Cynopsis

06/09/08

Good morning. It’s Monday, June 9, 2008, and this is your first early morning briefing.

Tensions are running high between local organizers of the Beijing Olympics and the broadcasters, including NBC, who have paid for the rights to broadcast the Games, according to an AP report. Varying complaints from the broadcasters were brought to the forefront during a heated meeting on May 29 between the Beijing organizers, high-level International Olympic Committee officials and television executives representing the nine rights-holding broadcasters. Some of the broadcaster’s grievances include excessive security imposed by the Chinese government, having shipped television equipment being unnecessarily detained at China’s ports to potentially limited or no live coverage in Tiananmen Square. Notes from the meeting obtained by the AP point to the plans broadcasters have followed for other Olympic Games as being stymied by China’s government policies. With the Games scheduled to open August 8, many set-up plans by the broadcasters are behind schedule which may result in changed or compromised coverage. Gary Zenkel, President/NBC Olympics was hopeful during this meeting, even crediting the Beijing organizers, saying the issues “can be solved” and indicated overall the prospects in China “are better than Athens or Turin” where some issues from those Games remained “irresolvable.”

Tonight’s Premieres:
TLC: Master of Dance at 8p
NBC: Nashville Star at 9p
Planet Green: Alter Eco at 9p

AmercianLife TV Network will begin airing 13 new episodes of Fixing Dinner starting next month in primetime. The weekly series, with cookbook author Sandi Richard as host, will air at 2p and 530p Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and 930p and 1130p on Saturdays. The show will teach viewers how to organize their kitchens and their lives so families can sit down and have meals together every night.

Meredith Corporation has cut 60 employees and 60 other jobs, according to B&C. This downsizing includes 20 positions from its broadcasting unit of 1,400 staffers, and the rest coming from the publishing side. Meredith also just purchased Big Communications, a Detroit-based healthcare marketing company which boosts the company’s total employee base to 3,600 staffers. A company spokesperson indicated no other layoffs are expected in the foreseeable future.

Nielsen released a new study that charts television trends in the U.S. looking at population, advertising and viewing. Some information nuggets include:

• U.S. homes now receive on average 118.6 total television channels and the average household watches 16 channels or 13% of the total average number received for at least 10 minutes per week.
• Based on the total U.S. composite, African Americans watch more television overall, while Hispanics watch the least. Among all U.S. households, total TV viewing is at 31 hours and 55 minutes per week while African American households watch 45 hours and 22 minutes and Hispanic households watch 27 hours and 13 minutes.
• The advertising commercial mainstay in primetime is the 30-second commercial resulting in 55% of all units across all networks. 15-second commercial units come next and account for 53% of all commercials on English-language networks in daytime.
• The average U.S. TV home is populated with 2.5 people and 2.8 TV sets; 31% of U.S. TV homes have digital cable; 61% of homes have wired cable service (down from 68% in 2000) and 27% have satellite or specialized antenna systems (up from 19% in 2005).

Respected veteran sportscaster Jim McKay, 86, died Saturday of natural causes at his farm in Monkton, MD. He was probably best known for his years working for ABC Sports on the Wide World of Sports franchise as well as covering 12 Olympic Games – all for ABC with the exception of 2002 for NBC. McKay was also lauded for his coverage of the historic 1972 Munich Olympic Games for ABC during which he famously uttered the words “They’re all gone” during breaking news coverage of the Israeli athlete kidnapping situation by Palestinian terrorists.  He was also the sportscaster on hand during Wide World of Sports on that infamous day when the ski jumper flew off the side of the jump in a wild cartwheeling wipe out, and it was his voice you heard for the next several decades when that scene was shown at the start of every broadcast. Born James McManus and a veteran of the U.S. Navy in World War II, Jim started his career as a newspaper reporter in Baltimore then switched to television when the paper started its own station and hosted a weekday show called The Sports Parade. Later he changed his professional name while working in New York for a show called The Real McKay. In addition to his long career in sports television, McKay was a minority owner of the Baltimore Orioles. His son Sean McManus is currently President of CBS News and Sports. Along with Sean, Jim is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Margaret and a daughter, Mary.

The N teen-targeted network hired Media Storm as its new media agency to plan off-air consumer campaigns promoting programming and the network’s website at www.the-n.com .

Weekend Box Office Estimates: June 6-8, 2008
Kung Fu Panda (Paramount)                    $60.0 million  opening weekend
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (Sony)      $40.0 million  opening weekend
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount) $22.8 million  3 wk total $253m
Sex and the City (New Line)                     $23.1 million  2 wk total $99.3m
The Strangers (Rogue Pictures)                 $9.3 million  2 wk total $37.6m
Iron Man (Paramount)                              $7.5 million  6 wk total $288.9m
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (Buena Vista) $5.5 million  4 wk total $125.8m
What Happens in Vegas (Fox)                    $3.4 million  5 wk total $72.2m
Baby Mama (Universal)                             $779K  7 wk total $57.9m
Made of Honor (Sony)                               $775K  6 wk total $44.7m
Source: Box Office Mojo

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM TV GUIDE NETWORK

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A&E Network ordered a series pickup for The Beast starring Patrick Swayze and Travis Fimmel. Thirteen 60m episodes will begin production by Sony Pictures Television in Chicago this summer with a projected premiere slated for early 2009. The story is about an unconventional FBI veteran played by Swayze who trains a new partner played by Fimmel while being chased by a secret Internal Affairs group. Swayze, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in March was cleared to continue work by his doctors.

CMT‘s newest reality series Outsider’s Inn will feature the likes of Bobby Brown, Carnie Wilson and Maureen McCormack as they band together to run a local B&B inn in Tennessee, reports THR.  Production is currently underway for the 8-episode order.

CYNOPSIS DIGITAL – TODAY’S TOP STORY:   After shutting down its online music store Wal-Mart is trying to insure there is still demand for its CDs. The chain signed an deal with AC/DC to become the exclusive CD retailer for its next album this fall, similar to agreements struck with The Eagles and Journey, according to the WSJ. The company also says it plans to reduce its inventory of CDs to focus more on blockbuster titles. The move will likely drive more consumers online to find niche, long tail content, even if they have to put up with occasional outages. (Amazon.com made headlines over the weekend when it went down for over 2 hours.) Full edition: CYN DIGITAL. (Or to listen to the Cynopsis Digital Podcast click here or subscribe to it at iTunes here .)

CYNOPSIS KIDS – TODAY’S TOP STORY:  Monster Buster Club (52 episodes), the new 3D animated series, premieres on Toon Disney’s Jetix block tonight at 7p.  Targeted to K6-11, and sporting a budget of $21 million, Monster Buster Club is a co-production between Marathon Media, TF1 (France), Jetix Europe and YTV (Canada).  The series is the first 3D from Marathon Media, which also plans to launch www.monsterbusterclub.tv, a virtual world where viewers can interact with content and 3D videos.  Additionally, Toon Disney also plans to include the characters from the new series in forthcoming public service announcements.   Full edition: CYN KIDS.

CYNOPSIS INTERNATIONAL – TODAY’S TOP STORY:  Spain’s Antena 3 and Portugal’s Sport TV broadcasters both inked exclusive licensing deal for their respective countries with TNA Wrestling. The Nashville company’s TV rights agency, RDA TV, negotiated the deals.  TNA iMPACT will become part of Antena 3’s Saturday/Sunday lineup as of June 21 with the network’s digital Neox channel airing TNA PPVs and its classic PPVs and iMPACTs.  As for Sport TV, the Portuguese pay TV sports network picked up 200+ hours as part of a deal that will last through 2009 with Sport TV3 airing TNA iMPACT! in the Friday 10p slot TNA’s monthly PPVs several days live recording in the U.S. Full edition: CYN INTERNATIONAL.

Thursday – A18-49 Analysis: ABC slam-dunked a win Thursday night with 4.4/14 A18-49, according to final national ratings from Nielsen Media Research. So You Think You Can Dance on FOX took the early win at 8p with a 3.0/10. After that it was all basketball as the NBA finals on ABC was #1 at 9p with a 4.4/13 followed by 5.3/15 during 10p. Two series made their debut at 10p: CBS’ Swingtown posted a 2.8/8 in second place and NBC’s Fear Itself at 2.0/6 came in third.

Live + Same Day Household Ratings: Thursday, June 5, 2008 time period averages. Source: NTI Galaxy, as dated. Live+SD.

ABC: 7.2/13         Jimmy Kimmel Live: Game Night 2.4/5, GMC NBA Countdown 4.0/7, 2008 NBA Finals: Lakers at Celtics 8.7/16

CBS: 6.0/10           CSI [r] 5.5/10, CSI [r] 6.5/11, Swingtown [p] 5.9/10

FOX: 5.6/10           So You Think You Can Dance 5.6/10

NBC: 3.3/6            Last Comic Standing 3.2/5, Fear Itself [p] 3.5/6

UNIV: 1.9/3         Al Diablo con los Guapos 2.1/4, Fuego en la Sangre 2.2/4, Amas de Casa Desesperadas 1.4/2

CW: 1.2/2             Smallville [r] 1.2/2, Supernatural [r] 1.2/2

MNT: 0.9/2            My Thursday Night Movie: Big Trouble [r] 0.9/2

TELE: 0.6/1           La Traicion 0.4/1, Victoria 0.7/1, Pecados Ajenos 0.6/1

A18-49: ABC 4.4/14, FOX 3.3/10, CBS 2.3/7, NBC 2.1/6, UNIV 1.6/5, CW 0.6/2, MNT 0.5/2, TELE 0.4/1

Lifetime Networks promoted Toby Graff to SVP/Public Affairs and Corporate Communications starting immediately. In this expanded role, Toby will now manage the corporate communications department overseeing trade and business media relations for all of the company’s properties and efforts. She will also continue to lead Lifetime Network’s advocacy campaigns and report to Meredith Wagner, EVP, Lifetime Networks.

Susan Roberts was hired by Bennett HD/LA as Senior AE. She will be charged for increasing sales for the company’s Flite-Pak and Post Production services. Based in Los Angeles, Susan will report to Julie Volpe, VP/Post Production.

Universal Media Studios elevated Joseph Dervin Jr. to SVP/Post-Production. He will remain as post-production supervisor for the studio’s primetime series, pilots and specials produced for NBC, USA, SCI FI among other networks. Joseph is involved with 16 current series including Heroes, Friday Night Lights, House and Monk.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM WE tv

Source: Nielsen Media Research, Live+SD, Bridezillas season 5 premiere (6/1/08 9p-10p): W18-49 (000) compared to all WE tv original season/series premieres to-date (12/31/01-6/1/08) & Bridezillas season 4 premiere (6/17/07 9p-10p). Subject to qualifications upon request.

This day in History: Born on this day: Cole Porter (1891), Donald Duck (1934), Michael J. Fox (1961), Johnny Depp (1963), Natalie Portman (1981)

Answer to Yesterday’s Trivia Question: On the sitcom Rhoda, who played Rhoda’s husband Joe’s ex-wife?  JOAN VAN ARK   Kudos to: Monica Caraffa-RDR Promotions/ Media, PA; Carol Accetta-Active International/Pearl River, NY; Synda Kollman-Charter Marketing Group/Boca Raton, FL; Lindsey Rothman-ZenithOptimedia Direct/NY;Les Stipp-GSD&M’s Idea City/Chicago; Len Klatt-Premiere Radio Networks/LA; Nancy Dixon-Welch-Eclipse Television & Sports Marketing, LLC/Tortola, British Virgin Islands

Today’s Trivia Question:  Which company’s recent ad campaign features customer stories along with celebrity narrators Peter Frampton, Joan Rivers and Mrs. Butterworth to name a few?   (Email
with your answer and be sure to include your name, company, city and time zone. Unofficial rules: Only the second four correct answers from each time zone will be mentioned; and once you’ve been mentioned in any of the Cynopsis editions, you can’t be mentioned again that calendar week.)

Later — Cyn
06.09.08

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JOB OPENING: SR. MRKT RSRCH ANALYST/DIRECTV/NY: Manage Ad-Hoc requests on day part analysis, ad spending, and psychographic information. For immediate consideration, please send resume to:
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WHAT’S ON TONIGHT – Monday, June 9, 2008

ABC: The Bachelorette, The Mole
AZTECA: Ladrones, Historias Engarzadas, Bellezas Indomables
CBS: The Bill Engvall Show, How I Met Your Mother [r], Two and a Half Men [r], Rules of Engagement [r], CSI: Miami [r]
CW: Gossip Girl [r], One Tree Hill [r]
FOX: Bones [r], House [r]
ION: ER, ER, ER
MNT: Celebrity Expose [r], Celebrity Expose [r]
NBC: American Gladiators, Nashville Star
PBS: Antiques Roadshow [r], American Experience [r], PBS Previews: Carrier [r]
TELE: Rumbo Pre-Game, Rumbo al Mundial  Mexico vs. Peru (Live), Cine Millonario
UNIV: Al Diablo con los Guapos, Fuego on la Sangre, Cristina

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