The ratings success of TBS original series such as “House of Payne” and “My Boys,” in addition to off-network additions such as “The Office” and “Family Guy,” has helped theTurner network become a destination of choice for adults 18 to 34. According to data from Nielsen Media Research, TBS averaged 701,000 members of the coveted demo during prime-time viewing in the first quarter, a record for ad-supported cable networks. (Mediaweek 5/12)
House of Payne
ABC announced it has picked up the drama pilot Life on Mars. The network also renewed Eli Stone for a sophomore season but will take a pass on October Road, Women’s Murder ClubandCashmere Mafia. Also not expected back next season are Cavemen, Carpoolers, Men in Trees and Big Shots. New to the ABC schedule, tho not to viewers - Scrubs off NBC. (Cynopsis 5/13)
The CW, has renewed Reaper for a second season with 13 episodes for midseason. It is expected the network will place Reaper on Thursday nights with Supernatural after Smallville finishes its run. Other new projects expected on the CW fall schedule are Surviving the Filthy Rich and Stylista (mentioned here yesterday). Not returning - Aliens in America. (Cynopsis 5/13)
Had you ever heard of this show? Yah, me neither.
FOX, prepping for its upfront on Thursday afternoon, is ready to roll on a new reality series from RDF USA called Secret Millionaire, reports THR. The premise involves a multimillionaire who lives among the poor for 10 days and discovers what it is like living on a small budget. (Cynopsis 5/13)
Charter Communications has announced that its digital-TV customers increased 6.6%, to more than 3 million, and that its phone subscribers nearly doubled in the first quarter of this year. Overall, the company’s revenue was up 9.8%, to $1.56 billion, and its quarterly loss narrowed to $358 million. (The New York Times/Dow Jones Newswires 5/13)
Flight of the Conchords - $1.99 per 30 min episode
Sex and the City - $1.99 per 30 min episode
Rome - $2,99 per 1 hour episode
Deadwood - $2.99 per 1 hour episode
The Sopranos - $2.99 per 1 hour episode
MySpace, Facebook and Google are announcing similar-sounding moves over the past week to open up their sites to external applications. The moves suggest that social-media tools and services will spread throughout the Web, say observers. Social networks will be “like air.” (Iwantmedia 5/13, http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=127012 5/12)
NBC Universal has announced that next month it will create the NBC Digital Health Network, which will allow three Web sites to distribute health-related video segments from NBC News, NBC local stations and Healthology.com. The content will be made available to Web sites Healthline Networks, Your Total Health and RightHealth, which, together, have 27 million unique viewers a month. (ClickZ 5/13)
Last.fm launched a new video channel spotlighting interviews and concert footage of artists such as Moby, Santogold and Spoon. The CBS-owned music community site also announced a partnership with Lollapalooza, the granddaddy of indie music festivals. (Cynopsis 5/13)
The broadcast networks are not the only companies trolling for advertising dollars during the upfronts this week. The new video Web site Hulu, from NBC Universal and News Corp., is throwing itself a party to highlight its stable of television content and entice advertisers. (Iwantmedia 5/13, http://tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/upfronts-hulu-wants-that-loving-feeling 5/12)
Twitter is an efficient technology for spreading and harvesting concise ideas. Unfortunately, it’s not so great for sharing rich media. Want to broadcast a video? You’ll have to settle for a TinyURL to YouTube, or maybe switch over to Seesmic altogether. Pownce improves on the Twitter model by supporting file transfers and at least one new data type: the structured event. It also appears to be evolving into a better system for trading music, possibly with a full-featured music player.But if music is indeed a significant part of Pownce’s future, then Blip is one step ahead. Call it “Twitter for Music” since it’s essentially just that: a way to suggest music and share your thoughts about it with a network of contacts. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/12/twitter-for-music 5/12)
In other NBCU upfront news, mun2 put a multiplatform spin on its presentation announcing year-to-year increases of holamun2.com including +138% in unique visitors and +95% in total usage, according to Omniture. The network hopes to spark more cross platform creativity such as the magazine show HolaMun2.com: El Show, which became the highest rated premiere in the channel’s history. A new quiz show called You Said What? will poll users online and on mobile devices and utilize their response on air. (Cynopsis 5/13)
Buoyed by early success with shows such as Lunchbox, IFC.com is pledging to launch at least one new original web series a month throughout the summer with a line up of commissioned and acquired fare. IFC.com’s “cyber season” includes the Australian cult hit series, Wilfred about a pot-smoking dog; a third season of Young American Bodies, a co-production of IFC and Nerve.com; as well as Good Morning Internet!, a morning parody show from the creators of Hipster Olympics. (Cynopsis 5/13)
Wilfred
Strangely enough, I think this series is pretty great. Maybe it’s just the Australian accents. . .
Whether actors must give consent for snippets of their video work to be displayed online is the No. 1 disputed issue cited by the Screen Actors Guild after labor talks broke down last week. Studios want to pay actors a flat fee to distribute clips of television shows and movies. (Iwantmedia 5/13, http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN1233346620080512 5/12)
Scientists working for The Walt Disney Co. will begin measuring viewers’ biometric responses to advertising on platforms such as the Internet, mobile phones and high-definition TV. The studies will use programming from ESPN and ABC and will measure things such as heart rate, skin conductivity and eye activity. (International Herald Tribune/Associated Press 5/13)
As television, newspapers and other media are digitized and move to the Internet, Google’s advertising system will become the financial platform on which many of these businesses depend, according to industry observers. Google is “sitting on a goldmine.” Its momentum “seems unstoppable.” (Iwantmedia 5/13, http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ae08cfd8-2051-11dd-80b4-000077b07658.html 5/12)
Google extended its video market share lead to 38% thanks to the more than 4.3 billion videos viewed on YouTube during March, according to comScore’s Video Metrix. U.S. Internet users viewed 11.5 billion online videos during the month, representing a 13% gain versus February and a 64% gain versus March 2007. (Cynopsis 5/13)
Top U.S. Online Video Properties by Videos Viewed - March 2008
Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Property Videos(000) Share (%) of Videos Google Sites 4,358,306 38.0
Fox Interactive Media 477,621 4.2
Yahoo! Sites 328,087 2.9
Viacom Digital 249,285 2.2
Microsoft Sites 245,453 2.1
Time Warner - Excl. AOL 159,009 1.4
Disney Online 108,055 0.9
ABC.COM 100,051 0.9
AOL LLC 100,044 0.9
ESPN 89,760 0.8
Total Internet 11,476,886 100.0 Source: comScore Video Metrix
NBC also announced it is rolling out new original webisodes of The Office and Heroes in July and will “vastly increase” its mobile streaming offerings. NBC Mobile has created more than 30 Wap-based sites as well as a portal offering IPhone-formatted episodes of NBC shows (yes, despite the ongoing feud with Apple.) (Cynopsis 5/13)
Nokia will add a mobile-mapping service to its Ovi Web portal by the end of the summer that will link with its smartphones, the company announced Monday. A Nokia executive also said the cell phone maker would upgrade its Nokia Maps subscription service at the end of the month. (InformationWeek 5/12)
