| Cyn Wkndr 12/20/07 |
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Cynopsis:
Weekender 12/20/07 Good morning. It's Thursday, December 20, 2007, and this is Cynopsis: Weekender . Below are a handful of industry stories - with which you may agree or disagree. If you'd like to be heard - put together your own 350 word submission! Details below. This is the last edition of 2007 - back right here on Thursday, January 3, 2008. Happy holidays! All I Want for Christmas is a Web Show for my TV Network By Daisy Whitney "Quarterlife" was just the beginning. NBC's pick-up of the Marshall Herskovitz and Ed Zwick Internet drama as a mid-season replacement has unleashed a tidal wave of Web-to-TV migrations. While savvy TV executives have been combing YouTube and other video sites for two years now for fresh talent, now the hunt is on to find fully-fledged Web properties that might play well on the big screen. Television production company FremantleMedia North America started pitching a new pilot to broadcast and cable networks last week based on its Web property "Atomic Wedgie," an online and mobile comedy channel that earned nearly three million views on MySpace in the last three months. The production house hasn't inked a deal yet for the show, but executives expect to have pitched it to six networks by the end of this week. Fremantle executive Steve Tao, SVP/Scripted Development, said the prospective TV version retains the short, fast scenes and quick-hit style that works on the internet, but adds the necessary relationships and emotional connections with characters that TV audiences need. "To me this is just opening the door. TV needs to embrace that the internet is a viable place for ideas to come from," Tao said. Earlier this month, Bravo placed a bet on a Web property. The cable network ordered a reality pilot featuring William Sledd, host of Web series "Ask a Gay Man," which runs on Bravo-owned OutZoneTV. Mr. Sledd started on YouTube, where his riff on denim earned more than two million views. Also, syndicated newsmagazine "Extra" now features two segments a week from saucy online entertainment network No Good TV in a promotional deal that could help both parties lure new audiences. No Good TV average 10 million views a week across its own site NGTV.com, YouTube and mobile phones. Other examples of Web-to-TV migrations include "First Look New York," a local show that launched Dec. 1 and runs Saturday evenings on NBC-owned WNBC-TV in New York. The show is produced by new media production shop LX.tv and grew out of a like-minded web property. "People get ideas and share stuff across platforms. Now you are just adding internet to the mix," said Morgan Hertzan, Executive Producer for LX.tv. Surely, 2008 will bring many more such deals. 2008 Advertising Forecasts By Louis Chunovic Uh-oh. Despite the billions of political and Olympics ad dollars coming, the dean of American advertising forecasters is not optimistic about 2008. He says that what should be a boom year probably will be just barely up. Many advertising categories -- from autos to airlines -- are "crunched down" by corporate recession fears and by the need to keep profits up, and "marketers are generally putting a real squeeze on their [advertising] budgets, trying to hold up their profits. On the other hand," according to Universal McCann's Robert Coen, "there is the election and the Olympics." That's good news for Spot TV, which will see a "big improvement" because of political advertising, according to Coen. According to Steve King, CEO, Worldwide, ZenithOptimedia, 2008 network TV ad revenues will see a "small increase," cable will be up on the strength of younger demos and syndication will experience continued sluggishness. Both prognosticated at the recent UBS Global Media & Communications Conference. In 2008, U.S. politics, the Beijing Summer Olympics and European soccer are expected to have a $6 billion "upward impact" on advertising worldwide, according to King, who predicted that U.S. media will see a $2 billion windfall from political advertising alone (others peg it at $3 billion). In the U.S., the housing downturn and the credit crunch will have a negative effect through 2008, according to King. Both he and Coen predict that U.S. media will avoid a 2008 advertising recession, but just barely. Other bright spots: the continuing rise in internet advertising, which is expected to be the third largest advertising medium by 2010, and the increasing strength of advertising in developing countries. This year, 25% of all advertising income is from outside the so-called developed world, North America, Western Europe and Japan, according to King, and by 2010, fully 31% of the world's ad spend will come from outside the Big Three. Worldwide, TV takes 37.5% of all ad money, King said. "Television is not about to go away anytime soon." In the U.S., the trend line is down: since the peak year of 2000, advertising's percentage of the GDP has been declining, though Coen doesn't think it will decline below two percent. The bottom line for Coen: "I don't think [U.S.] advertising is dead ... I think we'll see it coming back, but probably not until ... 2010." Cable: "Four Letters That Have Rocked Broadcasting" by Dave Zornow As the year draws to a close, it's good time to look back and remind ourselves of how far we have come. We downsized earlier this year moving from our home of 13 years to a smaller space. Packing necessitated a thorough re-examination of our family's possessions. We found a lot of stuff we didn't need, but we also found a few gems we didn't know we had. Like a July 1967 edition of TV Guide. The feature story, "CATV: Four Letters That have Rocked Broadcasting" was promoted on the front cover with the teaser, "Coming: An Electronic Pipeline to Every Home." The only mention of the word cable in the article was in a reference to the NCTA trade association. Primetime programs in the Summer of '67 included The Twilight Zone, Batman, Lost in Space, Patty Duke and The Beverly Hillbillies. There was a Bob Hope Special on Wednesday night that ran opposite Green Acres. A box around the word COLOR preceded program descriptions featuring that technology. The article offered some eye opening optimism for cable's future. "The beauty of CATV … is no technical limit to the number of channels … as engineers are working on systems providing 20, 30 or more." With 1800 systems serving about 2 million subs, cable promised to offer advanced services including electronic newspapers, shopping, teaching, voting, gas and electric meter reading, library research, mail delivery and emergency warnings. In 1967 broadcasters were split on cable's potential - some seeing it as a threat and others welcoming the media as a way to improve reception in fringe areas. During a period when broadcasters owned 29% of all cable systems, the Bell Telephone System, prohibited from operating systems, wanted to get into the business by building and leasing systems to operators. And the Supreme Court was poised to rule on CATV's use of copyrighted material without paying royalties. A lot has changed since 1967. Shows like Star Trek and Bewitched are no longer primetime programming. Many are now available on cable, 24/7. Going Digital … Ho Ho Ho! By Circlewipe Looking for a crowd this holiday season? Try the TV section of your nearest electronics store. With the federally mandated changeover to digital TV scheduled for February 2009, it's high season for millions of Americans to upgrade their TV's, lest they be caught with their signals down. Most Americans outside our business don't even know this change is coming. Those who do aren't sure why, or what they need, leaving the sales forces at Best Buy and Circuit City stores little time to catch a breath between explanations of the basics. (Pity the seasonal salesman who doesn't know digital from analog.) First, what to do about the tube TV that's served nobly and well for a decade. Nothing wrong with it, except it won't receive digital signals when that's the only option. Your choice: (1) buy digital-ready TVs, or (2) buy a set-top digital converter box for each TV. Either option will cost you cold hard cash, although $40 coupons will be available for the boxes, 2 per household. www.ntia.doc.gov. Who wins? Manufacturers and retailers. Who loses? Consumers. So much for the concept of the public owning the airwaves. The big winner: cable companies. Few of us know anyone who still receives TV signals over the air. Cablers have been knocking themselves out urging customers to switch to digital, particularly aggressive in neighborhoods where phone companies (like Verizon FiOS) are making inroads in cable's monopolistic empires. The consumer's option is to keep their old TV sets and switch to digital cable. In top markets, that's $15 or more per month. The technology exists to convert the signal at each home's primary cable box, but that's not profitable enough. Make the suckers pay $4 a month per TV set for unsightly boxes. Yes, the digital revolution will mean a better signal. It will free up the spectrum for other uses. It will bring us even more channels. But how many WABC's do we really need? How many HBO's? How many ESPN's? Most of us watch 20-25 channels when we have the time. In the meantime, Congress has given a nice big Christmas present to TV manufacturers, retailers, and cable companies. And to trash companies who'll find those old tube TVs at the curb. All at our expense.
* WEEK'S RECAP *
Friday, December 14, 2007
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
* EMAILS TO THE EDITOR *
Re: Googlephobia By Louis
ChunovicWhat is so surprising or frightening? The world changes; we must change with it. As brokenhearted Conservatives (that is, those who want to conserve things the way they are) all over the country are painfully aware, change cannot be stopped. If we examine how many areas of U.S. culture have morphed in the computer age, no one should be surprised. The winners in the future will be those who stop sniveling about the changing landscape, roll up their sleeves, and create ideas, concepts, programs, and campaigns that exploit the new technologies, drive the senses of viewers, and put profits in their advertising clients' pockets. On December 3, 2007, Univision delivered the top rated Adults 18-49 program among ALL U.S. Adults 18-49. Did Univision get the top share of Ogilvy's or Y&R's TV Ad spending that day? No, those planners refuse to change in a changing world. Do we viewers enjoy the same creativity in TV commercials that we see in the top programs (CSI, NCIS, Destilando Amor, etc.) they inhabit? No, it's the same old junk we've been looking at for years. Television is not too expensive, it's just too poorly used by the Ad giants who will not or cannot exercise some vision of the changing world in which we live. Change may be difficult, uncomfortable, and problematic, but it is inevitable. Americans still spend four or more hours a day with television and, therefore, with the fourteen minutes per hour of commercials that support it. Make it better! Make better programs and fabulous commercials! Until the bored imaginations of the American public are again inspired in the programs and Ads we see, Americans will continue to Google during Prime Time. Kevin Mirek El Nacional de Oklahoma El Nacional de Oklahoma is the only audited Spanish Language publication in Oklahoma and serves the 234,159 Hispanics in Oklahoma. SUBMISSIONS / AD SALES/ SUBSCRIBE & UNSUBSCRIBE Cynopsis Ad Sales - Mark Bohn - 203-583-1224 / Article submissions for Cynopsis: Weekender are welcome, provided they are no longer than a maximum of 350 words. News articles used are paid at the rate of $1/word. Not all submissions are used. Editorials (also 350 word max) may be submitted but are not paid, and not all are used. Send submissions to Cynopsis at . The Weekender edition is published every Thursday and includes a few items to ponder over the weekend, as well as the highlights from the week. It is delivered to the entire Cynopsis subscriber list, unless you specifically request to be unsubscribed. To subscribe, unsubscribe or change your email subscription, go to the Cynopsis website, www.cynopsis.com and click on the subscribe tab. Emails to the Editor: subject E-Mails to the Editor Copyright Cynthia Turner 2006 Later -- Cyn 12/20/07 What's On This Weekend: Saturday: 8-11p, December 22, 2007 ABC: Movie: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Women's Murder Club [r] CBS: Movie: Elf [r], 48 Hours Mystery FOX: Cops [r], Cops [r], America's Most Wanted ION: Larry McMurty's Dead Man's Walk (Part 2) [7p], Larry McMurty's Dead Man's Walk (Conclusion) MNT: Movie: The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou [r] NBC: SNL Best of 2006-2007 [r], SNL Goes Commercial [r] PBS: Austin City Limits [9p] TELE: Cine de Impacto UNIV: Sabado Gigante Sunday: 7-11p, December 23, 2007 ABC: Elmo's Christmas Countdown, Duel, Movie: The Santa Clause 2 [r] CBS: 60 Minutes, The Amazing Race 12, In God's Name CW: CW Now, Aliens in America [r], Story of Santa Claus [r], Crowned [r] FOX: The Simpsons [r], Movie: Spider Man 2 [r] ION: Movie: Hogfather NBC: Football Night in America, Sunday Night Football: Washington at Minnesota PBS: Nature [r] [8p], Masterpiece Theatre [r] TELE: Cine en Casa, Cine Millonario UNIV: La Hora Pico, Bailando Por Un Sueno Campeonato Internacional de Baile |
