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Mock the NationNICK COHEN September 2009 The free availability of hard-core pornography on the internet is changing relationships between men and women in ways we have barely begun to talk about, but it is also changing television. What should executives do with the knowledge that sections of their ever-fragmenting audience are watching images they could not have found in the greasiest Soho basements 20 years ago? Once they would have ignored them, but now that television's power is waning, it must run after every viewer it can find. It cannot give them porn — not yet, anyway — but with Mock...

For three days, I couldn't find my fire on TV. And that's a problem -- before and after -- you've been evacuated from your La Crescenta home as I, my husband and my three children were in the early morning hours this weekend. As a television critic, I have spent hours watching endless news loops of Octomom coverage, Tim Russert memorials and the Sarah Palin watch. Less than two months ago, I sat through at least an hour's worth of overhead shots of a freeway emptied in anticipation of Michael Jackson's memorial procession. An hour. Of empty freeway. I have...

TV's `Burn Notice' sets up explosion at Arch Creek East Nature Preserve in North Miami It started with a deafening boom. Then came the powerful flames taking over the wooden planks of a North Miami bridge. Before long the fire was under control. With that, Burn Notice -- a show that revolves around a CIA operative working in Miami -- finished up shooting an action-packed scene in North Miami's Arch Creek nature preserve on Aug. 17. The episode, which is part of the show's third season, will air in February or March. ``It was a very controlled explosion,'' the show's...

Wire writer says adverts kill TV The creator of highly-acclaimed hard-hitting TV drama The Wire has said television can only be worthwhile when freed from the constraints of advertising. David Simon was appearing at the Edinburgh International TV Festival. He said: "Television as a medium, in terms of being literate and telling stories, has short-changed itself since its inception. "That is because of advertising." Simon, whose work originates on US subscription cable channel HBO, said: "Only when television managed to liberate itself from the economic construct of advertising was there a real emancipation of story. "American television up until...

Broadcast TV ad revenues were down 12.8% in the second quarter vs, the same qurter in 2008, according to TNS Media Intelligence/CMR data released by the Television Bureau of Advertising. Local broadcast TV revenues (spot TV) were down 26.3% to $2.7 billion, while network TV was down 6.9% $5.86 billion, and syndication was down 1.5% $1.09 billion. For the first half, spot TV was down 27%, network 5.8% and syndication only .7%. Leading the spot TV slump was automotive, which was down 54.5%, with dealership advertising down 43.6%. In fact 24 of the top 25 ad categories all showed reduced...

Although Glenn Beck's hit Fox News show doesn't even air during prime time, he is generating huge prime-time-like numbers at 5 p.m. TVbytheNumbers.com reports that, despite a liberal group's "boycott" of "The Glenn Beck Program," Beck is striking "pure ratings gold."

For years, millions of people were enamoured of the anthropomorphic antics of our title character, a bottle-nosed female dolphin named Flipper. Everyone, that is, except the talented though hapless actor who played the father of the boys. He began to phone me, usually after midnight. “Why do they make me out to be a blithering idiot? An incompetent? Why do I always have to be a boob, huh, tell me that?" “I've kept track," he wailed. “We've shot nearly a hundred episodes and in 99 per cent of them I have to ask the bloody dolphin, ‘Where are the boys,...

Some Jets like to spend their free time tweeting on their Twitter pages or playing video games on their PS3s. Thomas Jones, the AFC's leading rusher in 2008, unwinds by watching "The Golden Girls." Sure, he also watches other old-school shows such as "The Cosby Show" and "Saved by the Bell," but there's just something about Bea Arthur. "My favorite thing to do to relax is watch 'The Golden Girls' marathon," Jones admitted yesterday during a rare interview at SUNY Cortland. "It kind of puts me in the mind-set of how things kind of used to be. When I see...

Did you see Michael Sragow's article "Twitter Effect rattles Hollywood" in the Baltimore Sun? Sragow's thesis is neatly laid out in the first paragraph: "Although word of mouth could always make or break a movie, it usually took days to affect the box office. But the rise of social networking tools such as Twitter might be narrowing that time frame to hours. And that has Hollywood on edge." Now keep in mind that, as Sragow goes on to note, "Movietickets.com recently ran a home-page poll in which 88% of the voting sample said Twitter had no effect on them." Of...

The economic storm may be passing. Is the rain letting up? For traditional media, probably not. The disruptive impact of digital technology, particularly the Internet, is likely to leave a lasting impact even as advertisers and consumers boost their spending again. But at least companies may soon get a sense of how much of the slump in ad spending and DVD sales was cyclical and how much was a permanent shift. Habits may change in all kinds of ways. Media executives from Time Warner, Walt Disney and Viacom each noted on recent earnings conference calls that television advertisers are buying...

Twitter's effectiveness as a marketing tool is still up for debate -- but don't tell that to Homer Simpson or Jay Leno. Along with dozens of other TV characters and personalities on a variety of networks, their shows are being actively promoted on the short-form chat network, part of a drive by the major broadcasters to generate awareness and buzz for their new fall schedules. According to network execs, word of mouth is the second most-effective driver of program sampling (the first is the on-air promotional spot). So, this year, they've stepped up their use of online advertising, grassroots events,...

The E.W. Scripps Co.'s second-quarter television revenue showed little sign of improvement -- but reported a profit versus a first-quarter loss. Company results showed a 24% decline in revenue to $61.1 million, coming from lower local spot and national spot revenue -- a 26% drop to $37.3 million, and a 29% fall to $16.9 million, respectively. Political advertising sank to $333,000 from $1.6 million in the comparable 2008 period. As has been the case for many TV station groups, these lower numbers were attributed to less advertising in automotive, financial services, and retail categories. More positive results came from a...

This copy is for your personal, noncommercial use only. You can order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers here or use the "Reprints" tool that appears next to any article. Visit www.nytreprints.com for samples and additional information. Order a reprint of this article now. August 9, 2009 Drama Confronts a Dramatic Decade By FRED KAPLAN IT’S 1963 as the third season of “Mad Men” on AMC gets under way next Sunday night. And its creator, Matthew Weiner, hopes the show stays on the air long enough to string out his story through the entire turbulent...

Back in April, when the debate over torture was roaring, Jon Stewart invited Cliff May, a national-security hawk and former spokesman for the Republican Party, to come on The Daily Show and defend waterboarding. May was hesitant. He thought Stewart would paint him as a crazy extremist. The audience would jeer. It would be a disaster. "I was apprehensive about going on, even though I've been on TV for a dozen years," says May. "A lot of my friends told me: 'Don't do it. You're meat going into the sausage factory.'" But May had a change of heart after soliciting...

The 60 Plus Association, a 17-year-old nonpartisan senior citizens advocacy group often referred to as the “conservative alternative to the AARP” today released a TV ad warning the elderly that the healthcare proposal touted by the Obama Administration “means massive Medicare cuts in order to pay for healthcare ‘reform’.” See the ad at www.60plus.org. “This strikes at the heart of the debate over the value of our seniors’ lives versus the cost of expensive treatments they need to stay healthy or get better,” said Jim Martin, President of 60 Plus. Entitled “Sacrifice,” the ad states that seniors today, The Greatest...

There was a time, not long ago, when on-air contributors with expertise on a particular topic would command lucrative contracts from networks, sometimes earning as much as $5,000 for one appearance on a network morning show. But the financial contraction has choked off many of these deals. Now, networks pony up very little or, in most cases, nothing at all for talking heads. “It's a legitimate sign of the times,” says Hayden Meyer, who runs the alternative television department at APA. And in today's cacophonous media universe, where airtime on a national program like NBC's Today or ABC's Good Morning...

A commercial for Apoliva, an assortment of personal care products for Apotoket, featuring Swedish supermodel Adina Fohlin has made a major splash, although not quite the one that the Swedish pharmacy chain was hoping for. Rather than running out to purchase Apoliva products, viewers are running scared. The 30-second ad spot, set to the haunting tones of a Swedish folk song, depicts a close-up of a rather sullen and emaciated Fohlin standing in the snow, rain and sun. The clip ends with the tagline, “Apoliva – for Swedish conditions”. Almost 100,000 Swedes, many of whom viewed the clip on YouTube,...

Broadcast network television upfront buying for the 2009-10 season is expected to wrap up this week with the five major broadcast networks taking in about $7.2 billion in prime-time ad revenue, down 22 percent from last year’s $9.25 billion. While the troubled economy played a role in the decline of upfront revenue, with some advertiser budgets lower than last year, and negotiated pricing for ad units down -1 to -7 percent compared to last year, the biggest reason for the disparity was that the networks decided to hold back significantly more ad inventory, planning to sell it during the season...

CBS Corp. says its second-quarter net profit fell 96 percent as softness in the advertising market continued. Net profit in April-June quarter dropped to $15 million, or 2 cents per share, from $408 million, or 61 cents per share, a year earlier. Adjusted earnings fell to 8 cents per share. Revenue dropped 11 percent to $3.01 billion from $3.39 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected adjusted earnings of 7 cents per share on revenue of $3.03 billion. CBS shares were down 32 cents, or 3.6 percent, at $8.54 before the earnings were released.

Broadcast television networks typically sell the bulk of their advertising for the coming season in a handful of days in late May and June. But this wasn't a typical year. With the sour economy, declines in consumer spending and sagging prime-time rankings, network sales executives have had to work overtime this summer to close deals with advertisers. For more than a month, talks were stalled because advertisers were demanding steep cuts in pricing -- and the networks initially were refusing to give in. Several weeks ago, the impasse melted and the networks started to slowly ring up sales with major...

All see declines in adults 18-49, some of them steep The fall television season begins in less than two months, and the broadcast networks must be counting the days. This is proving to be a tough summer for the Big Five, despite a handful of hit shows like NBC’s “America’s Got Talent” and ABC’s “The Bachelorette.” Each of the networks is posting year-to-year declines. Fox is doing the best, ranking No. 1, but it’s down 17 percent among adults 18-49 from last year for the period May 25 through this past Sunday, Aug. 2. Fox has a 1.9 rating in...

It is a bit of an understatement to say that when it comes to dominating the media, President Barack Obama is perhaps unequalled by any politician ever. Michael Jackson was the King of Pop, Obama the King of Pols. The Publisher of NewsBusters.org, Brent Bozell, wrote his syndicated column about the media's full-court Obama press just this week. In which he accurately points out that while the journalistic class remains utterly infatuated with the man, it appears that the American people are begining to reach their saturation point. So let us now turn our attention to an item in yesterday's...

A 78-year-old Carroll woman says she's so tired of seeing President Barack Obama on the airwaves that she's selling her television sets - two of them. Deloris Nissen, a retired nurses' aide and former Kmart employee who was raised on a farm near Audubon, placed a classified advertisement with The Daily Times Herald for Friday's paper. In the $5.50 ad, Nissen tells readers she has two television sets for sale. The reason: "Obama on every channel and station." In an interview Nissen said she is serious about selling two TVs - and genuine about her disgust with what she believes...

A 78-year-old Carroll Iowa woman says she's so tired of seeing President Barack Obama on the airwaves that she's selling her television sets - two of them. Deloris Nissen, a retired nurses' aide and former Kmart employee who was raised on a farm near Audubon, placed a classified advertisement with The Daily Times Herald for Friday's paper. In the $5.50 ad, Nissen tells readers she has two television sets for sale. The reason: "Obama on every channel and station." In an interview Nissen said she is serious about selling two TVs - and genuine about her disgust with what she...

Viacom's second-quarter profit tumbled 32 percent as revenue fell amid a weak advertising market, slower video game sales and fewer movie releases. The media conglomerate controlled by billionaire Sumner Redstone earned $277 million, or 46 cents per share, compared with $407 million, or 65 cents per share, in the same quarter last year. Excluding 3 cents per share in severance charges, adjusted earnings were 49 cents in the latest quarter. Revenue slipped 14 percent to $3.3 billion. Analysts projected income of 48 cents per share on sales of $3.5 billion. New York-based Viacom Inc. owns a wide range of media...

Advertisers are getting cheaper rates than a year ago on television commercials for the coming TV season, putting more pressure on networks already reeling from the economic downturn. The rate cuts have come in the annual negotiations between networks and advertisers to buy TV ads that will run through the following summer. Both sides had been locked in a tug-of-war over prices since May. But now each of the four big U.S. networks -- CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox -- has cut rates by single-digit percentages in at least some deals, according to media buyers, executives and network executives familiar...

If nothing else, the 2009-10 upfront will be remembered as a marathon game of liar's poker, a bluffer's marketplace governed by the twin dictates of fear and paranoia. A preoccupation with controlling the flow of information inadvertently put the freeze on any early bidding, and with two months having elapsed since the game first got underway, only a fraction of business has been completed. According to sources on both sides of the table, advertisers have locked up an estimated 25% of the broadcast and cable TV inventory on offer in this year's upfront, at aggregate cost-per-thousand declines that are nowhere...

The three best-performing broadcast networks have begun offering price rollbacks, the latest sign that both sides in this year's protracted upfront negotiations are slowly drawing closer on terms. If advertisers and networks can't come to an agreement, will there be ads to support the nation's best-loved shows like 'Grey's Anatomy' come fall? Photo Credit: ABC According to media buyers, ABC, Fox and CBS have begun offering slight declines in the cost of reaching 1,000 viewers, or CPM, a common measure in upfront discussions. Those declines appear to be in the range of 1% to 3%, according to executives familiar with...

think I’ve found the most pro-American show on television. True to form, its not produced in Hollywood. Growing up, I was obsessed with “Dr. Who.” In the seventh grade I wore a Tom Baker style scarf to school every day (Baker and Davidson are my favorite “Doctors,” if you understand what that means, feel free to have it at in the comments). I thoroughly enjoy the “reboot” that currently airs on the SyFy channel and recently stumbled across its spin-off “Torchwood.”

Rich Greenfield of Pali Capital is bearish on the future of local news, given the condition of the auto industry and the explosion of competition. “We believe the local TV business is in secular decline, albeit the decline trajectory post-2009 auto-related trauma is unlikely to be anywhere near as rapid as we are witnessing in newspapers and radio,” Greenfield wrote in his blog. “While revenues/profits may bounce whenever the economy recovers, we have a hard time believing that local news, weather, traffic and sports at 7 a.m./5 p.m./ 6 p.m./11 p.m. can sustain viewership levels, and in turn, advertiser interest...

CARACAS (Reuters) – Venezuela is taking dozens of radio stations off the air and putting stricter rules on cable and satellite television, a minister said on Thursday, part of President Hugo Chavez's battle with private media firms. Disodado Cabello, the public works minister who also oversees Venezuela's broadcasting watchdog, said 154 FM radio stations will be taken off the air and shifted into public hands in what he called "democratizing the airwaves." He recently said 86 AM radio stations will also be hit as the government steps up efforts to turn Venezuela into a socialist society. "The use of the...

As a weary nation welcomed the respite of the long holiday weekend, TV advertising sales executives particularly looked forward to July 4th fireworks, pyrotechnics in short supply thus far in this year's upfront marketplace. With the exception of the deal between NBC Universal and GroupM -- one that, as of press time, both sides continued to deny had actually closed -- little headway of note has been made. Interpublic's Magna is also in advanced talks with NBC, although a substantive push for a deal isn't expected until later this week at the earliest. "There was a lot of talk at...

When buyers and sellers finally kick off this year’s upfront, several broadcast networks could well see pricing increases over last year, despite the weak economy and network television’s sinking ratings. But if they do, it's almost certain to be the last year for such gains. The networks have done a good job of explaining away the impact of DVRs on ratings, noting that in fact few users actually bother skipping through commercials. But that is about to change, according to one top researcher. As more and more users acquire and begin to use DVRs, ad skipping will become a far...

A new study issued by the DVR Research Institute suggests that advertising executives have a keen understanding of the threat posed by time-shifting devices yet are uncertain about what they can do to counteract ad skipping. The four-part report, “Advertising in the DVR Age,” reveals that 83 percent of marketers surveyed believe the increased adoption of DVRs will negatively impact the effectiveness of TV advertising in the course of the next three years. That assertion was echoed by ad agency executives. Per the study, 77 percent of agency higher-ups said that DVR usage will prove to be the greatest challenge...

The Supreme Court Monday declined to review the challenge by CNN and some major studios to Cablevision's use of a remote DVR service. The decision paves the way for Cablevision to deploy the service later this summer, according to the company. The Solicitor General had recommended the court not take the case. ‘We are very pleased that the U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear a challenge to Cablevision's Remote Digital Recording Service," said Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn. "From a common-sense point of view, the lower court, and the U.S. Solicitor General, were correct in their interpretation of the...

The US television industry faces a $2bn slump in advertising revenues during the next four years as advertisers turn away from broadcast and cable networks, according to a new report. Digital video recorders that allow viewers to skip through commercials have knocked confidence in broadcast and cable advertising while younger, tech-savvy audiences are deserting their TV sets to spend more time online. The Global Media Intelligence report by Screen Digest, the media research firm, says some of the decline will be clawed back by US TV networks by online video advertising, which it expects to triple during the next four...

Viewers tuned in en masse last week to see the marriage behind "Jon & Kate Plus 8" break down on camera. Here's what they didn't bother to watch last week: the equally stunning collapse of the once-mighty broadcast networks. While cablers glow in the summer heat of TLC's "Jon & Kate," as well as USA's "Royal Pains," HBO's "True Blood," ABC Family's "The Secret Life of the American Teenager" and plenty more, over at the broadcast networks ... well, viewers have been treated to a dumping ground of repeats, first-run episodes of canceled shows and "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me...

Steve Ballmer, the Microsoft chief executive, said today that the global advertising economy has been permanently "reset" at a lower level, warning that media companies should not plan for revenues to bounce back to pre-recession levels. Ballmer, speaking at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, argued that traditional broadcast and print media would have to plan business models around a smaller share of the advertising market, as revenues continue to move to digital outlets. "I don't think we are in a recession, I think we have reset," he said. "A recession implies recovery [to pre-recession levels] and for planning purposes...

The best thing about President Barack Obama and the First Lady starring in their own political coup in tonight’ first state-run television presentation from the White House is you don’t have to watch it. In a broadcast that could easily be entitled “Street Organizers Out of the Windy City Make Good”, Obama will do his made-for-TV savior of America’s health system gig with or without his Teleprompter.

Simple poll question today: Did you make the switch to digital television? A Daily Poll.

How bad is network television getting already this summer? The answer: the worst it has ever been, at least among those younger viewers three of the networks are always saying they are most avid to reach. Last week, the four networks performed abysmally across the board in viewers between the ages of 18 and 49, posting the lowest combined rating in that category ever for the four broadcast networks. As bad as the total number was, ABC won the most dubious achievement award. ABC’s 18-49 rating of a 1.1 was the worst performance ever for that network. Once before, last...

They haven’t made it official yet, but ABC should go ahead and pull the trigger changing its name from the “American Broadcasting Company” to the “All Barack Company”. The launch date of the new “ABC” should be on June 24, 2009, when the network airs an infomercial in prime time for President Barack Obama and his, as of yet primarily non-existent, health care plan. Obama lapdog, Charlie Gibson, will host the show. One would assume that even Billy Mays couldn’t choke down a pitch like, “How much do you think this Healthcare plan will cost? Not 5 trillion. Not 4...

For the 77th consecutive month, FNC finished first in total day and prime time ratings during May. FNC was the sixth highest rated cable network on all of basic cable during prime time for the month (CNN and MSNBC finished 19th and 26th) and the seventh rated network in total day (CNN and MSNBC were 19th and 27th). FNC also had 11 out of the top 13 programs in cable during the month in Total Viewers. The O'Reilly Factor was the #1 program in cable news for the 90th consecutive month, and saw gains in Total Viewers year-to-year (26%).

Suppose someone pulled the plug and a couple of million people didn't care. That may be what the TV industry is discovering nearly a week after the U.S. broadcast industry converted from analog to digital broadcasting. Days after their analog TV signals went dark, 2.2% of U.S. households still haven't bothered to hook up to digital reception, according to estimates released Wednesday by Nielsen Co. Even more troubling, the estimates are based on households in Nielsen's national and local TV ratings panels, which means that more than 2% of Nielsen's panel is reporting zero TV usage in the days following...

PBS to Begin Phasing Out Religious Programming From Airwaves PBS board members have decided to enforce a rule barring religious broadcasts in a move that spells the beginning of the end for most spiritual shows like Catholic Masses and Mormon devotionals on public television. By Joseph Abrams FOXNews.com Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Former AmeriCorps Official Says Obama Removed Him for 'Doing My Job' PBS board members, who for 25 years have turned a blind eye to religious programming at some of their member stations' religious programing, have decided to enforce a rule banning the broadcasts -- a move that spells...

There is little disputing that right now Barack Obama is the world’s biggest celebrity. Movie stars want to meet him. Foreign leaders want his autograph. Americans just want to shake his hand. But lately it seems the popular president has become a one-man stimulus plan for the television industry. Obama did a recent promo for “The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien” during the host's first week on the job. He participated in a skit via video on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” NBC was taking pre-orders for its “Inside the Obama White House” DVD ($19.99) the day after the two-part...

I bought a Commodore 64 computer in the 1980s for $600 I could scarcely afford, only to see the price of computers drop and my 64 become useless. I bought an HD radio for $300, and I find I merely use its excellent speakers for listening to classical music on demand on the Internet. The stations I want to hear aren’t powerful enough to receive reliably at Chez Cubicle. (That means YOU, WAMU.) I learned early adapters get burned. Wait two years… even three years…So I haven’t bought a DTV converter box yet. I will, but only after the local...

If Sarah Palin wants to use David Letterman’s “poor taste” joke about her daughter getting knocked up by a New York Yankee to alter the cultural discord involving young women, that would be fine. In fact, it could be extraordinary. Palin spent the better part of three days demanding that Letterman apologize for “contributing to the kind of threat that is throughout our culture that makes it sound like it is OK to talk about young girls in a way, where it’s kind of OK, accepted and funny to talk about statutory rape,” she told NBC’s Matt Lauer. Letterman, in...

David Letterman is scornful of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, which is certainly his right. That he continues to use the bully pulpit of his late-night talk show to crack wise about the former vice presidential contender is acceptable also, if not exactly cutting edge comedy. Clearly a public figure, Palin is fair game. But Letterman went beyond the pale with his recent jokes about Palin’s daughter being “knocked up” by a New York Yankee player while attending a recent game. Letterman claimed to be referring to Palin’s 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, who had a child out of wedlock. However, Bristol wasn’t...

Much of the debate surrounding Sarah Palin’s feud with David Letterman this week has been based around questions over whether Palin overplayed her hand, or if it is wise for someone who wants to be president to be spending their time feuding with a late night host, but there is deeper motive at work here. Palin is trying to use Letterman to motivate the GOP base, and reignite the culture wars. Here was Palin’s response to Letterman’s apology for some jokes he told about her daughters this week, "Laughter incited by sexually perverted comments made by a 62-year-old male celebrity...