Archive for March 17th, 2008

HONG KONG – Indian entertainment group Pyramid Saimira is moving into satellite TV.          Company, which is best known as a multiplex operator from South India, has pacted with U.K.-based Spize TV to launch new direct-to-home TV channels in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.          Through a related company Saimira Access Technologies, Pyramid earlier in the week acquired a 51% stake in Spize, which packages Asian and niche content for DTH subscribers to Eutelsat’s EuroBird-9 and HotBird satellites.

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Dozens of comedy titans will appear at Night of Too Many Stars, an upcoming autism benefit on Comedy Central. But none will upstage a tricked-out 2009 Toyota Corolla.

The Corolla will get a level of integration rarely seen on TV. The compact car, customized by the event’s participants, will appear throughout the live show and for 10 days online afterward as it is auctioned for the cause. Parked in front of New York’s historic Beacon Theater, the Corolla will get continual shout-outs from the stage inside by host Jon Stewart and A-List comedians like Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Steve Carell, Sarah Silverman and Conan O’Brien.

Toyota, a longtime advertiser on Comedy Central, was looking for an eye-catching marketing hook and took a particular liking to Night of Too Many Stars’ charitable goals.

“It’s so important to figure out something that’s additive and not commercial when you try to weave an advertiser into the entertainment,” said Jeff Lucas, evp of ad sales at MTV Networks Entertainment Group. “And we knew that if we had a big ticket item like a car that we could keep the momentum of the benefit going after it was on TV.”

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Lifetime Networks president and CEO Andrea Wong has tapped Debbie Richman to oversee ad sales.

Most recently, she was instrumental in a product integration deal with Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” which was named “Hail to the Cheese: Stephen Colbert Nacho Cheese Doritos 2008 Presidential Campaign.”

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LOS ANGELES, California (AP) — Radiohead allowed fans to choose a price for their latest tunes. Now, the best-selling band is hoping fans will make them a music video, too.

TBD Records, Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim and animation Web portal Aniboom.com are sponsoring an online contest inviting Radiohead fans to produce an animated music video for any song from “In Rainbows,” the band’s popular 2007 album that was originally available for download at an optional price.

Information can be found at http://www.aniboom.com/radiohead. (Cartoon Network is a unit of Time Warner, as is CNN.)

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It looks like eager ad watchers anxious to see what Google’s first product from its DoubleClick acquisition would be got their answer today.

The product is called Ad Manager, and it’s a free hosted service for publishers to manage the ad inventories on their Web sites.

Using DoubleClick’s services, a business’s sales team could manage their ad inventories and fill any unsold space on their site. Small sites with marginal sales staffs were often priced out of DoubleClick’s fee-based services, however.

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Christian Slater to snoop for NBC, sitcom pilot from cult-favorite sketch-comedy creators picked up by HBO.

Looking at veteran Hollywood almost-leading man Christian Slater’s list of credits, one thing sticks out–he hasn’t done much television. However, if all goes according to plan, that will change soon.

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This week’s number one film takes us back in time, to 10,000 B.C.. Named for the year it takes place in, this prehistoric epic retells the story of the first hero. Movie enthusiasts have already picked apart historical inaccuracies, such as the use of certain tools in the battle scenes. Some even argue that the ‘B.C.’ in the title (for ‘Before Christ’) should be replaced by the more historically accurate B.C.E. (’Before Common Era’). But for our brandcameo purposes, ‘B.C.’ could very well stand for Before Commercialism. No surprises here. Our hero tribesman D’Leh would look pretty funny with a pair of Nike Dunk Lows (talk about historical inaccuracies). It seems the film is completely B.C. (Before Commercialism) and has not made any off-screen cross promotions with brands either. Another number one movie with zero brands.

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I’m not sure what these two new endings will show (the Cloverfield monster stealing the lead actress and climbing up to the top of the Empire State Building?), but apparently the upcoming Cloverfield DVD will house a couple of different looks at the controversial finale. Shock gives us the news that the DVD will arrive in stores on April 22, and come with a slew of bonus materials.

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CBS Television Stations announced Monday the launch of the CBS Local Ad Network, a first-of-its-kind Web network created by syndicating CBS local news content to local bloggers and social media Web sites. In exchange for publishing the CBS news widgets and links to local CBS video and text news, local sites receive a portion of the ad revenue sold by the CBS stations.

The network has already launched in Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Francisco, Denver and Chicago. CBS will continue to roll out the Local Ad Network over the next several weeks in the other markets where it owns and operated CBS stations including New York; Los Angeles; Philadelphia; Minneapolis-St. Paul; Miami, Fla.; Sacramento, Calif.; Pittsburgh; and Baltimore.

Advertisers that have taken advantage of the new Local Ad Network include AT&T in Chicago and Los Angeles, North Honda Dealers in Dallas and Liberty Mutual Insurance in Boston.

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NBC Universal has made a 35 percent investment in driverTV, a company that produces and distributes content geared for car shoppers and general auto enthusiasts on both the Web and various cable TV video on demand platforms.

As a result of the deal, NBCU said it plans to expand driverTV’s distribution to include NBC.com and MySpace, and hinted the company’s content may end up on NBCU’s various TV outlets. Currently, driverTV – which aims to reproduce the auto dealer showroom experience through a series of short video pieces on various car models – has distribution deals with multiple cable players, including Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, Charter, Insight and the Hotel Network. driverTV clips can also be found on various sites on the Web, including AOL.

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