Daily Marauder

BROADCAST/CABLE

The annual “upfront” week is reserved for the broadcast networks to sell their ad time. But this year Time Warner’s Turner cable channels are positioning their upfront ad sales in the middle of the action. Ratings for TNT’s “The Closer” often beat out the broadcast networks. (hIwantmedia 5/15, ttp://www.cnbc.com/id/24624935/site/14081545 5/14)

Turner Broadcasting is introducing an advertising system, “TVinContext,” designed to match commercial messages with program content. For example, a movie running on Turner featuring a wedding scene could air an ad for wedding rings during the next commercial break. (Iwantmedia 5/15, http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/05/turner_to_put_ads_in_context.php 5/14)

A decline in upfront adverting sales is probable, “given ratings declines, the disruption in the development cycle due to the writers’ strike and economic woes,” says Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen. Broadcast networks could see spending drop 14% from 2007 to $7.73 billion. (Iwantmedia 5/15, http://www.usatoday.com/money/advertising/2008-05-14-upfront-ad-sales-tv_N.htm 5/14)

MTV Tr3s, the Viacom channel aimed at young Latinos in this country, has announced that it will add a new reality series about the hunt for the best unsigned Latino singer and a programming block called Fresh Music Mondays. The channel, which launched two years ago, is available to more than 6.3 million Hispanic TV households, according to Nielsen, and is watched by 67.5% of Latinos aged 12 to 34. (C21 Media 5/14)

Cox Communications has announced that it scored double-digit growth in all major service areas during the first quarter of this year. The private company said that telephony subscribers were up 15.9%, broadband customers rose 10.3%, digital-cable users increased 10% and those who opted for the company’s triple-play bundle jumped almost 20%. (OneTRAK 5/14, CED Magazine 5/14)

Lifetime Networks reached a wide-ranging agreement with Cox Communications, which agreed to launch all of the network’s new services beginning in June. Cox will carry Lifetime Television HD, Lifetime Movie Network HD, Lifetime On Demand and Lifetime Movie Network Espanol On Demand. Cox will begin rolling out Lifetime HD to its customers in June, it time for the second season of its signature original series Army Wives. (Cynopsis 5/15)

Dish Network dropped 10 of the 15 Voom HD networks this week to make room for those new HD network additions just announced. The satellite provider also plans to drop the remaining 5 “as soon as possible” in response to an ongoing dispute over the companies’ carriage agreement. Rainbow Media’s Voom suite is now only available on its parent company’s Cablevision systems. (Cynopsis 5/15)