Watch This, Listen Up, Click Here: Inside the 300 Billion Dollar Business Behind the Media You Constantly Consume

PREFACE David Verklin/Bernice Kanner ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xiii

SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT xv

PART ONE THE LAY OF MEDIALAND

1 You Watched 33 Hours of TV Last Week, Didn’t You? 3

2 What Revelations Revealed . . . and Narnia Confirmed 17

3 Why Advertisers Have Stopped Laughing at Sitcoms 25

4 Why Ratings Are Overrated: The Weirdness of Sweeps, A. C. Nielsen, and the Upfront 33

5 Why Newspapers Hate Craig and His Infamous “List” 45

6 Why Outdoor Companies Pray for Traffic Jams 55

7 Why the Super Bowl Is Still Super 61

PART TWO A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME

8 Why Google Has Upset the Apple Cart 69

9 Why Wikipedia Ticks Off the Other Media 79

10 Why a Killer Video Game Is the U.S. Army’s Best Recruitment Tool 89

11 Why Howard Stern Is Earning Sirius Money 99

12 Why Oprah Gave Away Pontiacs 107

13 Data Mining: Why Your TV May Think You’re Gay 117

14 Search: How Aubuchon Bested the Hardware Goliaths 127

15 Why Honda Hates the Internet . . . and Those Who Haunt It 135

16 Why Grown Men Visit Legoland 143

17 Why You Can’t Find a Cell Phone Just for Talking 153

18 Why, Though You’ve Signed Up on the Do-Not-Call Registry, You’re Still Besieged by Telemarketers 163

19 Why You Won’t Have a Clue That General Motors Is Behind That Blog 171

20 Why The New Yorker Was Trashed for Teaming with Target 181

21 Why Our Eyeballs Stopped Counting 187

22 Why the Smart Money Moved Its Chips from Poker to Bulls 193

PART THREE TOMORROW

23 What’s Really Sexy about Porn? (A Peek at What’s to Come) 201

INDEX 213