The average cost to produce a 30-second, national TV commercial in 1999 was $343,000—a 16 percent increase ($48,000) from the previous year—according to the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s) ’99 Television Production Cost Survey. That’s the largest hike in the 13-year history of the annual 4A’s study. Significant increases were also reported in such areas as the average cost to edit and finish an original :30 (26 percent), sound recording and mixing costs (23 percent) and music (35 percent). At the same time, production company markup went down to an average of 25 percent, a one percent decline from the 4A’s ’98 figure. Full details on the 4A’s report will be in next week’s issue of SHOOT….Director Bill Mason has joined Sweet Dreams, A Film Company, New York….Pinnacle Studios, Seattle, and U.K. new media company Digital Animations Group have formed an alliance whereby the former will represent the latter for spot production and collaboration in the U.S. Both digital studios envision creating virtual characters for commercials and expanding mutual production capabilities…Santa Monica-based Primal Scream has added several composers to its spot roster, including George S. Clinton, Alan Elliott, Russ Landau, Todd Cochran, Michael Wandmacher and Karl Fredrik Lundeberg.
Google Opens Its Defense In Antitrust Case Alleging Monopoly Over Online Ad Technology
Google opened its defense against allegations that it holds an illegal monopoly on online advertising technology Friday with witness testimony saying the industry is vastly more complex and competitive than portrayed by the federal government.
"The industry has been exceptionally fluid over the last 18 years," said Scott Sheffer, a vice president for global partnerships at Google, the company's first witness at its antitrust trial in federal court in Alexandria.
The Justice Department and a coalition of states contend that Google built and maintained an illegal monopoly over the technology that facilitates the buying and selling of online ads seen by consumers.
Google counters that the government's case improperly focuses on a narrow type of online ads — essentially the rectangular ones that appear on the top and on the right-hand side of a webpage. In its opening statement, Google's lawyers said the Supreme Court has warned judges against taking action when dealing with rapidly emerging technology like what Sheffer described because of the risk of error or unintended consequences.
Google says defining the market so narrowly ignores the competition it faces from social media companies, Amazon, streaming TV providers and others who offer advertisers the means to reach online consumers.
Justice Department lawyers called witnesses to testify for two weeks before resting their case Friday afternoon, detailing the ways that automated ad exchanges conduct auctions in a matter of milliseconds to determine which ads are placed in front of which consumers and how much they cost.
The department contends the auctions are finessed in subtle ways that benefit Google to the exclusion of would-be competitors and in ways that prevent... Read More