All of the major MSOs have agreed to scrap paper bills sent to ad agencies for national and local spot buys, committing to move to an electronic-data-interchange platform by June 28.
The goal of the agreement, spurred by the Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, is to reduce administrative costs and make it easier for ad agencies to spend money on cable advertising.
"We’ve been told by ad agencies that the easier we are to do business with, the more revenue we’re going to get," CAB president Sean Cunningham said.
MSOs that signed off on moving to an EDI platform are Adelphia Communications Corp., Bresnan Communications, Bright House Networks, Cable One Inc., Cablevision Systems Corp., Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc., Insight Communications Co. Inc. and Time Warner Cable.
National Cable Communications -- the rep firm owned by Time Warner, Cox and Comcast -- offered to supply an EDI platform that it has used since 2001 to other operators free-of-charge.
For more on the move to EDI, please see Steve Donohue’s story on page 3 of Monday’s issue of Multichannel News.
