Mediaboss Marketing

Last year, ACP magazines reportedly generated earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of about $100 million.

BAUER Media last night signed off on the acquisition of Australia's largest magazine publisher, ACP, after securing approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board.

The move was the last remaining hurdle for the German publisher to take control of popular titles such as The Australian Women's Weekly.

Bauer publisher Yvonne Bauer is expected to arrive in Sydney today, but company executives have been camped out at ACP's Park Street headquarters since last week finalising the details of the deal.

We are pleased to have completed the sale of ACP. Bauer Media is one of the worlds largest magazine groups, and they were a logical owner for the business, said Nine Entertainment CEO David Gyngell.

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Mr Gyngell said that there would be close ongoing collaboration between Nine Entertainment and ACP:

Nine and ACP will continue to work extensively together in the years ahead. In Sales, we will maintain focused ongoing cooperation between Nine, ACP and Mi9 through our Powered division. We will also continue to cross-promote ACP and Nine brands across the two companies, he said.

FIRB approval was considered a formality and the sale was effectively sealed last week when lenders to ACP's current owner, Nine Entertainment, gave their approval to the transaction, which will deliver just under $500 million to the debt-laden network owner.

All of the proceeds will be paid to senior lenders who are owed about $2.8 billion and effectively control the network's fate as it needs to restructure this debt if it is to avoid collapse.

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Bauer takes control of ACP

NEW YORK (AP) A Citi analyst on Tuesday raised his rating for Liberty Media Corp. to "Buy" from "Neutral," predicting that the company will soon take control of Sirius XM Radio Inc.

Jason Bazinet, who also backed his "Buy" rating for Sirius XM, noted that over the past few months Liberty has spent $1.4 billion to boost its stake in the satellite radio broadcaster to from 40 percent to 49.6 percent. He added that he expects the company to cross the 50 percent line later this year.

Once Liberty Media has a 50 percent stake in Sirius, Bazinet said it's likely that Sirius will begin a $3 billion stock buyback program that will allow Liberty to largely recoup its $1.4 billion investment while keeping a 50 percent stake in Sirius.

Meanwhile, Bazinet expects Sirius' stock should rise to $3 per share over the next 12 months, boosting value for Liberty. In light of that, Bazinet boosted Sirius' price target by 50 cents to $3 and Liberty's by $27 to $121.

The Englewood, Colo.-based conglomerate controlled by cable TV magnate John Malone saved Sirius from near-bankruptcy in 2009 by agreeing to lend it up to $530 million in exchange for preferred stock.

This year, Liberty has been steadily increasing its ownership of Sirius as part of its plans to take control of the company.

In premarket trading, Sirius shares rose 7 cents, or 2.5 percent, to $2.63, while Liberty shares were unchanged at $104.77.

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Citi analyst boosts Liberty Media rating to "Buy"

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

The Open Control Architecture (OCA) Alliance, the industry collective developing a media networking system control standard for professional applications, today announced that it has been officially incorporated as a non-profit trade association.

The incorporation represents the latest milestone for the Alliance, which was founded in June 2011 to develop a standardized control and monitoring architecture for professional media networks.

Since its founding, the Alliance has moved rapidly, releasing initial technical documents to its Observer members in October of 2011, and the complete OCA 1.0 Specification to the Observers in May of 2012.

The Specification now stands at Release 1.1. Coincident with its incorporation, the Alliance has placed the entire Release 1.1 Specification on its public website (www.oca-alliance.com) for free download.

In the coming months, the Alliance will transfer the Specification to a public standards organization for ratification as an official open public standard, free for all to use at no cost. Subsequently, the Alliance will actively support the standards-making process, and will at the same time promote and support the adoption of OCA as a tool for the professional media systems industry.

Incorporation represents another major step forward in the creation of a robust, feature-rich media networking control solution, said Terry Holton, Senior Manager - Product Planning at Yamaha R&D Centre. We are making significant progress, with excellent participation from all our founding member companies.

Bob Tudor, Presonus CTO added, the cooperation between the founding members was critical to the success of OCA 1.0. We are achieving cross-brand control of parameters in our devices as a result, which is good for our respective customers and a stimulus for market growth.

Nathan ONeill, LOUDs VP Engineering, notes a key aspect of the OCA specification has been to allow for common control functionality yet provide manufacturers the ability to customize the protocol to their own needs, much like MIDI Sysex messages in this way they get the best of both worlds the ability to control functions across a multi-manufacturer system, yet the ability to keep manufacturer-specific algorithms proprietary.

With the OCA Alliance moving forward, integration of an audio system with a media control system will definitely get a lot simpler, commented Marc Weber, Product Manager, d&b audiotechnik. This means that the integrator can concentrate on the interface to the user rather than on the actual programming itself.

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Open Control Architecture (OCA) Alliance Announces Official Incorporation

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

24/7 Media, WPPs marketing technology company, announced today a new hire in its New York headquarters. Mario Vaccari joins the company as Director, Product Management.

Vaccaris 12-plus years of experience in product management and software development include positions at PerformLine, ImageRights International, and Viewpoint. He joins the Product Management team with a focus on automation of 24/7 Medias publisher and advertiser offerings, including 24/7 Open AdStream, the companys propriety ad serving technology, and 24/7 Connect, the technology platform that simplifies media transactions for publishers and advertisers.

Vaccari is a graduate of Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH. He lives in Belleville, NJ with his wife and two sons.

About 24/7 Media, Inc.

24/7 Media, Inc., formerly 24/7 Real Media, is a leader in digital marketing technology, serving advertisers, agencies and digital publishers worldwide. The company has been in the forefront of media innovation for fifteen years. The 24/7 technology platform spans every digital channel, providing users with unprecedented control and consolidated data analysis.

This technology powers two specialized business units: Real Media Group helps marketing organizations engage their audiences with superior precision, transparency and return on investment. The group also helps digital publishers monetize their properties and manage advertising operations more effectively. Media Innovation Group provides advertisers and agencies with strategic consulting and implementation services that deliver competitive advantage in fields being transformed by technology.

24/7 Media is a WPP Digital company headquartered in New York with 18 offices in a dozen countries. For more information, please visit http://www.247media.com.

24/7 Media is a member of the NAI and adheres to the NAI privacy principles that have been applauded by the FTC. These principles are designed to help ensure Internet user privacy. For more information about online data collection associated with ad serving, including online preference marketing and an opportunity to opt-out of 24/7 Media cookies, go to: http://www.networkadvertising.org.

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24/7 Media Announces New Hire In New York

SUNNYVALE, Calif. & AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Yahoo! (YHOO) and Media.net today announced a long-term agreement to launch Yahoo! Bing Network Contextual Ads, powered by Media.net. The program aims to provide web publishers with a powerful and effective new solution for earning advertising revenue. Publishers can now use the Media.net platform to create and customize ad units that display relevant text ads from across the Yahoo! Bing Network.

Since its inception, Media.net has invested tremendous resources people, capital and time to build what Yahoo! identifies to be a terrific monetization solution for web publishers, said Al Echamendi, Vice President, Business Development, Yahoo!. During our evaluation process, we recognized Media.net as a technology and innovation leader, with a strong management team that has a significant business track record and industry experience.

Yahoo! holds a key leadership position in online advertising, said Divyank Turakhia, Founder & CEO at Media.net. Teaming up with Yahoo! allows us to offer web publishers with a solution that generates additional revenue for them and provides customization, control and flexibility that they would like.

Media.net will exclusively manage technology, business operations and relationships with respect to publishers worldwide for the program. Yahoo! will manage technology, business operations and relationships with respect to advertisers and drive advertiser sales worldwide for the program. Yahoo! will also manage all aspects of network operations to adhere to existing quality traffic standards.

The program is designed to work for websites that have premium content, where placing contextually relevant ads could result in high user engagement rates. The program is currently limited only to websites that primarily receive the majority of their traffic from the United States, Canada or United Kingdom.

Key Features of the program for publishers include:

To learn more about the program, visit http://contextualads.yahoo.com.

Advertisers can access this publisher inventory by signing up with the Yahoo! Bing Network. Existing Yahoo! Bing Network search advertisers that have selected to distribute their ads via syndicated search partners or that have opted-in to advertise on the content network will automatically and instantly access this high-quality publisher inventory.

Implementation of the deal has already begun with Contextual Ads appearing on several Yahoo! properties.

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Yahoo! and Media.net Launch Contextual Ads for Web Publishers