association of National Advertisers: "financial crisis," "scary," "foreclosure," "economic crisis," "difficult times," "the chaotic financial markets," "devastating," "under siege" and "unprecedented."
There were even references to "Happy Days Are Here Again," which became the unofficial theme song of those who fought to forestall the effects of the Great Depression, and to "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself," the encouraging words of Franklin D. Roosevelt during his first inaugural address, in 1933.
"The consumer is sitting at the bottom of a bunker with his head in his hands, wondering if it's safe to come out," Jez Frampton, global chief executive at Interbrand, an Omnicom Group agency specializing in corporate and brand identity, said during a general session of the conference.
"It's up to us to stimulate demand in the marketplace again," he added.
•
Whether the members of the association — 400 companies that together spend an estimated $100 billion a year on advertising and other forms of marketing — are willing to stick to the spending plans they made "before the globe went mad," as Frampton put it, is a crucial question.
If marketers cut budgets, that could intensify the recent sharp downturn in consumer spending. Conversely, by maintaining, or increasing, spending levels, they just might shorten the length of whatever recession might be coming (if it is not already here).
"Look, everyone is going to want to cut, but no one wants to be first to say it in public," said one attendee, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because his company has not completed its planning for 2009.
"That's especially true given that we still have some time before Christmas," the attendee said, referring to the importance of the holiday shopping season for marketers and retailers. "Anyone who says anything now could go down as the Grinch who stole Christmas."
The closest any speaker came to tipping his or her hand was Anne Saunders, brand and advertising executive at Bank of America.
"We aren't done planning '09 yet," Saunders said, so "we're not concluding at the moment that we would necessarily cut" spending.
If a decision is reached to make cuts, "we don't expect to see a substantial cut," she added, because "it would be a mistake to say you don't need to continue to tend your brand, even in a challenging market like this."
Other speakers made the same point, in more emphatic and colorful language.
"It's incredibly important to be risk-takers in the economic climate we're in," said Michael Mendenhall, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Hewlett-Packard, when "people have a tendency to pull back."
"In economic times like these, you don't hunker down and go in the bunker," he added.
Rebecca Saeger, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at the Charles Schwab Corporation, quoted Mendenhall approvingly in her remarks and added: "Let's all go for growth. Let's see this as an opportunity."
Increasing sales and profits has "never been more important," said Saeger, who was elected during the conference as the chairwoman of the association for 2008-10. "There has never been a more crystal-clear realization of why you need a strong brand."
Joseph Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at the Coca-Cola Company — whose Coca-Cola brand is the strongest in the world, according to a new survey by Interbrand — evoked imagery from the Great Depression.
"Don't go to the ledge," Tripodi said. "Don't let the urgent overwhelm the important."
"It's very easy now to panic, and we cannot panic," he added. "Invest in your brands now, especially in these dry times. The easiest thing is to shut down, and that's the worst thing."
James Stengel, who is retiring from his post as global marketing officer at Procter & Gamble, was asked whether consumers seeking to save money might be tempted to switch to private-label products from brand names. That would mean paying less attention to ads for brands — no matter how much marketers spent.
That is unlikely, Stengel replied, if marketers understand that "in these times, people are looking for the right value."
"If we're there for consumers when they need us," he added, "I'm sure we'll be fine."
Procter, the world's largest advertiser, survived "tough times" in countries hit hard by recent economic crises, Stengel said, like Argentina and Russia. He even remarked on how Procter made it through the '30s.
Two speakers described how the upheaval in the American economy is inspiring advertising campaigns.
"Right now, given where America is, people need to go back to the comfort of home," said Mark Addicks, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at General Mills. So a new campaign for the company's Pillsbury brand will carry the theme "Home is calling."
A commercial that Addicks showed, by the Saatchi & Saatchi division of the Publicis Groupe, began with people from all walks of life clicking their heels together like Dorothy in "The Wizard of Oz" and ended with a family coming home to a meal with Pillsbury crescent rolls.
•
Claire Bennett, senior vice president for marketing at American Express, said the "challenging environment" gave her brand "a unique opportunity" because of its "legacy of trust and confidence."
"We will be talking about that in the coming months," she added, and "our own card members can speak for us."
The entreaties of the speakers may have influenced the estimated 1,200 attendees at the conference, based on results of instant polls during two general sessions.
Asked about immediate plans, 33 percent of respondents said they would maintain the level of their marketing spending, 33 percent said they would reduce spending and 27 percent said they would spend more. (The rest were unsure.)
And when asked about 2009 compared with 2008, the largest number of respondents, 28 percent, predicted stability, followed by 26 percent who forecast spending increases of more than 10 percent. Nineteen percent predicted decreases of more than 10 percent, 14 percent predicted decreases of less than 10 percent, and 13 percent predicted growth of less than 10 percent.

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For the IHT, the most worrying bearish 2009 forecast I have seen

There has been no shortage of bearish 2009 advertising revenue forecasts. This one isn't new, but that it is carried by WWD touches upon one of the most important advertising categories for the International Herald Tribune - the fashion industry. To be read with alarm in some quarters I would think.

Question: Is Suzy Menkes Power recession proof? And what happens, if, when, she retires - where is the succession plan and what is it going to cost the IHT to make that hire?

S&P BEARISH ON PRINT ADS: Add Standard & Poor’s to the growing list of industry watchers down on print advertising, at least for now.
“High debt levels, migration of ad spending to the Internet, declining newsstand sales and mature industry growth prospects suggest a near-term decline in credit risk,” the ratings service said. S&P expects magazine ad pages to decline through the end of 2008, with “minimal benefit from election-year activity,” it said, adding, “The sector will face continued ad rate challenges, especially given pressure on circulation levels that publishers guarantee to advertisers.”
As for newspapers, S&P expects newspaper revenue and cash flow to continue to drop “at rates that accelerate each quarter.” “The pullback in advertising dollars has been so dramatic that publishers have struggled to adjust their cost structures,” the agency said. Five out of the nine rated newspaper companies are “CCC,” “signaling a near-term liquidity threat.”
The New York Times Co. was placed on CreditWatch in July after the company reported a drop in earnings before interest, taxes, appreciation and amortization of 36 percent for the second quarter, compared with the same period during the prior year.S&P expects the economic downturn will bottom out in early- to mid-2009 — although it doesn’t expect a pickup in activity until late 2009.
“As a result, we expect total ad spending to be minimally higher (0.9 percent) in 2009,” the report said. — Amy Wicks

http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/sp-bearish-on-print-ads-the-princess-diaries-cutbacks-cutting-even-deeper-1837410?navSection=media-news&toc_preselected=65#/article/media-news/fashion-memopad/sp-bearish-on-print-ads-the-princess-diaries-cutbacks-cutting-even-deeper-1837410?page=2

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Marketers Cut Back on Digital Media (WSJ)

Financial woes likely will derail the growth of a slew of advertising technologies that until recently were being hailed as the next big thing.
In recent years, marketers have set aside a portion of their ad budgets to experiment with digital technologies such as Web video, mobile phones, gaming and virtual worlds. But with broader economic turmoil reaching Madison Avenue, these "experimental" budgets are among the first to hit the cutting-room floor.

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Got a good idea? Need money to develop it? Help.

Last week advertising agency ZenithOptimedia revised its global advertising spending growth rates downward to 4.3% for 2008, compared with a 6.7% growth projection back in June. The U.S. will bear the brunt of the hit with growth this year down to 1.6% from the 3.4% projected in June. In 2009 growth will be less than 1 percent.Amid the declines, Internet advertising will remain steady at a 23% growth rate for the next two years, ZenithOptimedia said.

I've posted before about the need for the NYTCo to probably have to invest or acquire its way out of trouble, but with the current credit crunch, plus the debt rating of NYTCo paper, and declining revenues in 2009 to pay for that debt, leading to potential official junk rating, things might be not so easy.

This, from TV week.

October 12, 2008 8:45 PM
For Web, Funding Drought
Belt-Tightening Time for Internet Startups
By Daisy Whitney
The economic crisis that has frozen credit, toppled banks and sent consumer confidence plummeting worldwide is about to wreak its havoc on the online-video investment sector. That’s the conclusion of venture capitalists and other experts who are betting the flow of venture money into online video is about to dry up.
Venture capitalists poured $461 million into online video services and software companies last year in the United States, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. But the rate of funding is set to slow dramatically over the next several months.
“Everything is frozen,” said Jeff Sanders, a partner with Roberts Ritholz Levy Sanders Chidekel & Fields, a New York law firm specializing in media, entertainment and technology who has helped entrepreneurs secure venture capital.
The funding outlook will likely mirror the dot-com bust when money slowed in 2000 and evaporated in 2001, he said.
“That was exacerbated by 9/11, and barring that type of type of activity, it won’t be until middle 2009” that things will revive, he said.
Until then, the start-ups that have already landed seed money will likely hunker down or shop for a quick exit. Smaller video firms may be eager to sell at bargain rates, which could be attractive to Internet giants who have cash. Either way, survival of the fittest will be the name of the game in the cold months ahead because advertisers are reining in their spending. Revising Expectations
Last week advertising agency ZenithOptimedia revised its global advertising spending growth rates downward to 4.3% for 2008, compared with a 6.7% growth projection back in June. The U.S. will bear the brunt of the hit with growth this year down to 1.6% from the 3.4% projected in June. In 2009 growth will be less than 1 percent.
Amid the declines, Internet advertising will remain steady at a 23% growth rate for the next two years, ZenithOptimedia said.
That will help online video companies that snagged their seed money in the early days. Some pioneers of the business, such as Brightcove and Veoh, even say they’ll be profitable next year.“Right now the guys who have raised money and built a presence and grabbed market share are well-positioned. But I don’t see a lot of money pouring into new companies,” said Todd Dagres, founder and general partner with Spark Capital.
Deals that do come will be smaller, fewer and farther between. Also, the broader economic crisis simply compounds the economic forces already at play in online video—the business has entered a shakeout phase that will be marked by mergers, consolidations and the failure of some companies. Last month, for instance, online video firms Anystream and Voxant announced a merger.
“Companies will go under and companies will be acquired at lower prices,” he predicted. “You could probably see a number of these video sites that had high hopes start to rein in their optimism so they’d be more interested in selling, but acquirers are less likely to make acquisitions at those prices.”
Good entrepreneurs build in contingency plans for a downturn, said Raj Amin, the CEO of broadband video network HealthiNation, which has raised nearly $12 million in venture funding. That means mapping out a clear path to profitability and revenue streams to support the business as it grows.
Work-for-Hire
In addition to producing its own health and lifestyle shows for its broadband network, the company also operates as a work-for-hire shop to produce branded content for pharmaceutical companies.
“That helps fund the business,” Mr. Amin said.
The key for an existing video firm to weather the downturn is to demonstrate performance, said Ben Weinberger, CEO of video search firm Digitalsmiths, which has raised $6 million in venture funding.
“VCs are not placing short-term bets,” he said. “They are investing in your future and the market’s future. No one has a crystal ball five to eight years from now. … We all know that if you have a solid team that executes well, your chances of success are exponentially increased.”
If there is a silver lining in the economic meltdown, it’s that most video experts don’t think the dip will last too long.
“Companies that are able to weather this storm, and I do believe it’s a storm that will have an end, they come out the other side and will be in an excellent position,” Mr. Dagres said. “They’ll have cash and critical mass and they won’t be living life on the edge.”
http://www.tvweek.com:80/news/2008/10/for_web_funding_drought.php

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Ad Pullback Doesn't Spare National TV (WSJ)

WSJ.com

OCTOBER 13, 2008

Economic anxiety may be seeping into some of the more insulated parts of the media world, including national advertising on U.S. cable- and broadcast-television networks.
In a bad sign for the media sector's third-quarter earnings, both Viacom Inc. and CBS Corp. cut their 2008 profit forecasts Friday, citing weakness in ad sales and the slowing economy.
The disclosures come as ad executives are seeing more cuts in already-soft ad spending, as a result of the upheaval in global financial markets. "We see reductions coming from all sectors," said Maurice Levy, chief executive of Publicis Groupe SA, one of the world's ...

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