The Upfront Market

"When it comes to the $9 billion-plus upfront market, it's easy for marketers to get distracted by the horse race of TV networks trying to outdo each other in terms of price increases or volume. Do that this year, and you'll lose sight of the dangers that may lie ahead when it comes to getting your ads on TV.

"Lost in all the numbers, however, is a serious consideration of the ramifications advertisers are bound to face come fall. With more viewers getting entertainment and information from the web and other emerging venues, the networks' supply of ratings is dwindling -- and so is a marketer's ability to get ads on TV without advance planning.

"The question that really remains is: What will be left later on in scatter?" asked Gary Carr, senior VP-director of national broadcast at independent media buyer TargetCast TCM, referring to ad time that is purchased closer to a show's air date. "Are [the networks] going to higher sellout levels, and only a little bit will be left later on?"

Nielsen Nonsense

"The burning question left hanging in the air after the cancellation of Jericho is the following: how does a show that can attract an estimated six million viewers to sit down in front of their TV sets, top the numbers on iTunes, and launch a number of unbelievably disciplined and organized fan campaigns, not get picked up for a third season.

Nielsen ratings.

Edward James Olmos summed it up nicely last year at a Battlestar Galactica convention. “Nielsen needs a hole in the head,” he said, explaining that the current ratings system excludes too many viewers to be reliable. In light of the current global business trends, that really would be the no-nonsense way of putting it.

TV networks and advertisers, however, are not quite there yet.

The main one? Networks don’t have a clue to whom they are delivering their programming anymore.

As the Accenture consumer study shows, consumers take in 70.6 hours of media per week. The catch? A traditional TV device is involved only 23 percent of the time.

Another thing that should come as no surprise is that 64 percent of viewers named commercials as their pet peeve when it comes to watching ‘live’ television."

Networks:and Programming

"Networks will announce their fall schedules next month, but some shows can be considered dead already.

"Cane," the magnificently produced South Florida soap opera on CBS about a clan of sugar barons, will get the machete. Steamy and cinematically beautiful as it was, it just didn't get the ratings it needed to survive."


"CBS CEO Leslie Moonves told investors and analysts at a media conference last month that the network would be doing "a CBS Corporation upfront" where it presents its new season to advertisers at New York's Carnegie Hall, May 14: "We're going to sell outdoor. We're going to sell radio in all its forms. We're going to sell television stations. We're going to sell syndication. We're going to sell network. It's going to be a very different look than we've ever had before."



"CBS fared better on an ad revenue per person basis for its NCAA basketball tournament delivery online than on TV. So why is Gossip Girl being dragged offline for viewing only on the CW Network, partly owned by CBS?

Gossip Girl's demographic focus goes straight to the 18-34 audience, the only one that exists as far as the networks are concerned. It's an online savvy audience as well. We wonder if CW has failed to make money with it online, or simply not made the enormous pots of money studio heads feel entitled to in their minds."

WGA Petition: Fans Unite

Please sign:

To: AMPTP and All Major Studios

We, the fans, unite with WGA by supporting their strike. The writers are the backbone of Hollywood. They deserve to receive a share of 8 cents in DVD and internet download sales. If it was not for the writers, there would be no television shows, made for TV movies, and motion pictures to entertain the fans worldwide. We encourage those in charge to do the right thing and come up with a solution to end this dark day in Hollywood as soon as possible.


Please end the strike. If you are a fan of television and do not want your favorite shows to be canceled because of this strike, please sign this petition. We will make sure that this petition will be sent to AMPTP and to ALL major studios.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

http://www.petitiononline.com/f4wga/petition.html


"Pencils Down Means Pencils Down ... BUT don't put them down until you've written to all of the Studios that are making these fantastic people strike so that they can get the compensation that is rightly theirs!"

Addresses here.




Moving into day 3...

Which will end first? The Writers strike or the unexplained and unwarranted bannings of Alpha99Wolf and XWARP. The longer this goes on without being addressed by an ADMIN the more it becomes simple and solid proof of the ramshackle and seemingly devious excuse for moderation we have here. Silence will only be an option for so long and this thread is being documented offboard.

Bring Back XWARP and ALPHA99WOLF!!!