Multichannel News Blogs
Advertisers: TV Ads Ain't What They Used to Be
The lament is familiar: 62% of major advertisers polled say TV advertising has become less effective in the last two years. That’s according to a survey of 104 U.S. marketers, representing nearly $14 billion in media budgets, conducted by Forrester and the Association of National Advertisers released this week (see Clutter Cutting Into TV Ads’ Effectiveness: Forrester, ANA Survey). A ... More
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Covering cable TV, broadband and Internet video technologies
Who Dat Didn't Watch Super Bowl XLIV?
After almost 27 years, Drew Brees, Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints (with a little help from Peyton Manning and the Indianapolis Colts) have wiped Hawkeye Pierce, Col. Sherman T. Potter and the rest of the 4077 from the Nielsen record book. CBS’s coverage of the Saints winning their first NFL championship over Indy in Super Bowl XLIV Sunday tackled 106.5 million viewers on average, th ... More
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Mondays Thoughts
What a game last night, the people of New Orleans finally have something to cheer! I didn’t think last nights commercials were all that, companies paid $3 million dollars for their ads and I could only remember about 3 or 4 companies that advertised last night. Sure I remember all the ads but I can’t remember who they were for. How sad is that. One I do remember is Flo TV which pe ... More
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The Consumer Satellite Industry through the eyes of WWW.SatelliteGuys.US Founder Scott Greczkowski
How to Make TV, the NFL Way
Did you think the Super Bowl was exciting? Are you sorry football season is over? TruTV is hoping your hunger for anything to do with the NFL will translate into viewership for its new series NFL Full Contact. Unfortunately, while many people are fascinated with how television is made, watching guys talk on headsets and walkie talkies for an hour just isn’t as exciting as the blocking, tack ... More
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Jon Lafayette, the longtime, perceptive TV scribe for such publications as Television Week, Cable World and Advertising Age, is back in the game, blogging for Multichannel.com on anything and everything TV related. Reach him at jon.lafayette@gmail.com. Follow him at twitter: @jlafayette.
MTV Gets HD Launches on Time Warner
It’s a super Sunday for MTV Networks: MTV, Spike TV, BET and Comedy Central high-definition channels have launched on Time Warner Cable in New York City. Back in July 2009, Pali Capital analyst Rich Greenfield observed that Viacom’s MTV Networks only had the concert music channel, Palladia, launched on the key Time Warner Cable systems in Manhattan and Los Angeles. He observed that T ... More
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Multichannel News editor Kent Gibbons covers issues impacting pay TV providers, programmers and technology suppliers in his regular column.
Mayweather, Mosley Bowling In Miami
Among the hoard of fans, celebrities, groupies and media converging on Miami this weekend for Super Bowl XLIV are pro boxers Floyd “Money” Mayweather Jr.-“Sugar” Shane Mosley. Now that their May 1 welterweight pay-per-view battle is set in stone, HBO Sports is wisely looking to get as much exposure for the fighters as possible by showcasing them in front of ... More
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Tom Umstead focuses on TV programming in his column.
#demonsheep, Carly Fiorina's Amityville Horror Remake
You gotta luv California politics. Here’s Carly Fiorina’s wildly bizarre attack on Tom Campbell, posted yesterday on YouTube. From the foreboding narration to the (not kidding) glowing animal eyes ripped from The Amityville Horror, the ad is the perfect accompaniment to a buttery chardonnay and an after-dinner joint. Michael Scherer of Time Mags Swampland blog recommends ... More
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May McNamara focuses on TV programming in her column, which is updated at least three times weekly.
3D-TV and Bandwidth - Part 2
Recently, a reader posted a question to this column’s Jan. 18 translation on 3D-TV and bandwidth. “If HDTV is 6x the bandwidth for satellite transport via MPEG-2,” wrote the optimistically-named ‘3D 2010,’ “what is the rule-of-thumb bandwidth necessary for HD 3D?” First, a distinction: That “6x” number signifies the uncom ... More
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Stumped by tech gibberish? Veteran technology analyst Leslie Ellis translates the latest in broadband gadgetry, services, bandwidth, and gear.
Making A Statement, Making A Difference
By DAVID PORTER “Make a Statement. Make a Difference” is not only the theme of this year’s Walter Kaitz Foundation’s Annual Fund-Raising Dinner, but is also a call for the cable industry to collectively move forward and engender change. Change requires hard work, and we have lots more work to do on diversity. At its core, the foundation has always been committed to incr ... More
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Just another NWP - Blogs weblog
Goings and Goings -- Manny, A-Rod and T.O.
This has been a week of goings and goings and goings. I’m talking A-Rod, Manny and T.O. As a Mets fan, I wanted Manny Ramirez on the team. I even thought a simple contract of $25 million a year for two years and a $10 million buyout would work. If Manny wasn’t happy in New York, he gets 10 mill to go away. If the Mets weren’t happy with Manny, they cut him a 10 mill check and ... More
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Kiss the Beijing Olympics Goodbye When the 2008 Summer Olympic Games start this August in that wonderfully polluted Chinese capitol of Beijing, you can bet NBC will cover it in all its glory from the opening ceremonies to the close. I’m sure it will be breathtaking and memorable, especially if the US dominates the medal count and no one flunks the drug tests. With NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen and the Weather Channel carrying the Games (only kidding about Weather Channel, I think – the bids for the Landmark Communications property have not been revealed yet), there will be enough TV platforms covering the Games to give even the sorry sport of boxing a shot – even if it may be at 3 a.m. With all the hoopla and money to be made pimping, I mean exploiting, I mean shilling, I mean broadcasting the Games, I for one hope to avoid as much of the Olympics as possible. I don’t know, maybe, it has a tad to do with how the Chinese government dictates to its people how to live – or not. Remember, China is a one baby per family utopia. The little issue of Tibetan independence and the Chinese government’s crackdown on its people leaves me feeling uncomfortable to say the least. I know the American Revolution does not compare with Tibet’s attempt at self-governing, but will it take a monk or three igniting themselves to bring attention to what the Chinese government is doing? I know, in the eyes of the Chinese government, the Dali Lama is akin to Osama Bin Laden, and yet, even President Bush has met the Dali Lama, but he needs to go much further. He needs to avoid attending the Beijing Games just like he did the Hurricane Katrina games. Just give it time and the whole ugly mess will be forgotten – or at least he’ll be out of office. I know my job is to watch at least some of the Summer Games and maybe interview a writer or two, but it’s hard to watch an event like the Beijing Olympics when you need the roar of the crowd to drown out a cry for help from its people. U-S-A! ... U-S-A! ... U-S-A! ... just might do the trick especially if the Chinese government can fool, I mean hire, I mean use Stevie Wonder to lead the cheers.
A Rise From 'Ashes'
I’ve seen the future, and it’s set in 1981. That’s the year that modern-day policewoman Alex Drake is transported back to in the new BBC America series Ashes to Ashes. Ironically, the show’s Stateside debut on March 7 comes just days after ABC announced that it was canceling its Americanized version of another U.K. import, Life On Mars - the original time-travel-meets-p ... More
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George Vernadakis writes about pay TV programming and other issues impacting the industry.
Cabler Demands Note from Man in Coma
Is your name on YOUR cable account? You better make sure it is, because if your spouse it injured and in a coma, your cable company may lock you out of your account. My family found this out the hard way, and it could happen to you. Service providers only want to deal with an “authorized user” when it comes to changes ... More
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Memo To Mr. Charles Dolan
Memo to: Cablevision chairman Charles F. Dolan Re: FCC chairman Martin’s War On ESPN Date: Dec. 8, 2008 From: MCN Washington News Editor Mr. Dolan, The rumors are that FCC chairman Kevin Martin will take up residence in Silicon Valley when the clock runs out on the Bush administration in January. That’s a not a bad location for him, actually, in that Martin has clearly been fu ... More
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Ted Hearn writes about moves by the pay TV industry inside the Beltway.
Maybe Sterling Cooper Should Do An Ad Campaign For 'Mad Men'
This past weekend Mad Men lead Jon Hamm did a stint hosting Saturday Night Live, and his intro poked funat the conundrum of the AMC show: It’s critically revered, the first basic-cable series to win an Emmy as best drama, yet relatively few people have seen it. In his SNL intro, Hamm alluded to Mad Men’s relative obscurity. The dark, handsome actor also said that when he tells people ... More
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Brian Besieged
You wanna know how tough it’s gotten out there for cable stocks? So bad that one institutional investor, one that doesn’t normally do things like this, is calling for the ouster of Comcast CEO Brian Roberts. Brian Roberts. The guy who a couple of years ago was being hailed as the smartest guy in cable. The guy who grew his father’s company from a 3-million subscriber regional ... More
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