This Just In
By Staff -- Multichannel News, 4/1/2007 8:00:00 PM
Items:
AOL Unit To Sell Ads For News-NBC Startup
SNY’s Litner Promoted to Comcast SportsNet President
Filing: Comcast Paid Roberts $26M in 2006
News Corp. Hitches Ong’s Wagon to Star
CMT To Hang Up Its Tiara In 2008
Time Warner Cable Tests Day-And-Date VOD Waters
YES Promo Push High On High-Def Channel
USA’s Summer Plans Mix the Old, New
AOL Unit To Sell Ads For News-NBC Startup
New York — AOL’s Advertising.com subsidiary will manage the advertising functions for the yet-to-be-named Internet-video venture formed by News Corp. and NBC Universal.
NBCU and News Corp., in announcing their NewCo partnership March 22, promised that the venture would deliver thousands of hours of free, ad-supported TV programming and other video content when it launches this summer.
Advertising.com, which AOL bought in 2004, will use its Lightningcast video-ad-serving platform to deliver and manage advertising for programming, movies and video clips that will be available via the network.
NewCo is seen as the result of media companies’ reluctance to come to terms with Google’s YouTube video-sharing site on distributing full-length programming. The venture represents “the largest Internet video-distribution network ever assembled,” via initial portal partners AOL, MSN, Yahoo and MySpace, the companies said.
Revenue from ads — to be primarily sold by a dedicated sales team set up by NBCU and News Corp. — will be shared among NewCo’s media partners. The companies said display and video advertising inventory not sold by NewCo’s direct-sales team will be sold by Advertising.com.
SNY’s Litner Promoted to Comcast SportsNet President
New York — Comcast SportsNet promoted Jon Litner to president, responsible for day-to-day management of the eight regional sports networks operated by Comcast.
Litner was president of SportsNet New York and will remain Comcast’s representative on SNY’s board.
Prior to joining SNY in 2005, Litner served as executive vice president and chief operating officer of the National Hockey League for six years.
Filing: Comcast Paid Roberts $26M in 2006
New York — Comcast CEO Brian Roberts received $26 million in total compensation in 2006, including a salary of $3 million, the company disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Friday.
The compensation for package for Roberts and several other Comcast executives was detailed in response to a shareholder proposal that could force it to allow its stockholders to issue report cards on its top executives. The top cable operator will put the proposal up for vote at its annual meeting May 23.
Also up for vote: a proposal that would force Comcast to issue a “pay differential report” that would detail salary differences between highest and lowest paid employees.
Comcast co-founder Ralph Roberts, chair of the executive and finance committee of the board, received $24.1 million in total compensation in 2006, according to the SEC filing; while Steve Burke, Comcast’s executive vice president and chief operating officer, received about $19 million in total compensation.
News Corp. Hitches Ong’s Wagon to Star
Washington — News Corp. has assigned National Geographic Channel president Laureen Ong to a top post in its direct-broadcast satellite sector, naming her chief operating officer at Hong Kong-based Star.
With Ong leaving the network, News Corp. — which owns the majority of NGC U.S. — named David Haslingden CEO of the domestic service. It also promoted Steve Schiffman to acting general manger of NGC.
Ong’s departure appears to be a promotion for the News Corp. veteran, who ran WTTG-TV, Fox Broadcasting’s Washington, D.C., station before joining NGC in 2000.
The move comes less than one month after NGC executive vice president of programming John Ford resigned. The network is still conducting a search for a replacement for Ford, who will remain through at least August.
CMT To Hang Up Its Tiara In 2008
Knoxville, Tenn. — When the 2008 Miss America accepts her tiara, it won’t be on CMT.
The network informed the Miss America Organization last Thursday that it won’t exercise its option to televise the Miss America Pageant in 2008 and beyond. The 2006 pageant drew a record 3.1 million viewers, while this year’s event attracted 2.4 million, despite a significant amount of ancillary programming and content.
“We’re very proud of the successful programming we’ve been able to produce with the Miss America Organization,” CMT executive vice president and general manager Brian Philips said in a statement. “As a network, CMT is now in a more-aggressive position to build off of existing series and launch more original series and music-centric special events.”
Time Warner Cable Tests Day-And-Date VOD Waters
Stamford, Conn. — Time Warner Cable is teaming up with its Warner Bros. corporate sister to test selling movies on demand the same day they’re released in video stores.
Cable operators have long sought to sell pay-per-view and VOD movies during the same window that Blockbuster and other video chains rent and sell new DVD releases. But studios have resisted giving operators access to the so-called day-and-date movies out of concern that the strategy would sap DVD sales and rentals.
However, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment agreed to test the concept. Time Warner Cable’s Austin, Texas, and Columbus, Ohio, divisions began testing day-and-date VOD movies on March 27.
Time Warner Cable is charging $3.95 for movies such as Happy Feet and Blood Diamond, released during the day-and-date window — the same price it charges for other on-demand pay movies.
Beginning May 22, the MSO will distribute Letters From Iwo Jima on the same day the movie is released for DVD sales.
Time Warner Cable spokesman Justin Venech said the cable distributor doesn’t have plans to expand beyond those two markets, but it would eventually like to market day-and-date movie releases widely from Warner Bros. and others.
YES Promo Push High On High-Def Channel
New York — Yankees Entertainment and Sports Network and its affiliates are taking out the promotional lumber in support of the regional sports network’s dedicated high-definition channel.
YES HD, which debuted April 1, is being backed by customized on-air promos featuring such New York Yankees stars as Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi and Andy Pettitte. The channel will showcase 125 Bronx Bombers games, starting with the season-opener versus the Tampa Bay Devil Rays on April 2, in the enhanced format this season.
USA’s Summer Plans Mix the Old, New
New York — Top-rated cable service USA Network expects to keep the Nielsens hot this summer with a returning quartet of existing original series, flanked by new entry Burn Notice and six-hour The Starter Wife.
Factoring in the above-mentioned projects with new episodes from original standbys Monk (sixth season), Psych (second), The 4400 (fourth) and The Dead Zone (sixth) — as well as fresh fare from its professional-wrestling franchise — USA will present 100 original hours this summer, said Bonnie Hammer, president of USA and Sci Fi Channel, at the network’s upfront presentation here March 28.
The network will kick off its summer season May 31 with the premiere of The Starter Wife starring Debra Messing (Will & Grace), about one woman’s quest to redefine herself following years of marriage to a Hollywood studio head.
Drama Burn Notice, which joins the schedule June 28, focuses on a secret agent whose career ends as unknown forces put a “burn notice” out on him and who uses his spy training to help people who can’t go to the police.
USA, which expects to bring In Plain Sight, a series starring Mary McCormack, to air next year, also has a number of projects in various stages of development: The Negotiator (working title) eyes Archie Stark, who’s trading in 10 years as a top crisis negotiator for the FBI for really dangerous work — a New York City relationship counselor; American Girl is the tale of a Wal-Mart greeter who elects to follow a more fearless path after she gets shot during a robbery gone awry; Family Values follows undercover FBI agents pretending to be typical suburbanites; The Oldest Rookie is a look at Steve Upstone, a man trading the stability of job and family routine to become a 43-year-old first-timer on the police force; and Spying in High Heels, in which Maddie Springer uses her uncanny eye for fashion details to find her missing boyfriend and opens a detective agency.— Mike Reynolds
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