eBay Pulls The Plug On Cable TV, Radio Ad Exchange
This story was written by David Kaplan.
After struggling for more than a year to attract advertisers, cable TV networks and radio stations to its Online Media Exchange, eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) has decided to close it down, Adweek reports. The exchange struggled a from the start. A month after the March '07 beta release, the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau pulled out of a test of eBay's system. CAB initially complained that its members hadn't been fully briefed; CAB it then said it would have nothing to do with eBay's further trials, saying that system was too narrow an application and was basically ineffective. Sean Cunningham, president and CEO of the CAB, told NYT at the time: "We don't believe that eBay is going to get this right."
-- Couldn't combat confusion: While some cable nets, like Oxygen, broke ranks and gave the system a try, eBay execs tell Adweek that it wasn't able to clear up the fact that it wasn't offering an auction system for media buys, but rather a platform where agencies could post requests for packages of time.
By David Kaplan