As Brad pointed out yesterday the online advertising agency Cheap TV Spots doused flames for a non existent rumor yesterday when the company announced it was not interested in buying TiVo.In the company's press release stated:
"Fast-growing online TV advertising agency Cheap TV Spots (http://www.cheap-tv-spots.com) responded to blog speculation regarding a possible buy of TiVo. "Cheap TV Spots has no immediate plans to acquire TiVo," said company president, Ann Clark. "TiVo is actually a better M&A target for Yahoo, Google or ASK.com. We are not
ruling out partnering with TiVo or another DVR provider."
As you are probably aware any company that is in acquisition talks or rumored to be partnering with TiVo will get a lot of press attention. Following the press release two Wall St. news companies, Briefing.com and FlyOnTheWall, took the bait.
The fact is that there had been no acquisition rumors before Cheap TV Spots released the press release.
This is simply a marketing ploy from Cheap TV Spots to get some link love for its website (as a result I won't be linking to its site or the press release).
Interestingly this is not the first time the company has done such a thing. In October the company dispelled rumors it was in talks to acquire rival Spot Runner.
Nice try Cheap TV Spots, but it doesn't wash with us.
Despite this being an obvious ploy to us and many others TiVo was listed as a hot stock up 15 cents to $5.49 on Monday on double its normal trading volume. The graph below clearly shows a jump.
The rumor was covered by the New York Post, the online newspaper asked TiVo about the rumor. A TiVo spokeswoman said: "Cheap TV Spots? We've never even heard of them."
