Google is looking to hire a national director of ad sales for its fledgling television initiatives, according to AdAge. Google’s plan: buy up scatter inventory that’s not available in advance during the upfronts, and which changes value based on changing demand throughout the year.
Efforts on the YouTube front, meanwhile, are proceeeding with an indie label partnership, but the Academy has recently asked Google to remove clips of the Oscars from its site.
I’m not sure I understand the Academy’s logic: They don’t sell DVDs of the show, and they don’t offer a lot of video on oscar.com. The reason given for pulling the clips — to whet people’s appetite for next year’s show — makes little to no sense, given that the next show will be an entirely different experience. Removing a clip of a tv show, which retains value as an additional DVD item or in syndication, is one thing. But removing a clip of a one-off event that’s serving as nothing more than free publicity? I don’t get it.