FAST TRACK

Telenovela could end up as a summer ’07 strip

When ABC commissioned Touchstone’s Ugly Betty as a once-a-week pilot for falloriginally slated as a weekly strip—it seemed the network’s interest had waned.

But ABC Entertainment President Stephen McPherson says he still hasn’t ruled out the idea of turning the English-language adaptation of Colombia’s Betty la Fea into a five-day-a-week summer series.

First, he says, the network must figure out a way to economically produce a telenovela strip and still make it work creatively.

“It could be transformed into that situation,” he says. “It was initially considered for the summer, and I think it would be great there.”

ABC could also choose to develop a telenovela format of its own for summer 2007 or beyond. “We may do one that is not Hispanic,” McPherson says.

Ugly Betty, about an efficient yet unattractive secretary at a fashion magazine, is executive-produced by Salma Hayek, Jose Tamez, Ben Silverman and writer Silvio Horta. The cast includes Vanessa Williams (Wilhelmina) and America Ferrera (Betty).

After dominating prime time Latin American and U.S. Spanish-language TV viewing for years, telenovelas have spurred the interest of American television networks. They are racing to capture a rapidly growing market consisting of younger, second- and third-generation Hispanics who are bilingual or speak English as their primary language.

NBC Universal is developing a number of concepts for its broadcast and cable networks derived from its Telemundo network, including Body of Desire.

CBS, meanwhile, has several potential original telenovela-like limited series in development that would run twice weekly. And Twentieth Television is producing Desire and Secret Obsessions as five-day, hour-long strips with 13-week seasons to launch Fox’s My Network TV in September.

As local broadcasters hunt for ways to grow their online business, a new video-syndication service offers a model to turn stations’ news archives into a revenue stream.

ClipSyndicate, scheduled to be launched April 24 by broadcast-monitoring company Critical Mention, will distribute stations’ video to non-media Web sites. So far, Clear Channel Television has signed on to the service, which allows Web sites to access free video—which comes with ads—or subscribe and insert their own advertising. Critical Mention and stations will split the revenue.

TV stations are trying “to find ways to monetize clips in the Internet,” says Sean Morgan, founder/CEO of Critical Mention. The appeal for clients, he adds, is “Web sites with or without budgets are jockeying to find a great, simple solution to rebroadcast clips.”

On Clear Channel’s Web sites, users watch about 4 million streams per month, says Jason Gould, regional VP for the Internet division, Inergize. But to grow, he says, “we have to look beyond our distribution model.” For example, ClipSyndicate will target non-profits and professional associations’ Web sites. “That’s not our area of expertise.”

Clear Channel sees some of its stories as having national appeal. For instance, around St. Patrick’s Day, its Mobile, Ala., station’s Web site offered a news story about residents’ seeing a leprechaun and notched 800,000 video streams. If the piece went on ClipSyndicate, “it probably would have seen millions of streams,” Gould says.

So far, ClipSyndicate has signed several subscription clients, including firehouse.com, an online community for firefighters. The service will take relevant clips, which can be found in a simple, text-based search. (Critical Mention will use voice-to-text software to create a transcript of clips for easier searches.) Subscription customers, such as firehouse.com, will be able to insert their own banner ads and pre-roll video. When a Web site takes free video, it will come loaded with ads inserted by Critical Mention.

But the service will not be available to other media companies. ClipSyndicate stations, Morgan says, “are not going to want to watch their clips on other broadcasters’ or newspapers’ Web sites.”—A.R.

In an effort to increase online ad revenue, NBC Universal’s Sci Fi Channel this week is launching Scifipedia, a user-generated online encyclopedia of science-fiction facts, definitions and terminology. Located on the SciFi.com homepage, the site will begin with 1,000 starter entries, which fans can add to or change. Hardcore fans of the network’s programs, for example, can elaborate upon episode reviews with minute details.

“It gives our viewers a place to vent their enthusiasm,” says Craig Engler, senior VP of SciFi.com and Sci Fi magazine. “We have viewers who often know more about our shows than we do.” As part of its upfront negotiations, Sci Fi is pitching Scifipedia to advertisers in movies and gaming, two categories popular on its TV channel.

The network also recently launched a tech blog and revamped its online magazine.—Anne Becker

It’s perfectly legal for things to get a little off-color in a sitcom writers’ room. So says the California Supreme Court, which on Thursday jettisoned a sexual-harassment lawsuit filed against Warner Bros. Television by a former writers’ assistant on the hit comedy Friends.

In the court’s judgment, Judge Marvin Baxter writes that, while there was often lewd language in the workplace on the show, “the record discloses that most of the sexually coarse and vulgar language at issue did not involve and was not aimed at plaintiff or other women in the workplace.”

The suit filed by Amaanu Lyle alleges that, six years ago, she was forced to deal with harassment based on the sexually charged language that was often used in the writers’ room. She filed the suit after she was let go from her position, allegedly for problems with her typing and transcription.

The judgment also points out that Lyle had been “forewarned” that she would be in the presence of “sexual jokes and discussions about sex” before she was hired. Among her complaints were male writers’ talking about their sexual fantasies involving the female stars of the show and writers’ giving graphic depictions of their own sexual experiences.

But the court’s ruling points out that such discussion was in an effort to come up with storylines and jokes for a show that “revolved around a group of young, sexually active adults, featured adult-oriented sexual humor, and typically relied on sexual and anatomical language, innuendo, wordplay, and physical gestures to convey its humor.”—Ben Grossman

HBO picked up Big Love for a second season. The polygamy dramedy premiered March 12 to an audience of some 4.6 million, holding onto about half of its Sopranos lead-in.

That’s about on par with what Deadwood earned for its series premiere coming out of The Sopranos’ season-five premiere in 2004.—A.B.

A&E Television Networks (AETN) plans to spend more than $500 million on programming for its network, including A&E and the History Channel, this year.

That was the message to advertisers from AETN President/CEO Abbe Raven at A&E’s New York upfront presentation last week, a star-studded event held in conjunction with co-owned History Channel at Lincoln Center. The company said it hopes to strike an iTunes deal with A&E and History programming.

The network is developing The Beach, a reality pilot about Southern California lifeguards, and just greenlighted Sons of Hollywood, a series about second-generation Hollywood offspring, including Aaron Spelling’s son Randy and Rod Stewart’s Sean. Coming this summer are new reality shows Gene Simmons Family Jewels, featuring the KISS front man and his family, and Driving Force, about champion drag racer John Force and his brood.—A.B.

NBC has pulled Celebrity Cooking Showdown off the air after three airings when the unscripted special failed to sizzle.

The show was scheduled to air every night last week but got off to a sluggish start Monday with a 2.8 rating/7 share in the 18-49 demo at 9-10 p.m. ET.

Matters got worse for the show when it aired Tuesday night at 8 against American Idol and averaged just a 1.1/3 in the demo.

NBC says it will make the final two episodes available online at NBC.com.—B.G.

Political advertising on television is expected to exceed $1 billion this year on spending for federal, state and local races. Some analysts project that the political monies could exceed the record $1.7 billion spent on TV ads in the 2004 presidential election year.

Political advertising consultant Evan Tracey made the projections at the Television Bureau of Advertising’s (TVB) conference last Thursday in New York.

Broadcast television is expected to get the largest chunk of the dollars. In 2004, TNS Media Intelligence/CMAG notes, only 9% of political and issue ad spending went to non-TV media.

In the first quarter of this year, political advertisers have spent $160 million, with about $100 million going to issue-oriented ads. Locally, the hot spots are Texas, New York, California, Illinois, Tennessee, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island, where more than $57 million was spent, mostly by early primary campaigning.—A.R.

The CW network secured distribution deals with two major station owners last week, while Fox’s My Network TV added nine affiliates of its own.

Clear Channel Television is committing three of its stations to carry The CW: WKRC Cincinnati (CBS affiliate in Nielsen market No. 34), which will carry The CW on one of its digital channels; KUWB Salt Lake City (market 36); and KASN Little Rock, Ark., (57).

LIN Television will air The CW on its WWHO Columbus, Ohio; WNLO Buffalo, N.Y.; KNVA Austin, Texas; and WBPG Mobile, Ala. The latest deals bring The CW’s distribution to more than 83% of the country.

Meanwhile, My Network TV signed deals last week to increase its coverage to 65% of the country. The newest stations include four Pappas Telecasting-owned affiliates: KDMI Des Moines; KKAZ/KPTM Omaha; KDBC El Paso, Texas; and KPTH Sioux City, Iowa. All four Pappas affiliates will be carried on digital broadcast channels.

Both The CW, co-owned by CBS Corp. and Time Warner, and My Network TV will launch in September.—A.R.

ABC has tentatively slotted the return of its hit reality show Dancing With the Stars, for Wednesdays and Thursdays this fall beginning Sept. 13, according to an offer made to a potential contestant.

On The Howard Stern Show on Sirius Satellite Radio Tuesday morning, Stern read on-air an offer made to his girlfriend, model Beth Ostrosky, to appear as a contestant on the show.

According to the document read by Stern, Ostrosky would earn a minimum of $125,000 for appearing on the show; that figure could grow to $245,000—$295,000 if she were to advance to later stages of the competition.

Stern said the ABC show would send a dance trainer to tutor Ostrosky for six weeks prior to the September launch of the third cycle, which is tentatively slated to run into early November.

An ABC spokesperson declined to comment.—B.G.

National Association of Broadcasters President David Rehr has named Douglas Wiley as the association’s point person with Capitol Hill and the administration, a key job as broadcasters work to secure multicast must-carry legislation and work out the issues surrounding the transition to digital.

Wiley begins as executive VP of government relations on May 15.

John Orlando, who had headed up the NAB’s government-relations department under former President Eddie Fritts, joined CBS in December as senior VP in Washington.

Wiley comes from high-tech trade group the Electronic Industries Alliance, where he was senior VP of government relations. Before that, he was director of government relations for telecommunications company Alcatel. He helped draft the 1996 Telecommunications Act while director of legislative affairs for Comptel.

Wiley is also former VP of the Telecommunications Industry Association and was a special assistant at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, working under then NTIA head and former FCC Chairman Al Sikes.

He is the son of Dick Wiley, another former FCC chairman and current top communications lawyer at Wiley, Rein & Fielding. The firm has done some work for NAB, says the senior Wiley. It also represents numerous individual broadcasters.—J.E.

Fox News’ top PR executive, Brian Lewis, is expanding his portfolio alongside that of boss Roger Ailes.

Lewis will add Fox’s TV-station and syndication group to his responsibilities. He was named executive VP, corporate communications, for Fox Television Stations, which includes syndication unit Twentieth Television, and Fox News.

That puts Lewis in charge of communications for the cable news network, start-up programming service My Network TV, and the industry’s second-largest broadcast-station group. He’ll continue to report directly to Ailes.

Lewis will also be responsible for Fox News’ proposed business channel “if launched,” according to a Fox statement.

Lewis had been senior VP, corporate communications, for Fox News since 2000. He had worked with Ailes at CNBC and was brought over to Fox News in 1996, seven months before its launch.—John M. Higgins

OLN will change its name to Versus in September. The Comcast-owned channel—formerly the Outdoor Life Network—is aiming to disassociate itself from its outdoor roots, says President Gavin Harvey.

OLN is currently developing another logo and will introduce the name and branding to consumers next fall, the start of the 2006-07 NHL season. It considered name suggestions from five different agencies, as well as viewers, Harvey says.—A.B.

As more than 100,000 TV and technology types descend on Las Vegas for the National Association of Broadcasters convention, B&C offers some highlights:

Monday, April 24

New NAB President/CEO David Rehr delivers his “State of the Industry” speech at 9 a.m. (Sadly, his former employer, the National Beer Wholesalers Association, isn’t donating freebies). Following Rehr, anchors Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather and the late Peter Jennings will be awarded the NAB’s Distinguished Service Award. ... And with hurricane season approaching, media execs and safety consultants weigh in at the Broadcast Engineering Disaster Preparedness sessions, running from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ... For a brighter forecast, visit the Winning in the Internet Broadcast Era panel from 10:30 a.m. to noon. ... After lunch, NBC News anchor John Seigenthaler polls other anchors on what their jobs may be like in 2010 (prediction for Anderson Cooper: gray hair), and, heading into the Day 1 home stretch, station executives reveal their strategies with My Network TV, The CW or going independent at 4 p.m. ... Over at the Radio-Television News Directors Association gathering at the Hilton, new-media execs help neophytes sort out Internet trends ranging from podcasting to RSS feeds. ... Before hitting the blackjack tables, head over to the RTNDA’s Paul White Awards at 7 p.m., where ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson will be feted.

Tuesday, April 25

Shake off the cobwebs for a 7:30 a.m. breakfast with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin and NAB boss Rehr at the Hilton. ... Station owners take note: sessions from 9 a.m. to 11:45 dish on generating new revenue from retransmission consent, local ad sales and multicasting. At RTNDA, producers from the BBC, Current and Yahoo! contemplate harnessing the “citizen-journalist” craze (hey, it’s cheap labor) for mainstream news outlets. ... At noon, Anne Sweeney, president of ABC-Disney Television Group, kicks off B&C’s TV Masters Lunch, where she’s sure to talk about the Internet and iTunes (what’s on your iPod, Anne?), followed by a panel of top station-group news execs. ... Siegfried & Roy they’re not, but finish off the afternoon with an entertaining trio of FCC Commissioners when Michael Copps, Jonathan Adelstein and Deborah Taylor Tate delve into the regulatory topics—indecency! digital must-carry!—on the minds of every local broadcaster.

Wednesday, April 26

The roster of panels thins out, so this would be your window of opportunity to troll the show floor for the latest technology trends. But quality events still remain. The RTNDA releases its study on what viewers want out of news at 9: 30 a.m. ... At 10, execs from Fox Entertainment and Walt Disney Co. join a trio of technology representatives on the New Technologies for Digital Media Distribution panel. ... And with disaster coverage on the minds of many news directors, the RTNDA hosts Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff for its closing lunch.

NBC and its affiliates unveiled plans last week to launch a co-owned broadband venture stocked with video from the stations. Executives stressed that the portal will be different from video-sharing sites like YouTube.com and goes beyond streaming NBC shows online.

The venture, dubbed The National Broadband Company and due later this year, will aggregate video from NBC’s 230 affiliates, such as clips on health, consumer news and entertainment.

Plans could include user-contributed content and clips from NBC Universal’s library. The video would likely be ad-supported. It represents an early model of how local stations could make money from their rich library of video.

The news came after a meeting of NBC affiliates in New York. The NBC Affiliates Futures Committee, which includes representatives from stations and the network, has been developing the new business for about six months, and affiliates voted unanimously to move ahead.

Like digital weather channel NBC Weather Plus, launched in December 2004, the new broadband channel will be co-owned by NBC and its affiliates and managed by the network. Weather Plus is now available on stations covering 75% of the country. An online version, nbcweatherplus.com, recently launched and includes streaming video of the TV network.—A.R.