Archive for July 7th, 2008

In a piece of news that should surprise very few people, Lehman Brothers has cut the stock ratings on the Walt Disney Company, Time Warner and several other top entertainment companies. The reasons behind this include the rise of legal digital downloading cutting into advertising revenue and the concern of piracy cutting into primary profits such as DVD sales.

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Sports Illustrated columnist and radio show host, has been added as a co-host of NBC’s Football Night in America, it’s Sunday night NFL game pre-game studio show. From 1980 to 2006, Patrick was an anchor on ESPN’s SportsCenter, and reported from all the major professional sports’ major events.

On the NBC show, he will be reunited with co-host Keith Olbermann, who shared anchor duties with Patrick  on SportsCenter from 1002 to 1997.

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Jamie Lynn Sigler is shooting a three-episode arc on HBO’s Entourage, according to E!. The erstwhile Meadow Soprano will play a version of herself, who may also be a potential love interest for one of the horny boys in Aquaman’s crew. E! says the story is “gonna be awesome.” So… with whom do you want to see Meadow canoodling?

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It’s funny (or maybe it isn’t), but this year seems to be filled with a series of non-events in the advertising world. The Super Bowl (or Stupid Bowl) was a big dud. The upfront came and went with a whimper. Then Cannes happened, although people back home were too busy working to notice.

Am I being harsh? Am I wrong? You tell me.

All I know is that when the big news that comes out of Cannes is that we’ve finally woken up to the fact that video is video is Video, irrespective of where it plays, you’ll have to forgive me for yawning.

So does this mean we’re going to see a monstrous creative renaissance, with a plethora of black-bespectacled creatives diving headfirst into YouTube, discarding their portfolios en masse for the lure of a Promised Land powered by links, embedded HTML and tag clouds?

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The Dow Jones Insight–2008 Olympics Media Pulse has found that Speedo and McDonald’s are getting the most global attention as Olympic sponsors because of the media attention they have received.

Speedo’s new LZR suit received positive coverage when several swimmers wearing the suit turned in record-breaking performances, but the performances also prompted some of those athletes to break endorsement contracts with other manufacturers.

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General Motors Corp. may get rid of some brands, speed the introduction of small cars from other markets and make further white-collar job cuts as it tries to deal with a shrinking U.S. auto market.

A person familiar with the company’s discussions said Monday all the options are being considered as GM tries to cope with the dramatic shift in consumer buying habits from trucks to cars and crossover vehicles.

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Throw a stapler at a Facebook friend, courtesy of Microsoft Office. Become a fan of Victoria’s Secret Pink to discuss favorite bra colors. Show off your love for Slim Jim snacks with a virtual poke.

With millions of users riveted to social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, big-name brands are venturing into the newly charted territory of social media advertising, seeking to unravel the real opportunities from the flurry of hype.

“They are reading about it a lot, their children are using it,” said Ian Schafer, CEO and founder of Deep Focus, an ad agency that created Facebook campaigns for HBO, Coca-Cola and New Line Cinema. “And they are finding that the social media networks are too big to ignore.”

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After a long period of exclusive negotiations, NBC Universal, along with two private-capital firms, acquired the Weather Channel, Television Week reports. Key assets in the deal include weather.com, which is considered more valuable with its 40 unique visitors per month than its cable channel, available in 95 million homes. No price was announced but TVWeek says reports pegged the price at about $2.5 billion. NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker told the New York Times said NBC could share talent and staffing with the Weather Channel and vice versa. The purchase could also endanger NBC’s Weather Plus operation, the Times adds.

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Advertiser optimism is waning across all major media categories, with fewer buyers expecting to increase budgets in TV, newspapers, radio and outdoor than they were a year ago.

While that conclusion, drawn from a new survey by market-research firm Advertising Perceptions, can hardly come as a shock, it’s far from welcome news for a shaky media economy teetering into the second half.

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There is growing speculation that ITV, Blighty’s biggest terrestrial web, will once again be subject to a takeover bid, with reports suggesting that Italy’s Mediaset could be interested in the broadcaster.The trigger for a bid is likely to be a ruling, due later this week, from U.K. regulators on whether paybox BSkyB must sell its 17.9% stake in ITV, whose stock price fell to a new record low of 37.7p in the past seven days.

If, as expected, BSkyB is told it must offload the bulk of its holding, attempts to buy this stock may signal the start of a battle to own ITV outright.

Steve Hewlett, a U.K. media commentator, said: “At its current price anyone who has designs on ITV has got to start thinking seriously about making a move.”

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