Dave Newmark is taking his show to cable TV.
Bid4Spots announced it has created an online marketplace for cable television advertising, expanding the model it employs in radio. It will host an online “reverse auction” every Thursday. Bid4Spots says this is the first such offering “to organize cable advertising nationwide down to the neighborhood.”
In making the announcement, a company spokesperson noted Google’s recent departure from the radio ad sales marketplace; in a note to journalists, the PR official tooted the latest announcement this way: “Google and Bid4Spots duked it out in radio advertising, and the upstart won, hands down. … As the fight shifts to TV, Newmark’s not taking the gloves off — he’s lacing them up. Google’s track record when attempting traditional media is mixed, so this is about to get interesting.” (In 2006, Newmark, the founder and CEO of Bid4Spots, described Google’s entry into radio “a powerful endorsement of the medium and a mark of the enormous value that traditional and new media bring to each other.”)
Newmark says his online marketplace for radio airtime, which launched in 2005, “roughly doubled” in size last year.
Bid4Spots argues that in radio it has been able “to help keep dollars within the medium” with a system that appeals to “do-it-yourself media buyers” and stations chasing incremental revenue. The focus only on last-minute, unsold airtime will work across various media, the company believes.
The first auction is set for June 11; advertisers and cable systems can sign up for the marketplace now.