Archive for January 4th, 2008

It was Coca-Cola!

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It’s already starting…the annual frenzy of CES announcements is starting, with a few newsworthy items trickling in ahead of the flood. Hoping to beat the crowd, movie rental company Netflix has revealed a deal with consumer electronics giant LG Electronics to ship its rental movies directly to LG’s HD sets.

The deal gives the snail mail-based Netflix a further toehold in the emerging online movie business. Netflix currently offers customers the ability to watch selected movies and TV shows on their PCs, a bid to keep customers who might be migrating to online film sites such as Apple’s iTunes or Amazon’s Unbox (but not Walmart’s online film business, which generated the sound of crickets for the retail giant and has been discontinued.)

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MADRID — Grissom rules in Spain, and the Green Ogre commands a large following too.According to a report by research org Corporacion Multimedia, “CSI” was the top-rating non-sports program in Spain last year placing 17 segs in the top 50 most-watched non-sports programming in 2007. “CSI” contributed nine episodes, “CSI: Miami” the rest.

In 2006, “CSI” in all its strands accounted for eight segs.

Spain’s top rating domestic series last year was “Aida,” with six top 50 slots.

The most seen fiction program of the year — international or Spanish — was the DreamWorks Animation half hour special “Shrek the Halls,” which grabbed a 37.3% share and 6.9 million viewers from a Christmas Day transmission.

The report also underscores the value of international — mostly Hollywood — series for some terrestrial broadcasters in Spain.

Foreign series accounted for 20.6% of airtime at Cuatro, but repped 28% of its 7.4% audience share last year.

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Tyson Foods’ integration on ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” this season and Sue Bee Honey and Soft Scrub placements on NBC’s “The Apprentice: Los Angeles” last season were the most effective product integrations on television in 2007 based on their positive impact on brand opinion, according to IAG Research.

With a brand-opinion index of 394, the Tyson placement — in which the company provided a year’s supply of meat to a family and donated 20,000 pounds of meat to their community — improved viewer opinion of the brand nearly four times more than the average product placement, which scores 100, notes the Hollywood Reporter.

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Phone cards and pay-as-you-go phones are just about everywhere; convenience stores and electronics dealers have walls and racks full of them. This overabundance of availability means the pressure is high for a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) to gain any significant market share. Red Pocket Mobile is one of the successful ones, thanks to a particular niche: With the help of VoIP Logic’s Cortex System Management Web Portal, Red Pocket has captured the hearts and minds of the Asian-American community.

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Brand awareness seems to be related to product placement on reality series, a new study says. Kraft received a push from product placement on Bravo’s Top Chef, it says, while Propel Fitness Water took off when viewers saw it being quaffed on Bravo’s Work Out series. The downside is that sometimes products are over-saturated on shows. [NY Daily News]

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DENVER – Inside a 15,000-square-foot warehouse here, the evolution of television is taking shape.

ManiaTV is producing shows for those who don’t care what kind of screen they’re watching, as long as they’re entertained. The Internet TV network (ManiaTV.com) recently dumped the homemade, user-generated junk in favor of professionally produced product. Turns out, “user-generated content” meant third-rate clips by not-so-talented amateurs.

“Let YouTube do that,” says ManiaTV executive producer Richard Ayoub.

“The reality is, most people are not that talented,” adds CEO Peter Hoskins. The user-generated model was “Dumpster-diving for gold.”

When members of Gen Y check their computers or mobile devices, they can watch Desperate Housewives or Lost as easily as ManiaTV. The mininet’s formula of music, comedy and celebrity gossip is targeted to viewers 18-34. Slightly more males than females tune in, anywhere from 5,000 to 20,000 people each hour. Read the rest of this entry »

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