Nielsen: Ad spending is off 0.6 percent year to date
Yesterday Nielsen added its figures to the growing pile of down advertising spending reports released this month, though its numbers weren’t quite as dour. Advertising spending year-to-date through third quarter is off 0.6 percent compared to last year, according to the company, thanks largely to a boost from television. TV accounted for four of the top five media categories, with cable up 8.4 percent over last year and syndication rising 2.4 percent. Seven total categories are up year to date, including Hispanic cable and spot radio. Network TV got a nice boost from the Olympics, after falling 6 percent in the first half of the year. The category is now up 0.9 percent year to date. Local Sunday supplements saw the biggest decline, off 9.9 percent, followed by local newspapers at 8.7 percent. Nielsen’s 0.6 percent decline is smaller than that issued last week by TNS Media Intelligence, which said ad spending is off 1.7 percent year to date.

 
Omnicom chops 3,000 but few media people are out
Omnicom, the giant holding company, is slashing some 3,000 jobs from the many agencies under its wing, or somewhat under 5 percent of its workforce of 70,000-plus. But it appears just handful of media people will be let go in this latest downsizing as the ad economy fizzles. The media cuts appear to be limited, with PHD letting several dozen go and closing its Atlanta office. Nearly 200 BBDO Worldwide staffers were laid off yesterday, just weeks after some 150 were cut from its Michigan operation, which services Chrysler, which along with the other Detroit automakers has cut back on advertising as car sales tumbled. More agency cuts are expected in 2009 as the ad industry hunkers down for what's looking to be a harsh year. So far at least, media departments have been spared much of the pain, in part because they remained lean in the half dozen years since the last slowdown. But whether that holds for 2009 is quite another matter.

 
Ruff recipe: Dog lovers cry foul over Ray onion dish
Rachael Ray is in the doghouse with pet owners over a recipe she offered in the recent issue of Modern Dog magazine. The ingredients for “Isaboo’s Butternut Squash Mac and Cheese,” which ran alongside an article promoting Ray’s new line of dogfood, included half an onion. The big problem: Onions can be toxic for dogs, sometimes causing hemolytic anemia. Modern Dog appears to have yanked the recipe from its web site, following loads of comments from readers protesting the questionable ingredient. It did ad an editor’s note reading in part, “Rachael Ray's recipe includes onions, which are NOT good for dogs, but the amount included in the recipe is small when considered over the whole of the recipe.” Someone might want to inform Ray’s dog of that – Isaboo’s mac and cheese is based on a recipe beloved by the talk show host’s puppy.

 
SAG posts award nominations as strike vote looms
The Screen Actors Guild is weeks away from voting on a strike strike, but it knows one thing for sure for sure: the nominees for the 2009 SAG Awards. It was mostly the same group seen at the Emmys and Golden Globes. Alec Baldwin (“30 Rock”), Steve Carrell (“The Office”), David Duchovny (“Californication”), Jeremy Piven (“Entourage”) and Tony Shaloub (“Monk”) were all nominated for outstanding performance by a male actor in a comedy series, while Christina Applegate (“Samantha Who?”), America Ferrera (“Ugly Betty”), Tina Fey (“30 Rock”), Mary-Louise Parker (“Weeds”) and Tracey Ullman “(Tracey Ullman’s State of the Union”) picked up nominations on the female side. ABC’s “Boston Legal,” TNT’s “The Closer,” Showtime’s “Dexter,” Fox’s “House” and AMC’s “Mad Men” grabbed nominations for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series, with NBC’s “30 Rock,” ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” HBO’s “Entourage,” NBC’s “The Office” and Showtime’s “Weeds,” picking up the comedy nods. The awards will air on TNT and TBS on Jan. 25, and a complete list of nominees can be found at http://www.sagawards.org/PR_081218.

 
Mark Felt, Watergate's 'Deep Throat,' dies at age 95
Mark Felt, the most famous secret source in American journalism history, passed away yesterday from congestive heart failure, more than three decades after becoming the mysterious “Deep Throat” who helped bring down the Nixon administration. Felt, who was 95, confessed three years ago in a Vanity Fair article written by a family friend that he had been the famed leaker to the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Felt was hailed as a hero and a traitor after his revelation, and he wrote a book in 2006 about his life, including why he decided, as the No. 2 at the FBI, to talk to Woodward. He helped the reporters tie the White House to the famed 1972 Watergate break-in, which ultimately led to President Nixon’s resignation. Woodward and Bernstein had long promised not to reveal Deep Throat’s identity until after he died or until the person did so voluntarily, prompting decades of speculation.

E-scammer allegedly bilks wannabe WSJ advertisers
With all the troubles papers are having selling ad space in print publications these days, it may seem like an unlikely choice for a scam. Nonetheless, a woman allegedly sold fake ad pages in newspapers that she had no affiliation with. Julia Sorokin, a 38-year-old Californian, faces charges of identity theft in a New York court after allegedly selling ad spaces in non-existent special supplements in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, according to the North Country Gazette, a Westchester County paper. She allegedly set up internet sites with domain names that referenced these publications and then approached companies via email claiming to be employed by the papers. Prosecutors believe that she made nearly $48,000 on the scheme in just over a year.

 
YouTube rolls out high-definition video destination
YouTube users can now find all the popular online video-sharing site's high-definition videos in one place. In addition, the site announced yesterday on a company blog that it is also testing three new landing pages focused on news, movies and music. "The news page will be populated with breaking stories from around the world as well as news drawn from the Google News service; music will feature rising videos alongside playlists dedicated to different genres; movies will showcase some of the most popular short and full-length movies on YouTube today," the blog states. YouTube's HD player provides a widescreen window while also allowing users to avoid images surrounded by black bars. The HD-enabled videos began rolling out quietly earlier this month, and last month YouTube began expanding the width of all its videos.

 
MPAA targets three film-flammers with piracy lawsuits
Piracy is making a comeback on the high seas, and on the internet. Three more web sites have come under scrutiny from the Motion Picture Association of America for allegedly allowing the illegal downloading of movies. The MPAA sued campusist.com, movies-on-demand.tv and sswarez.com this week, Wired magazine is reporting. The movie organization has now filed 13 such lawsuits since 2007. The three new lawsuits accuse the U.S.-based web sites of providing unauthorized copies of films. But as illegal downloading continues to skyrocket, the lawsuits may not be nearly enough to stop the underground trading of the MPAA’s intellectual property. U.S. judges have closed down at least four sites since March and the MPAA has won a number of settlement agreements and been awarded millions in fines. But the major legal question of whether such sites violate U.S. copyright laws has remained unanswered by the courts.

 
New from NPR, make your own customized podcast
Remixes aren’t just for pop stars. Public radio fans can now create their own listening experience thanks to a new online feature launched this week on NPR.org. “Mix Your Own Podcast” makes it easier for public radio fans to customize their podcasts by choosing between subject, program, station and favorite personalities. Listeners can build their own podcasts by going to either the NPR.org Podcast Directory or the NPR API (Application Programming Interface) Query Generator. There they can customize based on more than 130 topics or by choosing their favorite stations and reporters. NPR currently serves more than 14 million podcast downloads of news and cultural programming per month, and has provided more than 300 million downloads since August 2005.