Viacom and Time Warner Cable have resolved a bitter dispute that threatened to strip TWC customers of Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other MTV Networks channels. Such negotiations are usually handled behind closed doors, but in this case the companies went all out with ads, on-screen pleas and online rebuttals meant to alarm TV fans and rally them to one side or the other.

The LA Times described a newspaper ad featuring a crying Dora the Explorer, taken out by Viacom, as well as an on-screen alert, warning viewers they may lose their favorite shows. A :30 spot, available on YouTube, had a similar message.

Digital media were heavily leveraged by both parties. Over at TheRiver.net, Pamela Parker posted the above screen shot from MTV.com and described bombastic copy (since removed) on a Time Warner Web site at TWCFacts.com.

“MTV please don’t do it!” Viacom is asking “you” to pay “millions” more, the site says, adding, “Those demands would be unreasonable any time, but given the current economic conditions, they are outrageous now.”

It’s not clear to what extent either party used search marketing or e-mail to get their message out. If you noticed either over the past few days, feel free to post them here or email me and I’ll post them here.

Multiple reports have noted that the dispute points to how important affiliate fees have become as the recession takes an increasingly harsh toll on network operators’ ad revenues.

Online marketing news articles about the presidential campaign, social media, industry layoffs, and behavioral marketing were among the most viewed articles on ClickZ in 2008.

Here’s a look at the year’s most popular news items based on page views:

1. Clinton Needed More Search: Q&A with Google’s Greenberger
Google’s top political ad man contends savvy search advertising contributed to the success of both Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s primary season wins.
By Kate Kaye

2. Study: Blogs Influence Purchases More Than Social Sites
Blogs can have more impact on purchase decisions than social networks, a study finds.
By Enid Burns

3. ISPs Collect User Data for Behavioral Ad Targeting
Internet service providers track subscriber activities online for behavioral advertising purposes.
By Zachary Rodgers

4. Obama Spent Most of $3 Million This Year on Google
The search giant scored over 70 percent of money spent on online media buys for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign this year through April, according to information compiled from Federal Election Commission filings.
By Kate Kaye

5. McDonald’s Sprinkles Digital Fairy Dust with Happy Meal Game
Fuel Industries developed a world with fairies and dragons for pre-teens, adding a digital element to the next series of kids’ meals.
By Enid Burns

6. Does the New iPhone Hold More Promise for Marketers?
Apple introduces a faster, cheaper model with built-in GPS and makes way for blogging, e-commerce, and other mobile applications.
By Enid Burns

7. Top Social Networking Sites in May 2008
LinkedIn and Yahoo’s Flickr show triple-digit growth compared to a year ago.
Source: comScore

8. ClickZ’s Layoff Tracker for Digital Marketing Jobs
ClickZ’s ongoing tally of layoffs and headcount reductions in the digital marketing and ad-supported media sectors.
By Zachary Rodgers

9. MGM Deal Brings More Premium Content to YouTube
Video-sharing site signs deal that will bring many of MGM studio’s full-length features — supported by in-video advertising — to the Google-owned site.
By Douglas Quenqua

10. Top Real Estate Sites in February 2008
Home values may be sinking, but visitors to real estate sites were as curious as ever.
Source: comScore

ClickZ’s Experts draw from a wide assortment of specialties, including e-mail marketing, search engine marketing, online video advertising, Web analytics, and media buying and planning.

And the interests of ClickZ readers vary widely, too, based on a look at the 10 most popular ClickZ Experts’ columns published in 2008.

1. Seven Top Online Marketing Trends for 2008
Among the trends identified: social network niches, behavioral targeting, more sophisticated analytics.
By Heidi Cohen

2. Online Games Redefine Gaming
As the death knell rings for gaming’s ultimate icon, the console, marketers must transition to the new definition of gaming.
By Kevin Carney

3. How 20 Words Generate a 220 Percent Lift in Response
An old direct marketing trick can help e-mail marketing campaigns today.
By Jeanne Jennings

4. Voter-Generated Content Makes or Breaks Candidates
Voters get out to vote for the next US president after they get out their message.
By Christine Beardsell

5. The Average Conversion Rate: Is It a Myth?
Online marketers have embraced conversion rates of 2 to 3 percent when they should be aiming higher. Here’s why.
By Bryan Eisenberg

6. Brands Build Widget Ads; Will Consumers Come?
Kraft Foods, Nissan, and American Express are the latest to bring advertising to these shareable, downloadable applications.
By Anna Maria Virzi

7. Hotmail’s People Factor Sets the Rules
Even the most sophisticated spam filters have a human component: users who vote with their mice.
By Stefan Pollard

8. Content Optimization: Keyword Suggestion Tools
How to start optimizing your site’s content today using tools from Google, Yahoo, and Quintura.
By P.J. Fusco

9. Never on Sunday? Rethink Your E-mail Schedule
New reports show the best day to send your e-mail is Sunday.
By Karen Gedney

10.Seven Ways to Advertise on Facebook
A media planner’s guide to paid advertising opportunities on the social media network.
By Harry Gold

Which were the biggest online ad industry stories of ’08? Readers can wait for my year-end roundup story tomorrow in ClickZ News to find out which we thought made the cut.

One that was certainly important but not necessarily of sweeping impact for the industry as a whole was the ongoing saga of online newspaper advertising. The launch of quadrantOne and Yahoo’s APT platform were probably the most significant events.

In February, Gannett Co., Hearst Corporation, Tribune Company, and The New York Times Company launched quadrantOne. The goal was to grab more national ad dollars from large brands.

The network soon added several new Web sites and publishers to its network, all of which are also partnered with Yahoo.

Now, it’s been two years since Yahoo began signing ad and search deals with newspaper publishers as part of its newspaper consortium project — another one that’s meant to save them through higher display ad revenue from brand advertisers, among other things. Though the partner group has grown significantly, there’s much work to be done, including getting all of Yahoo’s paper partners on its APT ad management platform, which finally launched in September.

The consortium in a way let go of the Yahoo apron strings in August when it appointed a Tribune man, Michael Silver, as its new executive director. The partners also formed deals with Zillowin ’08, creating a real estate related ad network.

Adding another wrinkle to the drama, Centro’s acquisition of McClatchy-owned newspaper ad network Real Cities ended an era begun by the now-defunct Knight Ridder. The buy ended the existence of Real Cities as an entity; Real Cities was a division of Knight Ridder until McClatchy acquired KR in 2006.

Despite the fact that the industry has joined hands in various network efforts, the outlook is grim as paper publishers grapple with falling online ad revenues — the ones that were supposed to counteract the bleeding on the print side.
Indeed, after its first ever reported drop in online ad revenue in Q2 2008, the industry drifted another few notches in Q3. According to the Newspaper Association of America, online paper sites brought in $749.8 million in Q3, a drop of 3 percent from a year before.

Newspaper industry layoffs abound and will probably get worse in 2009. At this point, it’s not clear whether those have affected online ad sales teams. But if digital media is truly a last hope for newspapers, they’d do well to keep their digital ad sales operations strong.

What did I forget?

Obama was on the minds of the U.S. in terms of search in 2008, according to Google. But the fastest-rising search term for Google’s global results in its Zeitgeist was Sarah Palin. That’s what’s listed in this year’s top search term recaps from Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask.com, and Lycos. The election weighed heavily in several categories including fastest rising, overall searches, influential women, and top news stories.

The financial bailout ranked high on search, too. On Google people searched for “financial crisis,” “bailout,” and “mortgage crisis,” while Yahoo saw top economic terms such as “oil prices,” “gold prices,” and “Sallie Mae.” AOL visitors looked for financial terms “Wachovia,” “Washington Mutual,” “Merrill Lynch,” and “AIG,” among others. The top news stories on Lycos related to the economic collapse and bailout, though stories of the death of actor Heath Ledger, and the Eliot Spitzer scandal were also popular.

Digital ads just won’t suffice to save the struggling newspaper business. That’s been clear since early this fall, when the Newspaper Association of America reported its members’ second quarter revenues shrank for the first time in Q2, following weak Q1 growth. Those revenues declined again in Q3, shattering the pipe dream that rapid Web growth would support the publishers’ huge cost structures.

So perhaps it shouldn’t come as a shock that The New York Times — itself an NAA member — is also feeling a digital ad pinch. Long known for its culture of innovation, particularly at NYTimes.com, the company last week reported results for November, and were they ever bad. The dismal report includes a 21.8 percent overall revenue drop, led by spending declines in a bunch of major sectors and in all its divisions.

While grim, that big picture pain is less disheartening than this tidbit: Online ad revenues for the month contracted 4 percent compared with November 2007, owing to the continued flight of real estate and job classifieds advertising. The collapse of those two bedrocks of its ad model appear to have trumped all the company’s smart synchronized banners, its surround sessions and its 10th place ranking among the largest Web players (Nielsen Online). Even for the Grey Lady, it would appear based on these numbers that rapid adoption and innovation in new channels just aren’t enough to sustain a business mired in old ones.

A pioneer of Internet consulting and Web development for Republicans is no longer with us. Founder and CEO of New Media Communications, and a partner of Connell Donatelli, an affiliated Web consultancy, died Friday in a plane crash on his way to Ohio, according to Connell Donatelli’s Eric Frenchman. Apparently Connell was piloting the plane.

I never met Connell, though I’ve known his close colleagues Frenchman and Becki Donatelli for some time (both drove online ad strategy for the 2008 McCain campaign).

You can read more about Mike here.