eBay to Start Auctioning Radio Ads
Published June 6th, 2007
eBay said it would begin selling radio airtime to advertisers starting Wednesday, expanding into a business that Google entered last year
EBay, through a partnership with Bid4Spots, a 2-year-old company in Encino, Calif., will offer advertisers a way to buy unsold radio inventory from 2,300 radio stations in the top 300 media markets in the United States
Advertisers can go shopping for airtime on the eBay Media Marketplace, originally a forum for cable television ads which began in March. EBay was hired to create the service by a consortium of major advertisers like Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Home Depot.
But the eBay ad exchange has had little success so far. Broadcasters have vocally protested that they were not adequately consulted on its development and that it goes too far in removing people from the process. Only Oxygen, the cable network, currently sells some of its ad time on eBay’s service.
EBay, based in San Jose, Calif., hopes to jump-start its ad service by expanding to other media. “By combining this radio station base with eBay’s reach and scale among potential advertisers, we believe we have the opportunity to create a vibrant new marketplace that will benefit the radio industry and advertisers alike,†Hani Durzy, an eBay spokesman, said in a statement.
