American Cable Companies to Form New Joint Customized Ad Venture

NEW YORK, March 10: The six
largest cable television firms in the U.S., including Comcast and Time Warner
Cable, are working on plans for a jointly owned company that would allow
national advertisers to buy customized ads and interactive ads across the
companies’ systems.

According to The
New York Times, for
the last six months, executives from Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cablevision,
Cox Communications, Charter Communications and Bright House Networks have been
meeting monthly to discuss the new initiative,
which is code-named Project Canoe to emphasize the importance of teamwork. Stephen
Burke, the president of Comcast, and Landel C. Hobbs, the COO of Time Warner
Cable, are reportedly spearheading the project.

Collectively, the cable
companies will initially put about $150 million behind the effort, which aims
to shift the flow of advertising dollars towards television and away from
Internet companies like Google. Combined, the nation’s cable operators generate
about $5 billion in revenue from selling local advertising in markets where
they own the infrastructure to people’s homes, a small slice of the $70 billion
television advertising pot. While their competition is largely local newspapers
and radio stations, Project Canoe will allow the cable industry to sell ads on
a nationwide basis through a joint platform.

—By Irene Lew