Most forecasters have expected broadcast ad revenues to experience a nice recovery as the recession eases, but BernsteinResearch analyst Michael Nathanson expects a TV advertising to see a rebound that could bring stations back to their healthier 2007 levels. While the major station owners took a big hit on revenue…

Special offers on many of the popular smartphones in the fourth quarter drove penetration to nearly a third in the U.S., according to The NPD Group, a wireless market research. The report found that smartphones are now in the hands of about 31 percent of the U.S. population, growing from…

In contrast to recent Nielsen figures that showed flat spending for display last year, Kantar Media—fka “TNS Media” before being acquired by WPP Group and folded into its KMR Group—says that the segment actually gained a healthy 7.3 percent versus 2008. Kantar says that increased activity by the telecom, factory…

The days of web sales nearly doubling each year are long gone. UK Association of Online Publishers (AOP) members - who forecast 31 percent higher online income in 2008 and 16 percent in 2009 - now expect 2010 growth of just 10 percent. And that forecast is only being made…

Here’s another chart with hockey stick-like projections for the global mobile applications space: The market is set to grow to $17.5 billion by 2012, which will be greater than the value of all CDs estimated to be sold that year. The report was commissioned by GetJar, which distributes free applications…

Hitwise runs the numbers and notes that for the first time ever last week Facebook passed Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to become the most visited website in the U.S. It’s not as though Google has stopped growing; it’s just that Facebook is growing at a much faster clip. The caveats: It’s…

With pre-orders for the iPad off to a fast start in preparation for the Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) product’s release next month, the Audit Bureau of Circulations has modified its guidelines for counting sales of a digital magazine in the U.S. and Canada. The old standards have always required that in…

In how many markets can media companies honestly say they’ll be growing in double digits this year? Exactly. The Indian media and entertainment market, which had a relatively tepid 2009 in face of collapsing media markets all around, is slated to be back on track, according to a new 234-page…

The latest report on online news economics from Pew’s Project for Excellence in Journalism is one of those studies that will bolster just about any view people have about paying for news online. Want to show that news consumers are unwilling to pay?  Results from a national phone survey conducted…

Nielsen’s latest bid to stay ahead of the audience measurement competition involves striking an alliance with behavioral targeter eXelate. The companies tell the WSJ that eXelate has agreed to provide Nielsen with its data covering 150 million internet users. That information will be combined with Nielsen’s database, which covers 115…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) was selling pre-orders for the iPad at a rate of about 25,000 an hour this morning, according to a Forbes Fortune piece. The methodology is very unscientific; it’s based on differences between the order numbers assigned to early buyers. But if it is accurate, here’s how it…

Nokia (NYSE: NOK) has improved the way it measures the global device market, including coming up with a better way to calculate the number of unlicensed and counterfeit products being sold in the market. Given that, Nokia went back and recalculated the industry’s overall performance last year and how it…

Here’s why Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is launching a “completely new smartphone OS.” The latest smartphone platform market share figures were released today by comScore and Microsoft posted the steepest drop. The new Windows Phone 7 Series—due later this year—can’t come to market soon enough.

Here’s why Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is advertising Bing on UK TV: it’s barely making the tiniest dent in Google’s search leadership. Though Google (NSDQ: GOOG) piled on eight tenths of the 617 million additional searches Brits made since Bing launched in June, Bing took just four percent of them, according…

Facebook is going to be working more closely with web analytics provider Omniture (NSDQ: OMTR) to build up the social net’s strong attraction to marketers. The two began their collaboration about a year ago, mostly on developing analytics around the wide variety of Facebook apps and measuring user engagement. For…

Marketers and agency execs began gathering for the 4A’s Transformation 2010 conference in San Francisco to go over the current challenges to the traditional way of doing business. On day two, topics included the use of consumer data and who’s got control of it, the growth of consumer control over…

People love to debate the merits of free vs. paid content. But overlooked in all this is the cost of access to that content—that’s where the action is. We’re paying more than we ever have to receive our movies, news and music, according to Forrester analyst James McQuivey. Here’s his…

Yes Movielink and Cinemanow sucked for a long time, and iTunes never became a huge movie seller. That was 2-3 years ago. So what happened since, as online streaming has taken off? Turns out, not much on the uptick, only downside, in terms of revenues. According to new data coming…

The term “flat is the new ‘up’” was heard a lot last year with regard to ad spending. Now that Nielsen says display ad spending ended 2009 with a 1 percent gain, perhaps in 2010 “up” will retain its actual meaning. While a number of categories show signs of arresting…