This Just In

New York — MTV Networks will officially relaunch its affiliate Web site on Nov. 14.

The new, password-protected MTVN.com affiliate site is media-rich and has been optimized to meet the various needs of the programmer’s 10,000 affiliates. The redone site features an easy-to-maneuver layout, accelerated page load times, targeted ad sales information and marketing content, as well as enhanced programming, promotional and spot pages.

“Just as we try to satisfy viewers through tested and targeted programming concepts, we’ve been working on this for over a year with affiliate feedback,” said Juliette Morris, senior vice president of content distribution and marketing at MTVN. “It’s performed incredibly well during beta testing.”

With easy access to previewing videos and clips, MTVN officials said the site will enhance local ad sales teams’ facility to showcase schedules and sell-in sponsors, while marketing teams can more effectively build campaigns.

James Cole, director of business operations for content distribution and marketing for MTVN, said that over the course of the year, affiliates would have access to hundreds of available clips and videos from shows and specials.

A shopping cart application, expected to be ready by Nov. 15, will enable affiliates to gather and order materials and, in turn, disseminate those materials to their colleagues. The feature also houses address book and order history functions.

Come Thanksgiving, engineers and technicians will use the site to manage online devices used to carry the programmer’s services, plus access launch forms and technical information. Wireless features, going live by year-end, will give affiliates access to information and marketing materials on attendant programming, content and applications.

— Mike Reynolds

New York — TiVo president and CEO Tom Rogers said that the process of integrating the company’s digital video recorder software into Motorola boxes — in its project with Comcast — was more complicated than initially expected.

Rogers, speaking at the Future of TV conference here in lower Manhattan, said initially it was hoped TiVo software could be simply embedded into cable set-top DVRs. Not so. “It was an enormous piece of rocket science to work with hardware, chips we don’t control,” he said.

Comcast’s TiVo project, originally announced in March 2005, has been beset by delays. Rogers said Comcast has now begun rolling out the TiVo-enabled Motorola boxes in the New England region and that Cox Communications rollouts will follow. “That’s about 50% of the cable industry between the two of them,” he said.

As part of the deal with Comcast, Rogers said, “in every TiVo home, we have the right to sell the interactive overlay on every commercial, on every network… That’s an incredibly powerful franchise we can develop... so we can look to diversify our business model.”

West Chester, Pa. — QVC said Friday it plans to launch a high-definition version of the home-shopping channel in the first quarter of 2008.

QVC senior VP of affiliate sales and marketing Al Ulozas said the Liberty Media-owned network has had “preliminary communication with our major distributors, and they have responded very favorably, but it is too early to expect any commitments at this stage. Over the next few months, we will be meeting with all of our affiliates to discuss their carriage of QVCHD.”

Los Angeles — Faced with the possibility of no stars and no producers to interview, the January meeting of the Television Critics Association could be among the collateral damage from the strike by the Writers Guild of America.

Board members of the trade group have notified its 220 members that the broadcast networks want to pull out of the January meeting, citing budget concerns.

Also, members could find their employers reticent to send them, if the scribes can’t justify the trip with the traditional amount of story tonnage. Plus, the networks have warned that if the tour goes on at the usual time, broadcasters won’t be sponsoring the usual three meals a day plus open bars. Writers paying for their own food? Horrors!

Cable and PBS, however, have told the group they are ready to proceed as usual with the January meeting. A decision will have to be made soon. The meeting is to be held at the Universal Hilton in Los Angeles and the critics’ group was to tell the facility as soon as possible whether the group will be releasing the block of low-rate rooms set aside for the writers.

— Linda Haugsted

Los Angeles — The writers’ strike has not only derailed broadcast hits such as Fox’s 24, it’s also put a halt to Lifetime Television’s breakout hit of this year, Army Wives.

The scripted drama, Lifetime’s biggest hit ever when it debuted this summer, was scheduled to begin production of its sophomore season this month on location in South Carolina. But ABC Studios, which produces the show, postponed production of the series due to the strike.

Although the week-long strike by the Writers Guild of America has had its greatest impact on broadcast, it is taking a toll on cable. It is not only putting Lifetime’s Army Wives on hold, but if it drags on the strike will also hang up production on other cable shows, such as FX’s Dirt and The Riches, and the back end of orders of FX’s Nip/Tuck, USA Network’s Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Sci Fi Channel’s Battlestar Galactica.

Production on AMC’s Mad Men is scheduled to start in February, but it may be effected if the strike is lengthy, as writer Matt Weiner has publicly come out in support of the WGA.

Last week Comedy Central’s The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report were forced to go into reruns. In order to keep viewership from flagging, Comedy Central will start running themed weeks of reruns of both shows. For example, this week the network will have “Hard Hitters Week,” airing reruns of both shows with the best head-to-head interviews.

For the week of Nov. 19, Comedy Central has scheduled “Singing with Stephen Week,” with Colbert Report installments featuring musical guests such as Willie Nelson; and the week of Nov. 26 will be “Hotties in the Hot Seat” of both The Daily Show and Colbert, with guests such as Angelina Jolie and Halle Berry.

The first three days of the strike, last Monday through Wednesday, The Daily Show averaged a 0.8 household rating and a 0.7 18-to-49 rating, with The Colbert Report averaging a 0.6 for both household and 18-to-49 ratings. The prior week, when both shows were in new episodes, the ratings were in the area of 1.2 household and 0.9 18-to-49 for The Daily Show, and 1.0 household and 0.8 18-to-49 for The Colbert Report.

Both shows typically see roughly a 30% decline in ratings when they are in reruns, drops that Comedy Central wants to avoid with its themed stunt weeks.

— Linda Haugsted and Linda Moss