• My Time, Your Time, Anytime is Prime Time
    The erosion of the broadcast schedule and the redefinition of prime time is a theme that continues to pervade many discussions and commentaries on Things That Are Important to the media community. Although obviously not new (think VCR), the extent to which the morphing of the schedule has accelerated in the last ten years cannot have been missed by any but the most myopic of observers.
  • Video On Demand: Insight Vs. Outsight
    Last week I was contacted by a reporter who was writing a piece about video on demand. She opened our interview with, "Hasn't VOD been a disappointment? Hasn't broadband video really just taken the wind out of its sails?" What about wireless video, I quipped. Hook, line and stinker, she jumped on that bandwagon too. We were two peas in the VOD-bashing pod.
  • Women + Murder Up There With Boys + Baseball
    So, I will admit it upfront -- I am a huge fan of Angie Harmon. She was one of the only reasons I watched "Law & Order," and the main reason why I stopped watching it the day she left. So I was thrilled to see her return to television in "Women's Murder Club" last Friday. The ABC rookie drama averaged a 2.5/8 in 18-49 and 10.8 million viewers overall -- the best demo delivery, according to Variety, for ABC in the 9 p.m. time slot since May 2006 and the largest total-viewer figure since 2003. It even kept pace …
  • Jack Myers' Think Tank: NY Yankees & New TV Season -- There's Always Next Year
    There's been a redundant theme to so many events of the past month: "Wait until next year. We'll do better next year."
  • Save The Linear Programming Schedule
    It wouldn't be the start of a new television season if there wasn't a major dust-up or two. This year, there's been more like three or four. For today's TV Board post, I'd like to focus on just one: The spectacle surrounding Nielsen's decision to liberalize, then revoke its ratings reprocessing rules governing how multiple airings of the same network TV show can be reported.
  • If I Ruled The World...
    f I ruled the world -- or more accurately, if I had the controlling stake in Google -- what exactly would I do with the fruits of my hard work and good fortune? Considering the company's performance and its mega-achievement of breaking through the $600-a-share barrier on Monday, it's a fun question to ponder.
  • Exploding TVs: The Big Bang Solution
    why shouldn't media companies (content and distribution) train their customers in the proper utilization of their services? Consumers are lucky to have so many choices at such affordable prices. Given this line of thinking, it is only natural for us to tackle the commercial skipping phenomenon next -- one, that if not rectified, can bring financial ruin and devastation to the lucrative ad-supported TV business. Why not have the TV set self-destruct whenever someone attempts to fast-forward through a commercial? The mission, should we decide to accept it, has some potential impediments, though in my opinion surmountable.
  • Casting A B.I.G. Net
    When it comes to using the Internet as a means to an end, especially one that is entertainment related -- I am all for it. That is why I almost fell over this morning as I was reading the New York Times article "Dreaming Big About Acting Big"....
  • Bigshot In Bigsh*t?
    What would you think about an online "fantasy" game that offered $100,000 cash to the person who could best predict which shows the Nielsen households would watch over a nine-month period? Would you have a problem with it, if Nielsen household members -- or even Nielsen employees -- could play and win? Well, folks, such a game exists.
  • Ratings Rant
    Effective with the start of the 2007-08 broadcast TV season, Nielsen introduced a disturbing new calculation technique. Effective immediately, if a network rebroadcasts a given program during a single telecast week and the show contains identical national commercial and program content, it can choose to report a single rating that includes both the original airing and any other incremental unduplicated viewing from the rebroadcast. Only one rating will be produced and credited to the original date and time. No separate audience information will be reported for the secondary telecast.
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