Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE
NBC and MTV are unveiling an unusual plan to promote a new television show, “quarterlife,” that will premiere on MTV, but air weekly on competitor NBC. The groundbreaking “quarterlife,” which portrays struggling artists in their 20s, was created for the Web in eight-minute segments. (http://www.reuters.com/article/industryNews/idUSN1341166420080214 2/14)
NBC Entertainment co-head Ben Silverman is selling his television production firm Reveille to London-based Shine, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth. The deal resolves conflicts of interest issues posed by Silverman’s dual role. “I just want to focus 100% on NBC,” he says. (http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-reveille14feb14,1,7572319.story 2/14)
Advertisers will spend some $1.6 million for each 30 seconds of commercial time during the ABC broadcast of the Academy Awards on Feb. 24. Marketers appear to be treating the Oscar show as if it were the Super Bowl, when viewers pay more attention to the ads. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/business/media/14adco.html?_r=1&oref=slogin 2/14)
Showtime plans to air two 30m comedy series in a one-hour block on Mondays starting June 16, as Weeds returns for a fourth season at 10p and the British series Secret Diary of a Call Girl premieres at 1030p with eight episodes. Showtime ordered thirteen episodes of Weeds with production beginning in April from Lionsgate in association with Tilted Productions. Secret Diary of a Call Girl is an IMG/Tiger Aspect/Silverapples Media/ARG production.
Secret Diary of a Call Girl
Love this show already. Something needs to come along and crush this Cashmere Mafia/Lipstick Jungle Madness once and for all.
Showtime’s smart, edgy shows have made believers of the channel’s corporate bosses at Viacom and CBS and, even more important, with viewers, according to this article. The home of “Dexter,” “Californication” and “Weeds” added 1.3 million subscribers last year and now reaches about 16 million U.S. homes. (Mediaweek 2/13)
USA Network scheduled the new drama In Plain Sight starring Mary McCormack on Thursdays at 10p and will open with a 90-minute episode on April 24. USA will air 12 episodes of the drama produced by Universal Media Studios.
Click the image below for a video preview.
TNT gave the go-ahead for a new action drama series Leverage starring Timothy Hutton and executive produced by Dean Devlin (Independence Day) and John Rogers (Cosby). TNT greenlit 13 episodes produced by Devlin’s Electric Entertainment and will premiere the series later this year. The drama is about a team of thieves, hackers and grifters who act as modern-day Robin Hoods, seeking revenge against the powerful and rich who victimize others. (The Hollywood Reporter 2/13)
ABC Family has ordered a new project based on the Samurai series of novels targeting young adults, about a teenager who discovers her adoptive father is also the head of the Japanese mafia. Samurai Girl from Alloy Entertainment and ABC Studios picks up with the teen played by Jamie Chung, goes into training to become a Samurai, with the end goal of destroying her father’s empire. ABC Family will present this project as a “major event” in three 2-hour episodes, airing late this summer.
(Below) WOOHOO!! Way hot Markey.
Congressman Ed Markey (D.,Mass.) and Rep. Chip Pickering (R. Miss.) introduced the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act” on Tuesday to help prevent discriminatory bandwidth allocation practices by ISPs such as Comcast, long accused of interrupting the connections of P2P users without properly notifying customers. (Comcast finally admitted to the practice in a new filing to the FCC this week.) Other ISPs are complaining to regulators that video is heavily taxing their networks; Time Warner estimates that 5% of its users account for 50% of the bandwidth usage on many parts of its network, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Fueled by strong performances from its broadband and telephony offerings, Comcast announced today that its revenue jumped 24%, to $30.9 billion, in 2007 and profit was up 2%, to $2.59 billion. The country’s largest cable provider added 331,000 high-speed Internet customers last year and 604,000 voice subscribers. (Google/Associated Press 2/14)
Comcast, the biggest U.S. cable-television provider, may have to buy back stock or pay a dividend to satisfy investors after a 35% drop in the shares last year. CEO Brian Roberts should “free up cash” to reward shareholders, says investor Pat Becker Jr. of Becker Capital Management. (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=a1nlPZOsafok 2/14)
Cox has announced that it added 357,000 phone customers in 2007 and a total of 1 million revenue-generating units last year. Cox, which now has broken the 1-million-RGU mark for seven straight years, said that 62% of subscribers now received two-service bundles and that more than 30% had gone for the company’s triple-play offering. (OneTRAK 2/13)
Leave a Comment so far
Leave a comment
