funny business : <u+201c>saturday night live<u+201d> viewers might have noticed something new about last weekend<u+2019>s season premiere (other than alec baldwin as donald trump, that is): there were about 30% fewer ads. as cmo today reports, ad time for the 90-minute <u+201c>snl<u+201d> premiere came in at 12 minutes and 15 seconds , down about 28% from last season<u+2019>s average of roughly 17 minutes, according to ispot.tv. the move is part of nbc<u+2019>s plan to reduce commercial load on the comedy program by 30% to improve the live viewing experience. the network has also planned to sell <u+201c>branded content<u+201d> packages to advertisers, which come at a premium and are more seamlessly integrated into the show itself. nbcuniversal is just one of many tv companies trying to cut back on commercial clutter, which has helped drive people to dvrs and streaming services. live audiences are quite lucrative, and nbc doesn<u+2019>t want people skipping <u+201c>snl<u+201d> on saturday evening because of ad overload to just catch up on clips online sunday morning. krux of the matter : salesforce is paying about $700 million, split equally in cash and stock, to acquire ad tech company krux , the wall street journal reports. in the jargony world of ad tech, krux is best known as a data management platform, meaning that it collects tons of audience information and pumps it out in a way that make sense to marketers, agencies and publishers. as adexchanger notes, salesforce was likely in need of such a service , particularly given that its main rival oracle has snapped up data platforms like bluekai and datalogix. salesforce already had an existing partnership with krux, which works with big companies like ticketmaster and l<u+2019>or<u+00e9>al. the deal is salesforce<u+2019>s second in recent months. the company snapped up e-commerce firm demandware for $2.8 billion in june, its largest purchase to date. buzz freed : cnn president jeff zucker said in august that buzzfeed wasn<u+2019>t a <u+201c>legitimate<u+201d> news outlet , a comment that set off a war of words between executives at the media companies. perhaps the cable news executive had a change of heart, because cnn has hired buzzfeed<u+2019>s star political sleuth andrew kaczynski and his team of three other news reporters/researchers with just weeks to go in the presidential campaign, the huffington post reports. considering the timing of the move, the team gave notice monday and start at cnn today. <u+201c>i guess this means that cnn has seen the value in doing the kind of tough reporting on donald trump that buzzfeed news has been doing,<u+201d> said buzzfeed editor-in-chief ben smith. the move is a pretty significant steal for cnn (and loss for buzzfeed), since 26-year-old mr. kaczynski<u+2019>s <u+201c>k-file<u+201d> unit has broken major stories throughout the campaign, like when they unearthed an audio clip of mr. trump discussing invading iraq in a 2002 interview with howard stern. just think what they<u+2019>ll be able to do at cnn when tasked with finding missing planes. bad sport : sporting events were supposed to be immune to the ratings challenges of the television business. but as sports business journal reports, viewership for some traditional sports programming like the nfl has been down so far this year , and sports media executives are looking for reasons why. for one, they argue that cable news networks have lured viewers thanks to a hypnotizing election season, and some of those eyeballs might be coming from sports. some have also suggested that the olympics ate up viewership, though it<u+2019>s unclear if that<u+2019>s just a convenient excuse for anyone who was matched up against the mega global event (even olympics ratings struggled ). but other analysts say new streaming options for sports pose a long-term drain on traditional ratings. for now, the numbers look small comparatively, as twitter<u+2019>s viewers made up less than 2% of the overall <u+201c>thursday night football<u+201d> audience, for instance. facebook is launching a craigslist competitor called facebook marketplace, an exchange for selling goods. the marketplace icon will replace the messenger icon in the bottom row of the facebook app. [ the verge ] ryan kavanaugh is said to have put his film studio relativity media up for sale. the company has emerged from bankruptcy but its first wide release flopped at the box office. [ hollywood reporter ] the financial times has rolled out a new website that it promises will have one of the fastest load times in the world. publishers say faster websites encourage users to stay for longer and read more articles. [ cmo today ] hbo<u+2019>s new sci-fi drama <u+201c>westworld<u+201d> drew 3.3 million viewers sunday night, making it the best premiere for a new show since the first season debut of <u+201c>true detective<u+201d> in 2014. [ variety ] people who are opting in to allow apps to track their location are getting much more than they bargained for, as companies are collecting user data that goes beyond what consumers expect. [ ad age ] gawker media wants to set aside at least $5.5 million from the sale of its sites to fund its legal fight with hulk hogan. the company maintains that it will win on appeal or that damages to the wrestler will be reduced, lawyers argued in court papers. [ wsj ] google is planning to introduce a virtual reality headset that could be sold for as little as $79. [ variety ] what you need to know about how facebook is calculating its new average video watch time metric, in the wake of backlash from advertisers over the inflation of a prior measurement. [ marketing land ] follow us on twitter: @wsjcmo , @digitalshields , @vranicawsj , @jackmarshall , @perlberg , @alexbruell , @srabil , @asharma subscribe to our morning newsletter, delivered straight to your inbox, at http://on.wsj.com/cmotodaysignup . write to steven perlberg at steven.perlberg@wsj.com
cmo today: nbc reduces ad clutter on <u+2018>saturday night live<u+2019> - wsj
steven perlberg