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NEW YORK (AP) ? It was a good year in the ratings for cable news networks. Or a rough one. It depends on your perspective.
Fox News Channel continued its dominance, with an average viewership that exceeded CNN and MSNBC combined in prime time and for the entire day, the Nielsen ratings company said Wednesday. Fox typically had 1.87 million viewers in prime time this year. The top 13 programs in cable news all aired on Fox.
Yet Fox was alone among the cable news networks in losing viewers ? down 8 percent in prime time and 5 percent for the full day, Nielsen said. The 2010 midterm election year was particularly engaging for Republicans, who make up a big part of Fox's audience.
CNN was up 17 percent in prime-time viewership with a revamped lineup that includes a double dose of Anderson Cooper and Piers Morgan replacing Larry King. CNN is third behind Fox and MSNBC in prime time but second for the day as a whole.
CNN's rivals acknowledge its gains but are quick to point out that last year represented CNN's worst year ever in the ratings.
MSNBC can take pride in surviving the exit of its most popular prime time personality, Keith Olbermann, who defected to Current. The network is up 2 percent over last year in its prime-time average, Nielsen said.
However, MSNBC is down 11 percent for the 8 p.m. time slot, which Olbermann occupied. Along with the continued popularity of Rachel Maddow at 9 p.m., MSNBC is showing rating gains at 10 p.m. because it replaced the Olbermann rerun that used to air at that time with an original show, currently hosted by Lawrence O'Donnell.
HLN, the former CNN Headline News, is up 20 percent over last year, with its popular blanket coverage of Casey Anthony's trial a big factor.
NBC had a rare win in the prime time rankings, with its Sunday night football programming leading the way.
During Christmas week, NBC averaged 7.2 million viewers in prime time (4.0 rating, 7 share). A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.7 million TV homes; the share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.
CBS was second with 6.9 million viewers (4.4 rating, 8 share). When a network has a higher rating despite having a smaller audience, as CBS did, it indicates that more people were watching the network alone. NBC had more cases of several people gathered around the TV ? probably watching its Sunday night football game.
Fox had 5.5 million (3.2, 6), ABC had 4.4 million (2.6, 5), Ion Television had 1.1 million (0.7, 1) and the CW had 960,000 (0.6, 1).
Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with 3.3 million viewers (1.6, 3), Telemundo had 1.3 million (0.7, 1), TeleFutura had 450,000 (0.2, 0), Estrella had 220,000 (0.1, 0) and Azteca had 160,000 (also 0.1, 0).
NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.6 million viewers (5.6, 11). ABC's "World News" was second with 8.2 million (5.4, 10), and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.4 million viewers (4.3, 8).
For the week of Dec. 19-25, the top 10 shows, their networks and viewerships: NFL Football: Chicago at Green Bay, NBC, 24.02 million; "Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick," NBC, 18.67 million; "Football Night in America," NBC, 14.73 million; "The X-Factor" (Thursday), Fox, 12.59 million; "NCIS," CBS, 12.37 million; "NCIS: Los Angeles," CBS, 11.43 million; "The X-Factor" (Wednesday), Fox, 11.23 million; "The Big Bang Theory," CBS, 9.28 million; "The Mentalist," CBS, 8.47 million; "Person of Interest," CBS, 8.14 million.
___
ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox is a unit of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. TeleFutura is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.
Probir Rao, MD, Investment Banking and capital markets at Jefferies India says the global economic conditions muted outbound acquisitions but there is scope for the equities market to improve in the coming year.
The 2007 Cosco Busan disaster, which spilled 54,000 gallons of oil into the San Francisco Bay, had an unexpectedly lethal impact on embryonic fish, devastating a commercially and ecologically important species for nearly two years, reports a new study by the University of California, Davis, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The study, to be published the week of Dec. 26 in the early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that even small oil spills can have a large impact on marine life, and that common chemical analyses of oil spills may be inadequate.
"Our research represents a change in the paradigm for oil spill research and detecting oil spill effects in an urbanized estuary," said Gary Cherr, director of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory and a study co-author.
On the foggy morning of Nov. 7, 2007, when the container ship collided with the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, bunker oil contaminated spawning habitats for the largest U.S. coastal population of Pacific herring?a month before spawning season.
The new study, which analyzed Pacific herring embryos following the spill, highlights the effects of bunker oil on fish embryos in shallow water, the potential significance of sunlight interacting with oil compounds, and the extreme vulnerability of fish in early life stages to spilled oil.
Specifically, the study found that components of Cosco Busan bunker oil accumulated in naturally spawned herring embryos, then interacted with sunlight during low tides to kill the embryos. Laboratory fertilized eggs, caged in deeper waters, were protected from the lethal combination of sunlight and oil, but still showed less severe abnormalities associated with oil exposure.
Crude oil is naturally occurring, liquid petroleum. Bunker oil is a thick fuel oil distilled from crude oil and burned on ships to fuel their engines. It is contaminated with various, sometimes unknown, substances.
The study builds on research following the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, which released up to 32 million gallons of crude oil into the comparatively pristine environment of Prince William Sound, Alaska. That research established a new paradigm for understanding the effects of oil toxicity on fish at early life stages.
The new study suggests that this old paradigm is inadequate to explain the dramatic, lethal effects of very low levels of oil on fish embryos, even in an urban estuary with preexisting background pollution.
"Based on our previous understanding of the effects of oil on embryonic fish, we didn't think there was enough oil from the Cosco Busan spill to cause this much damage," Cherr said. "And we didn't expect that the ultraviolet light would dramatically increase toxicity in the actual environment, as we might observe in controlled laboratory experiments."
Researchers began the new study in February 2008. They analyzed the levels of oil-based compounds in caged herring embryos at four oiled and two non-oiled subtidal sites, all of which were at least 1 meter below the water's surface. Naturally spawned embryos from shallower sites were also analyzed.
Three months after the spill, caged embryos at oiled sites showed nonlethal heart defects typical of oil exposure.
But embryos from the shallower, intertidal zone not only exhibited the nonlethal heart defects, they also showed surprisingly high rates of dead tissue and mortality unrelated to heart defects.
"These embryos were literally falling apart with high rates of mortality," said Cherr.
In 2008, almost no live larvae hatched from the natural spawn collected from oiled sites.
The high death rates did not seem to be caused by natural or manmade causes unrelated to the spill, the researchers report. No toxicity was observed in embryos from unoiled sites, even those near major highways.
Embryos sampled two years later from oiled sites showed modest heart defects but no increased death rates.
Pacific herring is a commercially and ecologically important species. The fish travel in large schools, typically from the San Francisco Bay north to the Bering Sea, and serve as a forage fish for humpback whales, other mammals, birds and salmon. After two years at sea, they spawn in shallow areas of bays and estuaries.
"In San Francisco, herring is one of the last urban fisheries, and herring is an indicator for the health of the Bay," said Cherr.
###
University of California - Davis: http://www.ucdavis.edu
Thanks to University of California - Davis for this article.
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The 5th short term tax rebate since ?01 agreed to Peter Boockvar
I'm not sure if an agreement in Washington over the payroll tax cut is the reason why the market is looking higher again but to put it in perspective, it's the 5th short term tax cut/rebate check agreement since 2001. Bush had his in '01 and '08 followed by Obama in '09 and this year and next. As with any short term policy, whether fiscal or monetary, the economy is left back at square 1 when it wears off. Show me one employer that has or will hire someone new because of these 5 rebates. I'm all for getting our...
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MyNews.in Lindsay Lohan shoots for denim line: London, Dec 24 Actress Lindsay Lohan has shot a provoc... bit.ly/rDhNIx MyNews.inIl y a environ 8 heuresvia twitterfeed
Comet Lovejoy defied expectations and survived its closest approach to the sun late Thursday, leaving scientists the rare opportunity?to chronicle a comet's near-death experience.
Comet Lovejoy lives to orbit another 314 years.
Skip to next paragraph
Icarus should have been so lucky.
The comet, discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy Nov. 27, defied expectations that it would be destroyed during its closest approach to the sun late Thursday.
Instead, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite saw the comet emerge from behind the sun between 7 and 8 p.m. Eastern time Thursday, surviving a passage through the sun's corona and its searing 2-million-degree temperatures.
Prior to the comet's swing-by, which took it to within about 87,000 miles of the sun's surface, scientists expected the comet, formally designated C/2011 W3, to vaporize.
In anticipation, five sun-watching spacecraft from the US, Europe, and Japan trained their instruments on the object to take advantage of the rare opportunity to chronicle a comet's final encounter with the sun.
"I suppose the first thing to say is this: I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong," wrote astronomer Karl Battams, with the US Naval Observatory, who has been blogging about what he calculated as Comet Lovejoy's impending demise. "And I have never been so happy to be wrong!"
Why? Because, he says, that's when scientists really learn something.
One question relates to the comet's size.
"This is one case where size counts," says Dean Pesnell, project scientist for the Solar Dynamics Observatory at the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The bigger you are, the more likely you can make it through the closest approach to the sun," or perihelion.
Because the comet was very bright during its approach, "we knew it was a bigger one to start with," Dr. Pesnell says. But it was tough to put a number to the mass.
Because the comet survived, researchers now estimate its mass to be at least 1 billion kilograms, or 1.1 million tons.
Dr. Battams says he initially estimated the size of the nucleus at no more than about 200 meters across, roughly two football fields set end to end. Now, he says, it's more likely that the nucleus measures significantly larger.
In addition, the Solar Dynamics Observatory has been gathering spectra from the comet to understand its composition.
With all the spacecraft available to observe the comet's close encounter with the sun, scientists have been able to track far more of its torrid travels. The Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the comet as it flitted behind the sun, then re-emerged. One of NASA's two Stereo spacecraft was in position to capture the comet as it crossed the far side of the sun. It too has been gathering data on the comet's composition, Pesnell says.
Comet C/2011 W3 belongs to a class of comets known as Kreutz sungrazers. They were named for German astronomer Heinrich Kreutz who, in 1888, published calculations showing that three sungrazing comets observed between 1843 and 1882 were probably fragments of one larger comet that had broken up during its solar encounter several orbits earlier.
These three comets were dubbed "great" comets because of they were bright enough to be see even by casual observers without the aid of binoculars or telescopes. And some were visible during the day.
All Kreutz?sungrazers are now considered to be fragments of that one original comet.
TOKYO ? Japan's government said Wednesday that it could take 40 years to clean up and fully decommission a nuclear plant that went into meltdown after it was struck by a huge tsunami.
Nuclear crisis minister Goshi Hosono suggested that the timetable was ambitious, acknowledging that decommissioning three reactors with severely melted fuel plus spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant was an "unprecedented project," and that the process was not "totally foreseeable."
"But we must do it even though we may face difficulties along the way," Hosono told a news conference.
Under a detailed roadmap approved earlier Wednesday following consultation with experts and nuclear regulators, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. will start removing spent fuel rods within two to three years from their pools located on the top floor of each of their reactor buildings.
After that is completed, TEPCO will start removing the melted fuel, most of which is believed to have fallen to the bottom of the core or even down to the bottom of the larger, beaker-shaped containment vessel, a process that is expected to begin in 10 years and completed 25 years from now. The location and conditions of the melted fuel is not exactly known.
That's more than twice as long as it took to remove the fuel from the Unit 2 reactor at Three Mile Island that suffered a partial meltdown in 1979.
Trade Minister Yukio Edano promised that authorities would ensure safety at the plant. He also vowed to pay attention to the concerns of tens of thousands of residents displaced when the plant was knocked out by Japan's March 11 earthquake and tsunami, spawning the world's worst nuclear crisis since the Chernobyl accident in 1986.
"We must not allow the work toward decommissioning to cause any new risks or delay the return of the residents to their homes," he said.
Completely decommissioning the plant would require five to 10 more years after the fuel debris removal, making the entire process up to 40 years, according to the roadmap.
The roadmap for Fukushima is twice as long the time set aside to decommission the Tokai Power Station, the country's first commercial reactor that stopped operation in 1998.
The process still requires the development of robots and technology that can do much of the work remotely because of extremely high radiation levels inside the reactor buildings. Officials say they are aiming to have such robots by 2013 and start decontaminating the reactor buildings in 2014.
The operator and the government would also have to ensure a stable supply of workers and save them from exceeding exposure limits while keeping the long process going.
They also have to figure out ways to access each containment vessel and assess the extent of damage, as well as locate holes and cracks through which cooling water is leaking and flooding the area.
The decades-long process also would place an enormous financial burden on TEPCO. The ministers said that the total cost estimate cannot be provided immediately, but promised that there will be no delay because of financial reasons.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda announced last Friday that the plant has achieved "cold shutdown conditions," meaning the plant had been brought to stability in the nine months since the accident.
The announcement officially paves the way for a new phase that will eventually allow some evacuees back to less-contaminated areas currently off limits.
Experts say the plant 140 miles (230 kilometers) northeast of Tokyo is running with makeshift equipment and remains vulnerable to cold weather and earthquakes.
Another problem is huge volume of radioactive waste and debris that will come out of the plant during its dismantling process. Officials said they have not decided what to do with them and that part is not covered by the 40-year roadmap.
"We still need to discuss what to do with the waste, including development of such technology," said Koichi Noda, a trade ministry official in charge of nuclear accident cleanup.
The two ministers acknowledged that they may not be even around to see the decommissioning process through the end.
"I will take responsibility as a person and get involved in this as long as I live," Edano said.
NEW YORK (AP) ? A prestigious scientific journal is retracting a controversial 2009 report that linked chronic fatigue syndrome to a virus.
In an unusual move, the journal Science is taking that step on its own. Normally, authors retract their own research papers when serious problems arise after publication.
But Science has lost confidence in the report and the validity of its conclusions, editor-in-chief Bruce Alberts writes in Friday's issue. He said most of the authors have agreed in principle to retract the paper "but they have been unable to agree on the wording of their statement." A retraction signed by all the authors "is unlikely to be forthcoming," Alberts wrote.
Chronic fatigue syndrome is characterized by severe fatigue for at least six months, impaired memory and other symptoms.
The 2009 paper, from scientists at the Whittemore Peterson Institute in Reno, Nev., the Cleveland Clinic and the National Cancer Institute, reported finding a virus called XMRV in blood cells of some patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. That raised hope that a cause of the mysterious illness had been found, although other viral suspects over the years had proven to be false leads.
But follow-up studies found no evidence of such a link. Last May, Science published two reports suggesting the original finding was due to lab contamination.
At the time, Alberts published a statement declaring that the validity of the study was "now seriously in question."
Then in September, the authors retracted some of the data, citing contamination.
In his statement on the full retraction, Alberts said the authors had also acknowledged omitting important information about the study's procedures in an illustration of some lab results.
Robert Silverman of the Cleveland Clinic, one of the paper's 13 authors, said in a statement Thursday that he was pleased by the full retraction. He said he had sought one this summer after finding that blood samples were contaminated.
Through a spokeswoman, another study author, Francis Ruscetti of the cancer institute, declined to comment.
Annette Whittemore, president of the Whittemore institute, said in a statement that her organization remains committed to discovering the roots of the disorder. "It is not the end of the story, rather it is the beginning of our renewed efforts," she said. "We ... look forward to the rigorous review of our scientific research."
A key figure in the research, Judy Mikovits, is no longer with the Whittemore institute.
New protocols improve detection of microRNAs for diagnosisPublic release date: 7-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Sampson jmdmedia@elsevier.com 215-239-3171 Elsevier Health Sciences
Philadelphia, PA, -- MicroRNAs (miRNAs) that regulate processes including fertilization, development, and aging show promise as biomarkers of disease. They can be collected from routinely collected fluids such as blood, saliva, and urine. However, a number of factors can interfere with the accuracy of miRNA tests. In a study published online today in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, a group of researchers provide clear procedures for the collection and analysis of miRNA, significantly improving their diagnostic accuracy.
"Our study demonstrates that inherent differences in biological samples and the methods used to collect and analyze them can dramatically affect the detection and quantitation of microRNAs," reports lead investigator Dominik M. Duelli, PhD, Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. "We developed measures to overcome the interfering activities and improved the sensitivity of miRNA detection up to 30-fold."
Over 1,000 miRNAs exist in the human body. Deregulation of specific miRNAs is associated with disease. Measuring the amount of miRNAs in body fluids can aid in the diagnosis of disease or conditions such as pregnancy. Dr. Duelli and his colleagues quantified two miRNAs: miR-16, which acts as a tumor suppressor and is deregulated or lost in some cancers, including breast cancer; and miR-223, which has been implicated in pregnancy and other conditions, as well as in some malignant diseases.
"A fundamental challenge to making microRNA diagnostics broadly available has been the inability to isolate enough high quality material to analyze. Our paper outlines ways of effectively collecting blood plasma samples, thus bringing us one step closer to the goal of making [miRNA] disease diagnostics a reality," adds co-investigator Sarah Linnstaedt, PhD, of Duke University.
The authors found that the choice of blood collection tube affects quantitation. Traditional green-top heparin tubes interfered nearly completely with miRNA detection. Grey-top tubes containing the anticoagulant sodium fluoride and potassium oxalate (NaF/KOx) provided the best results. Although miR-16 is about 500 times more abundant in blood plasma than miR-223, the results for both were similar, indicating that the differences in detection resulting from the choice of collection method apply to other miRNAs. Furthermore, collection of miR-223 in serum yielded more variable results, signifying that for some miRNAs, analysis of blood in plasma form is preferred.
The study indicated that natural components of blood plasma co-purify with miRNAs, interfering with their detection. The authors identified extra steps in purification, and the ideal dilution level, to reduce the interference. "Although counterintuitive, by reducing the starting material, inhibitors were presumed to be diluted below a threshold of interference. Careful titration of starting material yields more accurate miRNA quantitation," explains Dr. Duelli. In another approach, the authors avoided the problem of contamination by combining an enzyme that overcomes plasma inhibitors with standard enzymes to increase the sensitivity of miRNA detection by about 30-fold.
Finally, the authors observed that differences in plasma composition among individual donors yield different miRNA measurements. "These results raise the possibility that factors including diet, exercise, circadian rhythms, and seasons, which alter the blood chemistry, might affect miRNA detection and quantitation," says Dr. Duelli.
"The implications of this work are that without consideration of the variables we have identified, miRNA quantitation of human samples may not be reliable for the purpose of biomarker development. We provide approaches that enable faithful quantitation of miRNA abundance in body fluid," concludes Dr. Duelli.
###
The article is "Plasma Components Affect Accuracy of Circulating Cancer-Related MicroRNA Quantitation," by D-J. Kim, S. Linnstaedt, J. Palma, J. Cheol Park, E. Ntrivalas, J.Y.H. Kwak-Kim, A. Gilman-Sachs, K. Beaman, M.L. Hastings, J.N. Martin, and D.M. Duelli (doi: 10.1016/j.jmoldx.2011.09.002). Published online ahead of its issue, the study will appear in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, Volume 14, Issue 1 (January 2012) published by Elsevier.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New protocols improve detection of microRNAs for diagnosisPublic release date: 7-Dec-2011 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: David Sampson jmdmedia@elsevier.com 215-239-3171 Elsevier Health Sciences
Philadelphia, PA, -- MicroRNAs (miRNAs) that regulate processes including fertilization, development, and aging show promise as biomarkers of disease. They can be collected from routinely collected fluids such as blood, saliva, and urine. However, a number of factors can interfere with the accuracy of miRNA tests. In a study published online today in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, a group of researchers provide clear procedures for the collection and analysis of miRNA, significantly improving their diagnostic accuracy.
"Our study demonstrates that inherent differences in biological samples and the methods used to collect and analyze them can dramatically affect the detection and quantitation of microRNAs," reports lead investigator Dominik M. Duelli, PhD, Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. "We developed measures to overcome the interfering activities and improved the sensitivity of miRNA detection up to 30-fold."
Over 1,000 miRNAs exist in the human body. Deregulation of specific miRNAs is associated with disease. Measuring the amount of miRNAs in body fluids can aid in the diagnosis of disease or conditions such as pregnancy. Dr. Duelli and his colleagues quantified two miRNAs: miR-16, which acts as a tumor suppressor and is deregulated or lost in some cancers, including breast cancer; and miR-223, which has been implicated in pregnancy and other conditions, as well as in some malignant diseases.
"A fundamental challenge to making microRNA diagnostics broadly available has been the inability to isolate enough high quality material to analyze. Our paper outlines ways of effectively collecting blood plasma samples, thus bringing us one step closer to the goal of making [miRNA] disease diagnostics a reality," adds co-investigator Sarah Linnstaedt, PhD, of Duke University.
The authors found that the choice of blood collection tube affects quantitation. Traditional green-top heparin tubes interfered nearly completely with miRNA detection. Grey-top tubes containing the anticoagulant sodium fluoride and potassium oxalate (NaF/KOx) provided the best results. Although miR-16 is about 500 times more abundant in blood plasma than miR-223, the results for both were similar, indicating that the differences in detection resulting from the choice of collection method apply to other miRNAs. Furthermore, collection of miR-223 in serum yielded more variable results, signifying that for some miRNAs, analysis of blood in plasma form is preferred.
The study indicated that natural components of blood plasma co-purify with miRNAs, interfering with their detection. The authors identified extra steps in purification, and the ideal dilution level, to reduce the interference. "Although counterintuitive, by reducing the starting material, inhibitors were presumed to be diluted below a threshold of interference. Careful titration of starting material yields more accurate miRNA quantitation," explains Dr. Duelli. In another approach, the authors avoided the problem of contamination by combining an enzyme that overcomes plasma inhibitors with standard enzymes to increase the sensitivity of miRNA detection by about 30-fold.
Finally, the authors observed that differences in plasma composition among individual donors yield different miRNA measurements. "These results raise the possibility that factors including diet, exercise, circadian rhythms, and seasons, which alter the blood chemistry, might affect miRNA detection and quantitation," says Dr. Duelli.
"The implications of this work are that without consideration of the variables we have identified, miRNA quantitation of human samples may not be reliable for the purpose of biomarker development. We provide approaches that enable faithful quantitation of miRNA abundance in body fluid," concludes Dr. Duelli.
###
The article is "Plasma Components Affect Accuracy of Circulating Cancer-Related MicroRNA Quantitation," by D-J. Kim, S. Linnstaedt, J. Palma, J. Cheol Park, E. Ntrivalas, J.Y.H. Kwak-Kim, A. Gilman-Sachs, K. Beaman, M.L. Hastings, J.N. Martin, and D.M. Duelli (doi: 10.1016/j.jmoldx.2011.09.002). Published online ahead of its issue, the study will appear in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, Volume 14, Issue 1 (January 2012) published by Elsevier.
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
New Automotive Direct Mail Campaign Service by Xcel Media Group Cuts The Middleman And Red Tape Out Of Consumer Outreach Efforts
Xcel Media Group
?When the average automotive direct mail event lasts just 5 days it?s imperative that a dealer?s direct mail gets into consumers? homes on schedule.?
Orlando, FL (PRWEB) June 21, 2011
Recent JD Power and Associates figures report a continuing slump in the automotive sales sector. Not only were last month?s auto sales exceedingly low in spite of remarkable sales incentives, thinner inventories and prohibitive gasoline prices are only making consumers more wary of buying a new car or truck.
Uninformed Consumers ? Part Of The Problem
What?s perhaps more frustrating to automotive dealers is the fact that the direct mail campaigns they?ve traditionally relied upon to get the word out on their deals and promotions are being delivered in a timely manner. With budgetary constraints at the federal and local levels, delays with mail delivery are less and less uncommon.
The Average Sales Event Is Just 5 Days ? The USPS Can?t Always Keep Up
?When the average automotive direct mail event lasts just 5 days it?s imperative that a dealer?s direct mail gets into consumers? homes on schedule,? said Xcel Media Group President Geoffrey Wise. ?Plus, with so much competition in the market these days, not only is timing of the essence, so is captivating the audience you?re trying to compel to act. That?s why we?ve combined our award winning design services with a new Mail Assurance Program.
Tracking A Direct Mail Campaign Is Key
Created to ensure timely delivery of automotive direct mail, Xcel Media Group?s Mail Assurance Program is a multi-step process that tracks a mail campaign from the firm?s facility all the way to individual mailboxes. Beginning with a dedicated customer service representative dedicated to keeping the automotive direct mail campaign on time, on task and on budget, The Mail Assurance Program incorporates the skill and professionalism Xcel?s production and logistics personnel have to offer.
How Xcel Media Group?s Mail Assurance Program Works
Working with a customized mailing list, Xcel?s Mail Assurance Program strategically decides which zip codes are best suited for local post office delivery (DDU or Destination Delivery Unit) and which are ideal to be sent via regional sorting facilities (SCF). Generally speaking, 85% of an average campaign is delivered to DDU?s and just 15% is delivered to the SCF. Using this ratio Xcel is able to accurately predict when the direct mail campaign will be in homes.
Working With The Postal Service To Ensure Prompt Delivery
In order to make the direct mail stand out to postal workers, the Xcel production staff also places a colorful tag stating the in-home dates on each tray or sack of mail. Before the delivery is made, Xcel also contacts each delivery point directly to notify them that time sensitive direct mail will be delivered. What?s more, all Xcel Media Group drivers are specially trained to ensure that the postal worker who accepts and signs for the automotive direct mail is made well aware of the campaign?s time sensitive nature.
Once the deliveries are made, Xcel?s dedicated customer service representative then calls each local post office to verify when the mail will arrive in homes. These calls continue until confirmation has been received that responses are coming through the automotive client?s showroom doors. Plus, on a daily basis, Xcel generates a report detailing all of the delivery confirmations and sends it directly to the client.
With a variety of automotive direct mail options from Xcel Media Group, auto dealerships can choose from oversized postcards, 8-page booklets, key mailers, service mail or credit card, buy back, credit score and bankruptcy letters. To learn more about Xcel Media Group?s Mail Assurance Program and see how Xcel can help your dealership sell more cars call 866-712-5990 or visit http://www.xcelmediagroup.com.
Contact
Geoffrey Wise Xcel Media Group 866-712-5990 1005 Email
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Diego Brandao was fighting with a lot on his mind on Saturday night. The 24-year-old Brazilian knew a win at the Season 14 "Ultimate Fighter Finale" could change his mother's life.
Brandao scored a comeback victory of sorts with a surprising armbar to grab the TUF 14 featherweight title and guaranteed contract with the UFC.? He also earned an extra $80,000 for Submission of the Night and Fight of the Night. Now he can take care of his 43-year-old mother back in his hometown Manaus.
"My mission is over. I've been here for three years trying to get a better life for my family," Brandao said during the TUF 14 postfight press conference. "She doesn't know what's going on now. I hope she doesn't have a heart attack. I'm going to go slow (in telling her)."
Brandao said his mother rents a one room apartment and that she often has no food to eat. He will offer a chance to move to the U.S. with him or buy her a house in Manaus. To make ends meet, she cleans houses. Brandao wants to free her from that.
Training out of Albuquerque's Jackson's MMA, Brandao said the UFC contract and extra money will help his career too.
"I'm going to take care of myself from here. I'm going to be a better fighter too," Brandao said. "Sometimes when I've been training I've been thinking of (what's going on back in) Brazil, about the food problem down there. Now I'm going to be focused."
Brandao looks like a great prospect at featherweight. His overall record is a deceiving 14-7. He fought 11 times before the age of 21. With improved stamina and game-planning under the coaching of Greg Jackson, the kid has a chance to be a big star. He hits like a Mack truck.
Start your weekend right with Friday’s afternoon links: Angelina Jolie: “I’ll never be as good a mother” as mine ? iVillage.com Six tips for potty-training success ? lilSugar.com VIDEO: Teen speaks about being raised by gay parents to Iowa House?? Yahoo! Shine Babies enjoy seeing “bad guys” punished ? ABCNews.com Signs you should break up [...]
The all-too-familiar character from the 1990s has only peeked out in public a handful of times so far. But already, Newt Gingrich ? flush with pride over new polls showing his left-for-dead candidacy now leading the pack ? is letting his healthy ego roam free again, littering the campaign trail with grand pronouncements about his celebrity, his significance in political history and his ability to transform America.
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?I helped lead the effort to defeat communism in the Congress,? Gingrich said this week on Sean Hannity?s show.
?I?m going to be the nominee,? he informed ABC News while in Iowa.
?I was charging $60,000 a speech and the number of speeches was going up, not down,? Gingrich said in South Carolina, explaining why he didn?t actually need his consulting fee from Freddie Mac. ?Normally, celebrities leave and they gradually sell fewer speeches every year. We were selling more.?
?The degree to which I challenge the establishment and the degree to which I?m willing to follow ideas and solutions to their natural consequence without regard to Republican or Democratic political correctness makes me probably the most experienced outsider in modern times,? he told Radio Iowa.
Even descriptions of his wife Callista fall prey to aggrandizement: ?She actually describes herself as being a cross between Nancy Reagan and Laura Bush with just a slight bit of Jackie Kennedy tossed in and I think there is, somewhere swirling in there, the model Callista would like to live up to.?
The economy? There?s a vainglorious boast for that, too.
?Obama is now 34 months into his presidency, and the economy has lost 1.9 million total jobs since he took office. At the same point in the Gingrich speakership (November 1997), Americans had created 303,000 jobs in one month alone, and had created 7.7 million total new jobs since he became speaker. This is an ?Obama-Gingrich jobs gap? of 9.5 million,? the former congressman said in a statement.
Longtime Gingrich watchers see clear signs that ?Good Newt? (disciplined, charming, expansive in personality and intellect) is engaging in an internal battle with ?Bad Newt? (off-message, bombastic, self-wounding) as his political fortunes rise.
?Remember, this is the man of the combination of Churchill and de Gaulle to begin with,? conservative columnist George Will told radio host Laura Ingraham. ?He?s the embodiment of a nation in deep peril. The stage has to be lit by the fires of crisis and grandeur to suit Newt Gingrich.?
?Gingrich always a fine a line between charming and brilliant on one hand, and eccentric and borderline dangerous on the other,? said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. ?He?s been ?Charming Newt? for the last several weeks. But the last couple of days have been a reminder of his other side.?
Gingrich ?only has two modes ? attack and brag,? explained one veteran GOP strategist.
NEW YORK (Reuters) ? Wireless service provider Sprint Nextel (S.N) plans to pay up to $1.6 billion to Clearwire Corp (CLWR.O) over the next four years, potentially easing concerns about a liquidity crisis at Clearwire.
As a result, Clearwire said on Thursday it will pay $237 million in debt interest payment due on Dec 1.
Clearwire, which is majority owned by Sprint Nextel (S.N), said last month it may skip the payment to conserve cash as it needs almost $1 billion in new financing to keep operating and fund a network upgrade.
The payments from Sprint, which is also Clearwire's biggest customer, include the expansion of their current network agreement and the potential for an equity investment.
Sprint committed to providing more equity funding to Clearwire "in the event of an equity offering." If Clearwire raises new equity between $400 and $700 million, Sprint will participate in the offering on a pro rata basis up to $347 million, consistent with its current voting interest.
(Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Derek Caney)
Pretty much all smartphones are awesome. Regardless of the platform, they do things that would have seemed magical only 10 years ago. But smartphones do have their limitations. Like typing and navigating file structures. AirDroid lets you explore your device and send text messages from your computer. More »
TAMPA, Fla. -- After a full day of being hounded by the media during a press conference-free swing across Florida on Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney explained why he wasn't talking.
"Guys," Romney told reporters who shouted questions at him while he met with supporters, "we have press avails or press conferences almost every day, and that's when I answer the questions."
The reporters in the scrum exchanged glances. You do?
Later on, Emily Friedman of ABC News conducted a quick fact check and found Romney has held three press availabilities in the past three weeks:
Romney's last press conference was nearly a week ago on November 23 in Des Moines, Iowa.
The one before that?
November 19 in New Hampshire.
And a full week before that Romney held a press conference in Mauldin, S.C, on November 11. And in October, he held just three press availabilities total.
Romney did grant an interview with Fox News Tuesday morning before his speech near Miami, and some reporters took notice.
"Is there a particular reason you're only speaking to Fox News?" one videographer in Tampa shouted on Tuesday afternoon.
"Because it's the best!" a woman in the crowd of supporters yelled back.
Other popular Yahoo! News stories:
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Public release date: 7-Dec-2011
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Diego Brandao was fighting with a lot on his mind on Saturday night. The 24-year-old Brazilian knew a win at the Season 14 "Ultimate Fighter Finale" could change his mother's life.
