Take That, Craig -- If You're Up Early Enough

from the put-the-coffee-on dept

Craigslist is a big thorn in newspapers' sides, hitting their bread-and-butter classifieds business. There's plenty of approaches to competing with Craigslist, whether it's acting blissfully unaware, offering your own free classifieds or even bulking up your online classified offering, but some newspapers are still struggling to figure out the best way forward. The San Francisco Chronicle thinks putting classifieds on TV is the answer -- and doing it for 30 minutes at a time three times a week, at 5:30 in the morning. It's focusing on job ads for now, making it perfect if employers are searching for the unemployed that like to watch TV really early in the morning. It's hard to slate the paper for trying to do something, and offering their ads on multiple platforms isn't a bad idea. But to think they can simply throw them on TV in whatever time slot they can pick up on the cheap and it will magically boost their business isn't wise.
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  • identicon
    Permanent4, 23 Jan 2006 @ 1:51pm

    Um.... Time-shifting?

    If people know about this, they can always record it with a VCR or DVR and watch it at their leisure, yes?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2006 @ 2:26pm

      Re: Um.... Time-shifting?

      Um.... then why don't the networks put their most popular shows on at 5:30 in the morning instead of prime time?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Paul, 23 Jan 2006 @ 2:26pm

      Just wonderful

      Thats all we need is more advertising on TV, commercials are the primary reason I don't watch much in the first place, everyone is trying to kill mainstream tv all together

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2006 @ 2:46pm

        Re: Just wonderful

        I don't think there's much mainstream tv at 5:00 am

        link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Graphicsguy, 23 Jan 2006 @ 2:47pm

        Re: Just wonderful

        Get a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) my friend. Before I got one i barely ever watched TV because my shows were on too late and i had to deal with commercials. Since i got my DVR, I can watch all my favorite shows when i want and get to skip all the advertisments.

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    W.B. McNamara, 23 Jan 2006 @ 2:23pm

    Audience Targeting, Simpsons-style

    Bart: Who's up at 3:17 AM watching TV? Homer: Alcoholics, the unemployable, angry loners...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    anonymous, 23 Jan 2006 @ 3:03pm

    No Subject Given

    not to be politically incorrect, but the latino channels already do this with used car infomericals on Saturday mornings--on every channel pretty much! And with so much plastic being shown (i.e. the humanoids modeling the vehicles) could be enteraining to watch.

    You build the right content and they will come.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Jeremiah, 23 Jan 2006 @ 3:27pm

    Two words:

    I can tell you in two words why CL will continue to dominate, and television/print simply can't touch them: Casual Encounters.

    Of course, IMHO.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2006 @ 3:51pm

    Of course... BTW:

    Bart: Who's up at 3:17 AM watching TV? Homer: Alcoholics, the unemployable, angry loners...

    of course its perfect then, thats the people its targeting, right?
    ==========
    Get a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) my friend. Before I got one i barely ever watched TV because my shows were on too late and i had to deal with commercials. Since i got my DVR, I can watch all my favorite shows when i want and get to skip all the advertisments.

    or get a TV tuner for that computer you have with a 200gig hard drive - works just the same as long as you already have the computer, its inbetween 50 and a few hundred bucks cheaper. install the tuner card, plug in your antenna or cable/satellite, install the software, and record all your late night (in my case anime) shows, without killing yourself to stay up to watch em and kill yourself again to get up in the morning.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Landon, 23 Jan 2006 @ 5:19pm

    Torrents

    I BET THIS SHOW IS GOING TO BE A HUGE HIT ON THE BIT TORRENT NETWORK!!! I CANT WAIT TO DOWNLOAD IT!!!!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Andrew Strasser, 23 Jan 2006 @ 8:51pm

    Our SBT jobmatch system is great...

    If there were enough jobs to go around though that well okay.... partially everyone involved's...

    SBTjobmatch

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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