Media

The product, rather than the model’s body, may be the focus of new campaigns. Or not.

A new campaign suggests that Mike’s Hard Lemonade is a versatile drink for occasions beyond the backyard barbecue.

Hacking in China is openly discussed and promoted, whether for breaking into private networks, tracking dissent or stealing trade secrets.

Launched in the first quarter of 2013, AudienceXpress, an automated sales platform for selling TV audience impressions, allows advertisers to focus on particular target audiences – but automates the process. We spoke with Walt Horstman, general manager of AudienceXpress, in our New York studio. Using the best practices of digital audience buying, the New York-based company incorporates audience data to provide advertisers with an audience-based, targeted approach that complements their traditional contextual-based buying. “If you’re interested as a marketer in young men who are active video game players, we can post out on a daily basis how many impressions are being delivered in your campaign that have reach young men who are active video game participants,” Horstman says. Already, AudienceXpress has delivered over 1 billion audience-based impressions and have launched 15 to 20 campaigns with national brand advertisers.  The company is a unit of Visible World.

A week after presenting its 2013-14 prime-time schedule at Carnegie Hall, CBS on Wednesday announced it has picked up another new series. The network has scooped up Sony Pictures Television’s Bad Teacher, a single-camera comedy based on the Cameron Diaz film of the same name. (Released in July 2011, the movie grossed $100.3 million stateside.) All told, it’s been one hell of a development season for Sony TV, which is producing eight new broadcast series. Other Sony newbies are: The Michael J. Fox Show, Welcome to the Family, Night Shift (originally titled After Hours) and The Blacklist (NBC); Rake and Us and Them (Fox); and ABC’s The Goldbergs. Actress Ari Graynor (Mystic River, Fringe) will portray the character originated by Diaz. Other cast members include Kristin Davis (Sex and the City), David Alan Grier (In Living Color) and Sara Gilbert (Roseanne). Bad Teacher joins a CBS freshman class that is particularly heavy on comedy. We Are Men breaks into the Monday night comedy lineup at 8:30 p.m., where it will lead out of How I Met Your Mother. At 9:30 p.m., Chuck Lorre’s Mom inherits the plum post-2 Broke Girls slot from Mike & Molly, which will return in mid-season. After years of speculation, CBS has finally beefed up its Thursday night comedy lineup, adding two half-hour series with big stars attached. The Millers (8:30 p.m.) stars Will Arnett, Beau Bridges and Margo Martindale, and The Crazy Ones is a vehicle for Robin Williams and Sarah Michelle Gellar. Crazy marks Williams’ return to series television for the first time since Mork signed off to Orson for the last time in 1982. CBS’ comedy investment is its most ambitious in recent memory. Last season, the network ordered just two sitcoms, Partners and Friend Me. The former was canceled after just six episodes, while the latter never made it to air. Bad Teacher is the second new comedy based on a theatrical. NBC’s midseason entry About a Boy will lead out of The Voice in the Tuesday 9 p.m. slot.

Dan Bartlett, a former adviser to President George W. Bush, will succeed Leslie Dach, a former Clinton White House staff member, as executive vice president for corporate affairs.

The agreement is subject to court approval. Penguin settled a similar claim with the Justice Department in December.

A few times each year the RIAA looks back on proceeding months and tries to assess whether its anti-piracy actions are bearing fruit. In more recent times the public face of these assessments have included appraisals of companies that the recording industry feels should be helping to solve the problem. Time and again the main focus has fallen on Google, along with a recurring report card stating “can do better”. While softer in tone, today’s announcement is not much different. Brad Buckles, RIAA executive vice president of anti-piracy, begins with a short summary of recent history. A year ago the RIAA stepped up its efforts to remove links to infringing content indexed by search engines. They have done so in increasing numbers and this week reached a magic number – 20 million takedowns on Google alone. A similar number have been sent to underlying sites too, making a total just shy of 40 million notices. It’s a losing battle. “Every day produces more results and there is no end in sight. We are using a bucket to deal with an ocean of illegal downloading,” Buckles complains. According to the RIAA executive the problem is compounded by what he describes as a “controversial interpretation” by search engines who insist that DMCA takedown notices are directed at specific links of infringing content. This, Buckles says, leads to a situation where content is simply reposted by sites as quickly as it’s removed. The RIAA anti-piracy boss says that while he accepts that search engines have no way of knowing whether links are infringing or not the first or second time around, after receiving “a thousand notices for the same song on the same site” they should have received the message loud and clear. “Isn’t it simply logical and fair at some point to conclude that such links are infringing without requiring content owners to keep expending time and resources to have the link taken down?” he questions. Of course, this suggestion – that search engines should begin to act pro-actively after a point – passes the buck and potential blame onto the shoulders of third parties that also have better things to do. One of those third parties, Google, received a more considered appraisal today. The RIAA has publicly chastised and patronized the search engine on a number of previous occasions, but today the music group applauded the search engine for its efforts so far. Nevertheless, in common with all previous appraisals, the RIAA concludes that Google must still do better. But the real problem, the RIAA explains, lies with the system. Far too much time is being spent taking down illicit content which is detracting from music making. The blame for that can be laid squarely at the door of the DMCA. “As the Congressional review of the DMCA gets underway, there should be a strong focus on what notice and takedown was supposed to accomplish. The DMCA was intended to define the way forward for technology firms and content creators alike, but some aspects of it no longer work,” says Buckles. “How could we expect it to? It was passed before Google even existed, or the iPod, or peer-to-peer file-sharing or slick websites offering free mp3 downloads. It was after the DMCA that Napster, and Grokster and Limewire and Grooveshark and Megaupload, to name just a few, came on the scene. In particular, it’s time to rethink the notice and takedown provisions of the DMCA.” In parallel the RIAA feels that its anti-piracy burden should be lightened by other Internet companies helping out the recording industry. ISPs, payment processors and advertisers all have a part to play and voluntary initiatives already in place are a sign of things moving in the right direction. However, if real progress is to be made, the group says, those voluntary agreements must have teeth. “We’ve seen what good can happen when there is cooperation among Internet pl

After passing NBC in the ratings race back in early February, CBS never looked back, cruising to an easy win among total viewers and the two major demographics. Per Nielsen, CBS will close out the 2012-13 broadcast TV season with an average prime-time delivery of 11.9 million viewers per night. The network beat runner-up ABC by 4 million viewers, giving it the largest margin of victory in 24 years. CBS also cleaned up in the dollar demos, averaging a 2.9 among adults 18-49 and a 3.8 with the 25-54 set. This marks the first time in 21 years that the Tiffany Network has emerged victorious in the 18-49 race. With 34 weeks of ratings data on the books (tonight marks the official end of the 2012-13 campaign), each of the five English-language broadcasters is down versus the year-ago period. Thanks to the Super Bowl and a robust lineup of hits like NCIS, The Big Bang Theory and Elementary, CBS dipped just 3 percent in the 18-49 demo. Things were dicier at Fox, which dropped 22 percent to a 2.5 rating, snapping its eight-year winning streak. After getting off to a hot start in the fall, NBC cratered in the absence of Sunday Night Football and The Voice—the show went on a three-month hiatus from Dec. 18-March 25—and fell out of the running for good on week 19. The Peacock concludes the season with a 2.4 in the demo, down 4 percent versus 2011-12. ABC again finished last among the Big Four, averaging a 2.2 in the demo, a decline of 12 percent. The CW’s 18-49 ratings (0.7, down 13 percent) are effectively irrelevant, given that the network guarantees deliveries of women 18-34 and adults 18-34. The Spanish-language broadcaster Univision was the only major network that did not lose ground, averaging a 1.5 in the demo—flat versus last season. Along with the ratings erosion, the networks all aged up to varying degrees. CBS remains the oldest net, reaching a median age of 56.2 years, up from the year-ago 55.6. ABC is the next-grayest net (53.3 years, up from 52.3), while NBC is a hair shy of the big 5-0 (49.6, up three-tenths of a point from 49.3). Fox aged up from 46.2 to 46.6 years, while the CW’s median age jumped 12 percent from 37.1 to 41.7 years.?? For the second consecutive season, NBC’s Sunday Night Football was the biggest draw in prime time, averaging 21.4 million viewers and an 8.2 in the dollar demo. The Sunday national games on Fox actually outdrew everything on the tube, delivering an average 24.8 million viewers. CBS also put up gaudy numbers with its late NFL broadcasts, averaging 23 million viewers per game. After SNF, the top-rated broadcast series were: CBS’ The Big Bang Theory (5.3), Season 3 of NBC’s The Voice (4.3), Season 4 of The Voice (4.2 through the first 18 episodes) and ABC’s Modern Family (4.2). All deliveries are calculated from Nielsen live-plus-same-day ratings data, which is statistically consistent with the C3 currency. Leaving off the current season of The Voice (eight episodes remain), Fox’s American Idol (3.8) claims the No. 5 slot. Modern Family’s Season 4 finale airs tonight. Of the 36 scripted series that debuted this season, 23 will not return for a second season. CBS renewed one of its five new shows (Elementary); Fox returned two (The Mindy Project, The Following); NBC gave a vote of confidence to a pair of dramas (Revolution, Chicago Fire), ABC brought back two (Nashville, The Neighbors) and the CW renewed three (Arrow, The Carrie Diaries, Beauty and the Beast). NBC was particularly unforgiving, killing off five freshman comedies (Go On, The New Normal, Guys with Kids, Animal Practice, 1600 Penn), canceling the Dance Cook sitcom Next Caller before it ever aired, and relegating Save Me to a May 23 start date. No decision has been made as to Hannibal’s status. The biggest winners from this year’s crop of newcomers? Fox’s The Following (2.6 in the 18-49 demo), NBC’s Revolution (2.6 with two episode

The sitcom, which is likely to have additional episodes produced, has Mr. Crystal playing a once-great comic who tries to revive his career.