FAST TRACK
By Staff -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/19/2006 7:00:00 PM
Items:
Music Channel Ready To Rock
KPMG Sees Phone Price Squeeze
CW, My Network TV Grab More Affils
Discovery, NBC End Kids-Show Pact
Total Ad Spending Up 4.2% In 2005
Cartoon Captures 'Fantastic Four’
'Housewives’ Take Bite Out of Crime
NBC Greenlights 'Kidnapped’
Indecency Bill Awaits Valenti Report
Crawford Moves Up At ABC News
NCTA, Disney Blast À La Carte
Music Channel Ready To Rock
Universal looks to challenge MTV
Record company Universal Music is in talks with EchoStar Communications Corp. to create a challenger to MTV called International Music Feed (IMF).
The new network could emerge from attempts to resolve a fight between the two companies.
Industry executives say Universal is hoping to finalize a deal in time to make a big push at the National Cable & Telecommunications Association’s annual convention in April.
Court documents show that the companies have stopped preparing for a trial in favor of settling the suit that Universal filed in January 2005. On the eve of IMF’s scheduled launch that month, EchoStar refused to add it to the lineup of its Dish Network DBS service.
Universal secured an injunction last April, forcing EchoStar to add the network while they continued to fight it out in court. IMF has secured no additional distribution. Universal and EchoStar would not comment.
The channel is led by Andy Schuon, the onetime head of music programming for MTV. He got squeezed out in 1997, and has bounced between radio and record-company ventures, including defunct iTunes-wannabe Pressplay.
Record executives have long dreamed of owning a music-video channel on which they’d showcase their artists and address music fans’ hunger for the videos that MTV has moved away from. Previous efforts have been snagged by antitrust issues and the fear that labels would put the best videos on their own channels ahead of rival networks.
IMF will feature an array of international artists, including Latin and Indian, and a hefty dose of American artists on various Universal labels, such as Black Eyed Peas.
The dispute centers on a failed $1.5 billion investment in EchoStar by Universal parent company Vivendi Universal in 2001, which gave Vivendi five channel slots on Dish Network. Vivendi’s go-go days quickly ended and the company sold its stake back to EchoStar at a $500 million loss.
Its once ambitious channel plans faded, with IMF the sole survivor.
KPMG Sees Phone Price Squeeze
Big telephone companies are trying to boost revenue by introducing products and services, but many consumers may be unwilling to shell out money for them, according to KPMG LLP, the audit, tax and advisory firm.
That’s the conclusion of one of two new telecom studies by the consulting arm of KPMG titled Consumers and Convergence, slated to be unveiled March 20 at the TelecomNEXT conference in Las Vegas. “Attempting to exploit converged services purely to squeeze more cash from consumers on a traditional subscription model will not work,” says Carl Geppert, a partner in KPMG’s Communications and Media Practice, in a summary of the studies. The study say the firms must develop new business models.
One study surveyed telecom executives; the other queried 3,600 cellphone customers around the world. Among North American consumers that responded, 37% said they would not pay a premium over and above their current bill for converged services, and another 20% indicated that they would spend only up to 10% more than their current bill. Geppert says in the report, “Service providers should use enhanced and bundled services to deepen customer relationships and allow other parties to reach users, delivering a loyal subscriber base that is attractive to advertisers and digital commerce partners.”—J.M.H.
CW, My Network TV Grab More Affils
The CW expanded its reach to 66% of the U.S. last week, adding 27 stations Thursday, including a 10-year affiliation deal with Pappas Telecasting (encompassing six broadcast and three digital cable outlets) and 18 stations in midlevel and small markets.
Meanwhile, Young Broadcasting’s KRON San Francisco abandoned its status as an independent station, agreeing to become an affiliate of Fox’s My Network TV.
KRON is the biggest My Network TV outlet so far not owned by the Fox Television Group. San Francisco is the sixth-largest market.
My Network TV also announced it had added stations in 13 markets, including ACME Communications’ KASY Albuquerque-Santa Fe, N.M., in the 46th market.
With the clearance, My Network TV is now cleared in 52 markets throughout the U.S., representing 51% of the nation. The network launches Sept. 5.
The deal is a further blow to Granite Television, whose KBWB San Francisco is losing its affiliation with the demise of The WB but is losing out on a deal with either successor, The CW or My Network TV.
The CW, which has already secured affiliation agreements in 19 of the top 20 markets and 26 of the top 30, struck agreements with Pappas Telecasting for WTWB Greensboro-High Point-Winston Salem, N.C.; KFRE Fresno-Visalia, Calif.; KPWB Des Moines-Ames, Iowa; KXVO Omaha, Neb.; KWBL Lincoln–Hastings-Kearney, Neb.; KREN Reno, Nev.; WLGA Columbus, Ga.; KWUB (cable) Yuma-El Centro, Ariz.; and KWPL (cable) North Platte, Neb.
The stations are in the No. 47, 56, 73, 75, 103, 112, 127, 170 and 209 markets, respectively, representing 2.6% of total U.S. TV households. WLGA is the sole UPN affiliate; the other eight are affiliated with The WB.
None of the Pappas deals involve CW Plus (which covers markets 100 and below), but the individual stations in the bottom markets were cleared as part of an overall deal with CW Plus.
Meanwhile, two weeks after inking a deal to carry The CW on one of its three stations in South Bend, Ind., Weigel Broadcasting is committing a second outlet to My Network TV. The company’s independent WAAT will become a My Network TV affiliate. To play off its branding, Weigel will change the station’s name to WMYT.
Weigel operates an unusual triopoly in the market. WB affiliate WMWB will become a CW station this fall, and the company also owns the local ABC outlet, WBND.
—Jim Benson/Allison Romano/J.M.H.
Discovery, NBC End Kids-Show Pact
Discovery and NBC are disbanding their partnership to program the Saturday-morning Discovery Kids on NBC programming block. Beginning in the fall, the Discovery-programmed and -produced block of shows will no longer run on NBC. Instead, they will run solely on the Discovery Kids channel, which is in 43 million homes.
The two companies had had a four-year agreement for NBC to run the kids shows, and both decided not to renew it, according to a Discovery spokesperson who characterized the decision as “completely mutual” and “based on the needs and priorities” of both parties.
Discovery, she said, will devote the resources previously spent on the block to programming Discovery Kids. No word yet on what NBC plans to run on Saturday mornings in the fall.—A.B.
Total Ad Spending Up 4.2% In 2005
Total advertising expenditures climbed 4.2% in 2005 over the previous year, with Internet, Spanish-language TV and cable leading the way. Network and spot TV, however, lagged behind.
The hottest ad category was online (jumping 23.3%), followed by Spanish-language TV (up 16.9%) and cable (11%), according to a new report from Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
Network TV declined 1.5%, while spot TV in the top 100 Nielsen markets was basically flat at 1% and off slightly in markets No.101-210, dipping 1.5% from the previous year.—A.R.
Cartoon Captures 'Fantastic Four’
Cartoon Network will air Marvel’s new animated Fantastic Four series, which is targeted for a fall debut.
The series will be co-produced by Marvel and Moonscoop (Cartoon’s Code Lyoko). Fantastic Four, about four superheroes, will combine 2D and 3D animation. The four—Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, The Invisible Woman and The Thing—were the subject of a 2005 theatrical film and a 1960s animated TV series.—J.E.
'Housewives’ Take Bite Out of Crime
The Sopranos’ sixth-season premiere attracted 9.5 million total viewers and a 19.2 rating/25 share among HBO viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. That was down from the show’s fifth-season premiere in 2004, which earned 12.1 million total viewers and a 12.5 rating/18 share.
While the show still attracts a lot of buzz, it’s now competing against ABC’s Desperate Housewives on Sunday nights.—A.B.
NBC Greenlights 'Kidnapped’
NBC gave an early greenlight to 13 episodes of new serialized drama Kidnapped for the fall schedule. NBC Entertainment President Kevin Reilly says the network now has three new series commitments.
Kidnapped, starring Dana Delany and Timothy Hutton, centers on the kidnapping of the son of a wealthy New York couple. The entire season follows the kidnapping.
The show is from Sony Pictures Television and 25C Productions. Executive producers are Jason Smilovic (Karen Sisco), Michael Dinner (Invasion), Sarah Timberman and Carl Beverly.—Ben Grossman
Indecency Bill Awaits Valenti Report
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) says he will not decide when or how to proceed on a Senate version of a bill boosting FCC indecency fines until after he hears from Jack Valenti. Valenti, the former Motion Picture Association of America president, who is devising a campaign to revamp TV ratings and promote parental control of content, is scheduled to report to the committee in late April or early May.
An aide says Stevens will “wait and evaluate how well the industry solutions [such as family-friendly tiers] and the FCC’s current regulations are working.”—J.E.
Crawford Moves Up At ABC News
Sonya Crawford has been tapped as an ABC News network correspondent. The move was announced last week by ABC News President David Westin.
In her new role, Crawford will be an overnight and early-morning anchor for World News Now and World News This Morning, along with Good Morning America and digital channel ABC News Now. She will continue to be based in Washington.
Previously, Crawford was a reporter for NewsOne, ABC’s affiliate news service. She joined the network in 2002. Prior to that, she was a reporter and substitute anchor for KNBC Los Angeles.—Rebecca Stropoli
NCTA, Disney Blast À La Carte
The National Cable & Telecommunications Association and Walt Disney Co. unveiled their own independent à la carte studies last week refuting FCC Chairman Kevin Martin’s study released last month.
“We’ve been to à la carte, we know it doesn’t work,” said Preston Padden, executive VP, government relations, for Disney.
Martin’s study was itself a refutation of an earlier FCC study that concluded that mandating à la carte, or per-channel cable service, would upset cable’s economic model without producing the purported benefits. The Martin-commissioned study concluded, instead, that the original study was flawed and that à la carte was workable.
Ovcr the year that the FCC chief has been in office, he has pushed for family-friendly cable tiers and à la carte offerings to allow parents to better control the programming that comes into their home, particularly the “indecent” content that activist groups have been complaining loudly about, as well as the price of that programming.
Padden pointed to a banner behind him—at a press conference at the National Press Club releasing the studies—that read “À La Carte: Consumers Pay More for Less.”
—John Eggerton
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