Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Arts, CBS, cesarmillan, Fox Broadcasting Company, National Geographic Channel, Peter Chernin, Samuel L. Jackson, Television
FOX is working on a 30m comedy based on the popular National Geographic Channel series Dog Whisperer with Wilmer Valderramai n the title role, cites Variety. Full details on the project are not clear, though the character played by Valderrama will be inspired by Cesar Millan about a professional dog trainer who has built a wealthy business. (Cynopsis 10/20)
FOX also approved a comedy spec called Rehabfrom Sam Laybourne, a writer/producer on ABC‘s Cougar Town, per THR. The project will be produced by Peter Chernin with Will Gluck, who may direct. Rehab is about a man who pretends he needs rehab to connect with a former high school sweetheart who is now a rock star. (Cynopsis10/20)
Samuel L. Jackson and his company UppiTVhave two new projects on the docket for CBS produced by CBS TV Studios, cites THR. The first project is a multi-camera comedy from Bob Kushell about the wife of a US Congressman who inherits her husband’s seat after he dies suddenly. The second project is a medical drama penned by Andrea Newman about an emergency room doctor who uses unusual treatments on his patients. (Cynopsis 10/20)
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Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: Academy Award, Al Sharpton, George Bodenheimer, New York Post, News Corporation, Peter Chernin, Rupert Murdoch, Wall Street Journal
Some 36.3 million people watched this year’s Academy Awards, up about 4 million from last year’s least-watched Oscars show. Still, there are only two Oscar telecasts with fewer viewers. The largest Oscars audience was in 1998, when 55.2 million watched “Titanic” win best picture. (Iwantmedia 2/23, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090223/ap_en_tv/oscars_ratings 2/23)
Peter Chernin, the long-time president and COO of News Corp, is leaving
the company after protracted negotiations over his contract could not be resolved. Chernin’s salary was $28.8 million in the last fiscal year, which was $1.3 million more than even Rupert Murdoch’s take-home pay. Chernin helped Murdoch build and oversee his vast media empire over the past 20 years, and his departure no doubt will raise all sorts of questions about the future of the company. He will be leaving when his current contract expires on June 30. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/23/with-chernin-out-at-news-corp-what-happens-to-fim 2/23)
Rev. Al Sharpton is calling on the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to review the waiver extended to News Corp. for cross-media ownership. The move continues the protests over the political cartoon of a monkey published last week in News Corp.’s New York Post. (Iwantmedia 2/23, http://www.wpix.com/landing/?Sharpton-Calls-On-FCC-To-Investigate-New=1&blockID=220606&feedID=1404 2/23)
With expensive content-contract renegotiations to come, ESPN faces pressure in the current economic climate and last month said it would cut nearly 200 unfilled jobs, suspend new hires and freeze executive pay. However, network executive George Bodenheimer remains positive: “We feel we’re well-positioned in terms of our deals and business model.” The Wall Street Journal (2/23)
Over the weekend, the Screen Actors Guild National Board of Directors with a vote of 73% to 27%, SAG voted against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers’ “last, best and final offer dated February 19, 2009.” SAG’s Board admitted they entered the negotiations last week with AMPTP by “sending an unmistakably clear message that we were ready to make a deal” and basing negotiations on the terms of the previous contract offer from AMPTP dated June 30, 2008. (Cynopsis 2/23)
NBC is selling individual thirty-second commercials in the finale episode of ER at a reported $425,000 each, cites B&C. The two-hour final episode, slated for April 2 at 9p, reunites several former cast members including George Clooney, Noah Wyle and Anthony Edwards and will be preceded by a 60m retrospective of the 15-year old series. Based on information obtained from TNS Media Intelligence, thirty-second spots in this season’s ER have been priced at $135,000 each. (Cynopsis 2/23)
CBS picked up a new comedy pilot called Ace in the Hole starring actor/comedian Adam Carolla as a husband/father who is also a driving instructor. (Cynopsis 2/23)
Jenna Elfman tries television again as she headlines CBS’ comedy pilot Accidentally on Purpose. Elfman, seen back in 2006 on the short-lived CBS comedy Courting Alex and in recent guest spots on ABC’s Brothers & Sisters and NBC’s My Name Is Earl, will portray a movie critic who gets pregnant following a one-night tryst. (Cynopsis 2/23)
“Project Runway” filmed its sixth-season finale Friday at New York’s Bryant Park during Fashion Week, as the Weinstein Co. and NBC Universal continue to fight in court over rights to the reality-TV hit. The combatants have yet to go to trial, and the outcome will be subject to appeal. (Iwantmedia 2/23, http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090220/FREE/902209973 2/20)
Time Warner Inc. and Time Warner Cable Inc. are parting ways as Time Warner elected to spin-off a pro rata dividend of all TWC common stock it held to Time Warner stockholders. The two entities expect the separation will be finalized by the end of this current quarter. (Cynopsis 2/23)
A lot of things have been spelling the doom of television in recent years — DVRs, channel surfing, fragmentation, clutter, digital media — but recent analysis shows TV advertising may be as effective as ever. “We haven’t seen a significant trend in the erosion of effectiveness of TV,” said Douglas Brooks, a Media Marketing Assessment executive. Advertising Age (2/23)
Scripps Networks, which had about 9% growth in ad sales last year compared with about 3% to 4% on average among cable networks, is going into upfront with an emphasis on relevance to people going through hard times. Sales executive Jon Steinlauf told Multichannel News that the Scripps slate was “well-suited to these times because they provide skills for homeowners to help them cook and entertain, do home projects, save money.” Multichannel News (2/23)
More than 100 original movies will air on basic cable networks this year. Multichannel News reports the movies reinforce a network’s brand, are less of a financial commitment than multiyear, multiepisode scripted series, and are meeting a demand by viewers who are staying home for movie night rather than going out because they have less money in the recession. Multichannel News (2/23)
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Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Cyberspace, Facebook, Myspace, News Corp, News Corporation, Peter Chernin, Social network service, Social Networking
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Apple has announced that people have downloaded 5 billion items — and counting — from its iTunes Music Store. The online emporium features more than 8 million songs, 20,000 TV episodes and 2,000 movies. (Mediaweek/Billboard 6/19) (
In April, Facebook caught up to MySpace in worldwide unique visitors (actually nudging past it with 116.4 million unique visitors versus 115.7 million for MySpace). Now the worldwide comScore numbers are out for May and Facebook continues to blow past MySpace with 123.9 million uniques (up 6 percent), versus 114.6 million for MySpace (down 1 percent). Facebook also boasted more pageviews worldwide (50.7 billion versus 45.4 billion). Maybe MySpace’s redesign which just went live this week will pick things up for them again. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/20/facebook-blows-past-myspace-in-global-visitors-for-may 6/20)
(Below) Well, here’s an interesting way of addressing the competition.
The rise of Facebook did MySpace a favor by galvanizing the social network, says News Corp. president and COO Peter Chernin. Facebook spurred MySpace into change, culminating in a major redesign this week. “We owe a great debt to Facebook. It knocked us on the head.” (Iwantmedia 6/20, http://www.nma.co.uk/Articles/38479/News+Corp+COO+gives+thanks+to+Facebook.html 6/20)
Google may have some unlikely allies in defending its proposed partnership with Yahoo: the very advertisers that critics say may be hurt by the deal. “It’s simpler to reach people if the access to the marketplace is controlled by fewer sources,” claims one marketer. (Iwantmedia 6/20, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aC75mgm67PNc 6/20)
MTV Networks’ virtual worlds at vMTV.com are giving fans a chance to pick their favorite of six up-and-coming bands in the “Battle of The Bands II” contest. Music fans decide which band will have a shot to move on by campaigning for votes and throwing in-world parties and events. Competing through June 22 are 2*Sweet vs. Desoto Jones. (Cynopsis 6/20)
Yahoo! announced the global availability of two new email domains – ymail.com and rocketmail.com – to give users a better chance at creating an email address or Yahoo ID they like. (Yahoo Mail, still the leading web-based mail service, has some 260 million worldwide users, which means most users must resort to cryptic combinations of names and numbers.) (Cynopsis 6/20)
Tribe Pictures is producing an original web series debuting Monday called Get Fit with Alyson sponsored by Nintendo and starring Alyson Stoner (of the upcoming Disney kids movie Camp Rock.) Each 3-minute webisode sets out to inspire teens to live a more active lifestyle (such as trying new games on the Wii Fit device). Additional content will be featured exclusively on the Nintendo Channel, accessible only through broadband-connected Wiis. (Cynopsis 6/20)
These children scare me much like the children on the Mickey Mouse Club did. . . Could Alyson be the next Britney? For her, I hope she’s more of a future Christina.
The Associated Press says it has “had a constructive exchange of views with interested parties in the blogging community about the relationship between news providers and bloggers.” The news organization and the Drudge Retort blog consider their contested matter “closed.” (Iwantmedia 6/20, http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003819095 6/20)
Internet Advertising Revenue rose by 18.2% year-over-year during Q1 08 according to the latest IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers revenue report. However, growth slowed slightly from Q4 of last year when revenues totaled $5.9 billion, the highest ever recorded. (Cynopsis 6/20)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Facebook, Fox Interactive Media, Google, Myspace, News Corp, News Corporation, Peter Chernin, Rupert Murdoch
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Microsoft is said to have informally approached Facebook to gauge its interest in selling itself. Microsoft contacted the social-networking site as the software giant looked likely to back away from buying Yahoo. Discussions between the two are not believed to be active. (Iwantmedia 5/8, http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121017846020274243.html 5/8)
Social networking platforms are still waiting for traffic to translate into revenue. MySpace parent Fox Interactive Media’s revenue actually fell during Q1 from $233 million to $210 million as News Corp. CEO Peter Chernin admitted in a conference call that FIM will fall about 10% short of its optimistic $1 billion revenue projection for FY ’08. The company is still dealing with several challenges, he said, including an abundance of inventory, a dearth of top shelf sponsors and the difficulty of establishing new metrics to prove FIM’s value to advertisers. (Cynopsis 5/8, http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSWNAS255720080508 5/8)
Google is considering running display advertisements alongside the results of Web queries for pictures, moving beyond text-based ads. “There’s lot of potential for advertising revenue there,” says VP Marissa Mayer. Google is seeking new revenue sources as its growth slows. (Iwantmedia 5/8, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a1t9ASFGIJlY 5/7)
Google and Viacom are prepared to take their battle over whether or not YouTube is responsible for pirated uploads all the way to the Supreme Court, according to comments made executives from each company. (Cynopsis 5/8, http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/05/07/google-viacom-draw-lines-in-youtube-suit 5/7)
Beginning Thursday, the latest news, scoops and analysis from the blog TechCrunch will appear on washingtonpost.com. TechCrunch, founded in 2005, describes itself as “a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies.” (Iwantmedia 5/8, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2008/05/07/LI2008050701103.html 5/7)
Women’s content is all the rage in the digital world these days. NBC unveiled a new Virtual Woman’s Network dubbed Women@NBC that will differentiate itself by firing on multiple platforms and brands including Bravo, Oxygen, iVillage and Green is Universal as well as other female-skewing properties such as the Today show, The Biggest Loser and Lipstick Jungle. Bravo & Oxygen Media President Lauren Zalaznick has been chosen to oversee the venture with the new title of President, Women and Lifestyle Entertainment Networks, still reporting to Jeff Gaspin, President & COO, Universal Television Group. Women@NBC gives the company another shot at mastering the demo after the $600 million iVillage acquisition has failed to bear much fruit. (Cynopsis 5/8)
Former CBS Early Show anchor Rene Syler will join Meredith’s multiplatform network Parents TV hosting its first long-form show, It Moms, beginning in June. Parents.tv is available as a Comcast VOD channel, a Sprint TV offering and on broadband at parents.tv. (Cynopsis 5/8)
Facebook’s webmail platform is so inefficient that even minor changes (like adding the ability to send to outside email addresses last year) can make a big difference in usability. They are now adding basic search functionality to email (see screen shots). Previously there was not way to find emails other than scrolling through the pages one by one. Some users have thousands of emails in their inbox, so old messages became essentially unfindable. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/08/facebook-email-gets-better-with-search 5/8)
Viacom’s MTV Networks, which is building hundreds of Web sites around its content, is launching video hub from its Logo network for gay audiences that will feature 3,000 ad-supported clips. LogoOnline.com aims to be the largest central library of videos for the gays and lesbians. (Iwantmedia 5/8, http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9938035-7.html 5/7)
The MPAA won their copyright infringement case against P2P file sharing site TorrentSpy.com. Site operator Valence Media was ordered to pay $30,000 per violation for facilitating nearly 3,700 illegal movie and TV downloads. The site has been shuttered since March. (Cynopsis 5/8, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080508/ap_on_hi_te/mpaa_torrentspy 5/7)
Comcast, with 14.1 million Internet subscribers, is weighing a plan that would set a limit for monthly online downloads and charging those who go beyond that amount, the company confirmed Wednesday. One plan being bandied about would set the limit at 250 gigabytes per month, which is enough to download about 250 standard-definition movies or 6,000 songs. (MSNBC/Associated Press 5/7, INQUIRER (U.K.), the 5/8)
Brad Greenspan’s Live Universe continues its acquisitions spree: they’ve bought troubled Silicon Valley startup MeeVee, we’re heard from multiple sources. This comes less than a month after they announced the acquisition of Pageflakes, another northern California startup. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/07/meevee-acquired-by-live-universe 5/7)
Adobe has beefed up the beta version of its new online Photoshop application by including support for the Flickr photo service and introducing other features. (Pocket-lint.co.uk 5/8)
Forbes.com is announcing the launch of AnswerNetwork, a social network for business execs. The network, which Forbes is developing with Cisco Systems, allows business professionals to set up profiles and exchange data on industry topics and business issues. (Iwantmedia 5/8, http://www.btobonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080507/FREE/842905424/1078 5/7)
MySpace received nearly 3/4 of the market share of U.S. visits to social networking sites in April 2008, according to a custom report from Hitwise. (Cynopsis 5/8)
Top 5 Social Networking Websites Ranked by Market Share of U.S. Visits
Rank Name Apr. 08 Mar. 08 Apr. 07 YoY% Change
1 MySpace 73.82% 73.59% 77.87% -5%
2 Facebook 14.80% 14.70% 11.21% 32%
3 myYearbook 1.33% 1.29% .23% 475%
4 Bebo 1.09% 1.20% 1.25% -13%
5 BlackPlanet .98% .95% .85% 15%
Source: Hitwise
