The traditional broadcast television season is an outdated concept -- right up there with quarterly sweeps periods and upfront week -- but it continues nevertheless, formally marking the beginning in September and the end in May of a nine-month period when most network programming is supposed to be new. Typically, broadcast goes dead after that final day in May (this year the 22nd).» 1 Comments
Like other Bluth Family fans, I am excitedly looking forward to NetFlix's May 26 launch of a new season of "Arrested Development." If the trailer is any indication, the new season will be as mordantly funny as the original episodes, which ran on Fox from 2003-2006. It says something about the state of contemporary television, though, that a show that barely had enough viewers to stay alive on a major broadcast network, is now being touted as a major growth driver for an online streaming service.» 2 Comments
In the opening moments of the four-part PBS series "Constitution USA," host Peter Sagal sums up the significance of this program far better than anyone else could. After noting that the Constitution of the United States was written in 1787, Sagal observes, "More than two centuries later, many of us don't have any idea what the Constitution says. Of course, that's never stopped us from arguing about what it means."» 0 Comments
Alice Sylvester started her career in ad agencies before joining Media Behavior Institute as COO. Her deep knowledge of research well prepares her for the creative qual / quant application of MBI's TouchPoints study. In my interview with her, Alice talks about TouchPoints, how one measures emotions, agency research applications, and how the media landscape will evolve over the next few years.» 0 Comments
Let's consider the traditional upfront week. Are its days numbered? If not, they ought to be. Almost everything about it has become a great big expensive waste of time. The crush of outsize events has made the week more of a grueling marathon than a valuable business event. And to what end? Thanks to digital technology and social media, advertisers already know what they're dealing with before the week begins.» 0 Comments
Pivot TV, Participant Media's new venture into television, is apt to change the single-screen television paradigm with its blend of multiscreen programming formats targeted to Millennials and their media usage tastes.» 2 Comments
Watching "Man Men," always a disquieting experience, was more unsettling than usual on April 28, coming so soon after the Boston Marathon bombing. The episode in question ("The Flood") revolved around the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr., and was a case study in how people react to national tragedies.» 1 Comments
Media history was made earlier this week when, for the first time, two broadcast series that had been cancelled by their network returned to life largely intact on the Internet. Specifically, new episodes of the long-running and now former ABC Daytime serials "All My Children" and "One Life to Live" produced by Prospect Park's The Online Network and distributed via Hulu, HuluPlus and iTunes became available on Monday; this after an outcry from millions of fans of both shows when ABC saw fit to replace them with unremarkable reality efforts.» 4 Comments
One of the most frenetic areas of measurement development today is in cross platform. Creative and scalable solutions are being crafted that enable programmers and advertisers to gain a more complete picture of how the usage of various media platforms compare to and blend within each other. There is no standard yet, but there are a myriad of possible semi-solutions that can link some, but not yet all, platforms under one metric. Progress is being made and it is only a matter of time (and data) before we get to a complete and scaleable measurement.» 0 Comments
Industry observers have been questioning the value and wisdom of the three traditional sweeps periods (four if you count July) for as long as I can remember. It likely would have made sense to do away with them altogether many years ago. Given the current state of the media in general and television viewing in particular, the continuation of this antiquated practice seems inane. We're in the era of TV Anytime, and that includes any time of the year. Why focus on what may or may not happen during three months?» 5 Comments
