• "The Apprentice" Wins Product Placement, But No Commercial Spot
    Last season "The Apprentice" got a gelato maker, Ciao Bella Gelato, involved in a task in the show. That small company--which had a small marketing budget to begin with--didn't buy any TV advertising time on NBC. This year, another product of Italian descent with a higher price tag-- the Lamborghini--also failed to buy any NBC TV commercial time in the show.
  • TV Everywhere
    Think about a TV screen on your fingernail, or on your bathroom floor, or possibly on the entire back wall of your house. Think about TV in as many unusual places as possible, and few of those ideas would sound that successful.
  • Cable News Ratings Jump During Hurricane Coverage, But Ad Sales Yet to Follow
    Good ratings happen to news networks when things get bad. Fox News, CNN and MSNBC posted big double-digit gains from their Hurricane Katrina coverage.
  • ABC Seeks Champagne Programming on Beer Budget
    ABC is acting like a Park Avenue heiress who shops at the 99-cent store -- it's a network on top of the world, looking for bargains.
  • Digital Cable Push Threatens Consumers
    If consumers could give back their inefficient analog bandwidth, cable operators could give consumers even hundreds of more digital channels -- as well as giving them, of course, a nice increase in their monthly bill.
  • Positive TV Ad News? Not This Year.
    The so-called "positive" TV marketplace has been, in reality, an emotionally negative market for just about a year.
  • "Earl" Scores Big for NBC
    My name is dumbfounded. NBC has seemingly found a successful half-hour sitcom. "My Name is Earl" helped the network run away in winning the second night of the season.
  • Branded Entertainment: What About Next Year?
    TV viewers spent hundred of thousands of dollars on a version of the poncho Martha Stewart wore on her release from prison, two days after everyone on the new syndicated show "Martha"-- including Stewart and the audience -- donned that poncho. But will ponchos still be the rage next year, or even next week? Maybe it doesn't matter.
  • The Irony of Rather's Emmy Ratings
    Dan Rather played a small part in an ironic night at the Emmys. On the night he and Tom Brokaw appeared on the Primetime Emmys stage to honor their departed colleague Peter Jennings, the Emmys witnessed a 30 percent gain in ratings from a year ago. Too bad Rather couldn't get those big ratings doing balanced, straight-ahead TV news.
  • Too Many Emmys for the Bookcase?
    All those Emmy awards -- what will happen to them, especially those given to actors who have won too many? Will the trophies be put on the bookcase or the mantel - or taken for a dip in the pool?
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