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CYNTHIA TURNER'S CYNOPSIS Kids! 02/03/04
Good morning. It's Tuesday, February 3, 2004, and this is your early morning Kids! briefing.
Movie producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall (Seabiscuit, Schindler's List, Sixth Sense, The Color Purple) have acquired the movie rights to the young adult novel The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom (Hyperion, 1998) from author/illustrator Katharine Arnoldi, as per Publishers Lunch. The book is Arnoldi's real life story including being a teen mom, dating, trying to find a job and being abused as a child. Arnoldi's book tells her story in a graphic novel (black and white illustrated panels).
The Action channel airs the US premiere of the martial arts action/comedy/horror movie Vampire Effect, February 18, 10p. The movie stars two of Asia's current pop singing duo The Twins, Gillian Chung and Charlene Choi and includes a cameo appearance by Jackie Chan. The movie is a tale of an evil Duke's attempt to kill-off and collect the blood of a royal family of European vampires to gain supreme power. The movie includes royals falling in love with mortals, whose two brothers happen to be vampire brothers; what, you were expecting they would be doctors? This is the kind of movie teens are going to love, and watch despite its R rating.
Cartoon Network has acquired the rights to the animated series Atomic Betty from Breakthrough Animation. Targeted to tweens Atomic Betty follows the story of Betty, a young girl living the dual life of a smart earth kid and a space traveling galactic superhero, AKA: Atomic Betty Guardian and Defender of the Cosmos. The series will also begin airing this year on Cartoon Network networks/feeds in Australia, Canada, Eastern Europe, France, Italy, Scandinavia, Southeast Asia, and the UK.
Federal rules prohibit the broadcasting of obscene material at any time, and limit "indecent material" to late night hours when children are less likely to be watching. Certainly everyone, including Federal regulators, knows by now that the "incident" during the half time show at the Super Bowl was well within the time frame when children may be watching. As such, it is comprehensible that each and every CBS affiliate carrying the half time show could be fined $27,500, though probably more likely the FCC would direct their attentions to the network(s). And yet, in this recent age of FCC fines, you never know. For its part, CBS has apologized, Viacom has apologized, MTV has apologized, all including a statement they had no idea this would happen. Justin Timberlake has blamed it on a wardrobe malfunction, and for her part, Ms. Jackson has apparently decided to take the full brunt of the blame: "The decision to have a costume reveal at the end of my half-time show performance was made after final rehearsals. MTV was completely unaware of it. It was not my intention that it go as far as it did. I apologize to anyone offended." Meanwhile, Democratic Presidential candidate Howard Dean calls the whole incident and the FCC inquiry "silly", admitting that he's "affected in some ways by the fact that I'm a doctor, so it's not exactly an unusual phenomenon for me." I guess it would've been "safer" to watch the Lingerie Bowl.
The CBS Affiliate Board is asking the network to air this Sunday night's Grammy Awards on a slight delay and to make sure someone is carefully monitoring the evening's events during the broadcast to be sure no language slips or wardrobe malfunctions occur. For its part, CBS has aired the Grammys on a delay before, and has every intention of doing so again on Sunday.
According to a press release from Tivo, and Tivo's analysis of aggregated data from an anonymous sample of 20,000 HHs, viewership of the Super Bowl halftime show increased by 12 percent compared to last year's halftime show. And as you might expect, the Jackson-Timberlake moment drew the biggest spike in audience reaction TiVo has ever measured. TiVo said viewership spiked up to 180 percent as hundreds of thousands of households used TiVo's various functions to pause and replay live television to view the incident again and again.
And finally on this matter, the FCC Headlines at the FCC site go like this:
FCC Chairman Powell Calls Super Bowl Halftime Show A "Classless, Crass, Deplorable Stunt." Opens Investigation.
Commissioner Abernathy Expresses Dismay Over Super Bowl Half-time Show.
Commissioner Copps Deplores Outrageous Super Bowl Stunt.
Commissioner Martin Supports the Opening of Investigation Into Broadcast of Super Bowl Halftime Show.
Commissioner Adelstein Applauds Immediate Investigation Into Super Bowl Halftime Stunt.
Glad to see they're all on the same page.
President's Day weekend February 13-15, will see the launch of the new Jetix programming block on both ABC Family and Toon Disney and with the two networks using the debut of 12th incarnation of the Power Rangers, Power Rangers DinoThunder to support the Jetix debut. ABC Family launches Jetix with a one-hour episode of Power Rangers DinoThunder, with the series taking its regular Saturday & Sunday 8:30a timeslot the following weekend. The one-hour Power Rangers episode will repeat during Jetix the following morning, February 15, 8:30a and daily throughout the week of Feb. 16-20, 8a. ABC Family Jetix block weekly schedule Saturday & Sunday (7a-12n): Medabots (7a), Digimon (7:30a),
Best of Power Rangers (8a), Power Rangers DinoThunder (8:30a), Beyblade (9a), Digimon (9:30a), Movie (10a-12n)*
*Movie titles include Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (2/14), Back to the Future 2 (2/15 & 2/21), Motocrossed (2/22 & 2/28), and Air Bud Golden Receiver (2/29 & 3/6)
-Monday-Friday (7-9a): Digimon (7a), Beyblade (7:30a), Power Rangers Ninja Storm (8a), Digimon (8:30a).
Over on Toon Disney, Jetix's debut weekend begins Friday, February 13 with six hour marathon (5p-11p), featuring alternating episodes The Legend of Tarzan and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. With Power Rangers DinoThunder making its network debut with a two-part episode, entitled Day of the Dino, part 1 airing Saturday, 7p, and part 2 on Sunday, 7p. Additionally, Toon Disney expands its Friday night (5-9p) Double Play Movie for the holiday weekend to the Toon Disney Triple Movie, airing on both Sat. Feb. 14 and Sun. Feb 15 (1-7p). Saturday movie titles include; Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet the Wolfman; The Black Cauldron and Atlantis: Milo's Return. Sunday movie line-up includes Alvin and the Chipmunks Meet Frankenstein and Hercules. Toon Disney Jetix block weekly Schedule Saturday & Sunday (7p-9p): The Legend of Tarzan (7p), Power Rangers DinoThunder (7:30p), Digimon (8p), Beyblade (8:30p)
-Monday-Thursday (7-9p): The Legend of Tarzan (7p), Power Rangers Ninja Storm (7:30p), Digimon (8p), Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (8:30p).
-Friday (5-9p): Toon Disney's Double Feature Movie
To transform into superhero Captain Marvel Billy Batson must draw his strength from the powers of Solomon (wisdom), Hercules (strength), Atlas (stamina), Zeus (power), Achilles (courage), and Mercury (speed) and utter Shazam!. For the big screen live action adaptation of Shazam!, a DC Comics comic book property, New Line Cinema and Exec. Producer Michael Uslan (Batman) will, as rumored last month, draw on the writing powers of Joel Cohen and Alec Sokolow to perform a re-write of the current script, as per the Hollywood Reporter. The first Cohen and Sokolow also penned the script for Toy Story, Cheaper By the Dozen, the upcoming Garfield movie, and Daddy Day Care sequel. The movie will be on the less grim side of the superhero serious and solemn meter and is currently slated for a 2005 release.
Fireworks International reports additional sales of its live action kid targeted series. EuroTV has acquired the first season of Fergus McPhail, seasons 1&2 of Black Hole High, Caitlin's Way and 100 Deed for Eddie McDowd, as well as 26 episodes of the half hour series Real Kids, Real Adventures. Fergus McPhail has also been picked up by RTE (Ireland); Black Hole High deals are in place for its second season in Eastern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, additionally TV Denmark and Gama Taktik Sdn Bhd Malaysia have both acquired the series along with EIM also picking up episodes for both Virgin Atlantic and Singapore airlines; SVT (Sweden) has picked up the rights for Eddie McDowd and Chuck Finn; with Television Broadcasts Ltd in Hong Kong also committing to Eddie McDowd. These sales are in addition to those previously announced.
The NPD Group has launched its point-of-sale (POS) service for the Canadian video game market. Modeled after The NPD Group's NPD Funworld US video games tracking service, NPD Canada's Market Measurement Service monitors both ongoing and historical data, encompassing sales performance of video game hardware, games and peripherals sold in the mass, electronic and computer specialty channels.
Scholastic has introduced a $350,000 national marketing campaign in support of the English language release of the international best-selling book series, Geronimo Stilton. The marketing plan includes a nationwide Kids Vote in 2004 campaign, a national milk carton promotion, promotional giveaways and author events. Scholastic will distribute 75,000 Geronimo kits to teachers via its School Book Clubs reaching an estimated 1.9 million kids. The Geronimo Stilton books are now available in the US and Canada with England, New Zealand and Australia to follow in March. Kids Vote kits include ballots with questions seeking kid's opinions on issues that are important to them, with the results to be released this March.
In other Scholastic news, the company will release the paperback edition of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (HP5), August 10, 2004. The first paperback printing of HP5 will include 2 million copies of the book, making the total number of Potter books in print close to 100 million according to Scholastic. That could definitely change the gravitational pull of the earth. In the UK Bloomsbury, Potter tome publisher will release its paperback edition a month earlier, July 10, 2004.
Warner Bros. Consumer Products has awarded the Catwoman license to apparel company Briefly Stated, Inc. to create women's, junior's and tween loungewear and daywear inspired by Warner Bros.' upcoming feature film Catwoman, slated for release July 30, 2004. Briefly Stated's Catwoman apparel is expected to be available from June 2004. Catwoman is based on the DC Comics Character of the same name.
Music industry legend Clive Davis has been named Chairman/COO of the newly formed BMG North America; he was Chairman/CEO, RCA Music Group. Additionally, Charles Goldstuck becomes President/COO, BMG North America, from his previous role as President & COO, RCA Music Group. Goldstuck will oversee the consolidated business operations and continue to report to Davis. BMG North America will combine all operations of the BMG owned record labels, including Arista, J, RCA, and Jive headed by Barry Weiss. In addition, Davis will also oversee BMG Distribution, BMG Strategic Marketing, and BMG Canada. The group does not include RCA Label Group-Nashville nor BMG Classics
Kids Cable Network Averages in thousands (000) for Friday, January 30, 2004, 6am-11pm, ranked by K2-11:
NICKELODEON: K2-11 1270; K6-11 590; TWEENS 9-11 360
DISNEY CHANNEL: K2-11 993; K6-11 571; TWEENS 9-14 408
CARTOON NETWORK: K2-11 798; K6-11 475; TWEENS 9-14 317
TOON DISNEY: K2-11 135; K6-11 54; TWEENS 9-14 28
ABC FAMILY: K2-11 106; K6-11 87; TWEENS 9-14 109 Source: MTVN Research from Nielsen Media Research Data
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Answer to yesterday's Trivia Question:In the series Life Goes On, Corky is able to recite from memory what amazing long and intricate poem? EDGAR ALLEN POE'S THE RAVEN "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary ..." Kudos to Cynthia Kennedy- A&E/London.
Today's Trivia Question: By using the password Bismark, what will you gain access to? (To answer the trivia, click hereand please remember to include your name, company, city and time zone. Only the second four from each time zone will appear in tomorrow's kudos list.)
Later -- Gwen
Gwen Billings for Cynthia Turner's Cynopsis Kids!
Publisher/Editor Cynthia Turner
02/03/04 5:40am Free Subscriptions-- SubjectKids! Searchable Archivewww.Cynopsis.com Cynopsis Kids! Ad Sales 203-526-8978 Submit Press Releases to Gwen Billings at
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