Here & there
Microsoft pulls out of 'Family Guy' special
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Oct 27, 2009 - 1:01:07 AM

Microsoft pulls out of 'Family Guy' special
Someone at Microsoft evidently failed to understand that "Family Guy" is anything but a family show. The software giant has reneged on a deal announced just two weeks ago to sponsor a special variety show episode of "Guy" after seeing the content of the program. The decidedly non-PC jokes touch on everything from incest to the Holocaust, which, as any man age 18-34 knows, is par for the "Family" course. Yet Microsoft wasn't comfortable with the humor, according to a statement released yesterday, reading in part, "after reviewing an early version of the variety show it became clear that the content was not a fit with the Windows brand." The Nov. 8 show, entitled "Family Guy Presents: Seth and Alex’s Almost Live Comedy Show," was to be solely sponsored by Microsoft, which is doing a big push for Windows 7. Microsoft may receive just as much publicity for pulling out of the show as it would for airing it, though most of the attention is mocking. "Maybe Microsoft should have rented a 'Family Guy' DVD or tuned into Fox on a Sunday night before going forward with the integration," notes the New York Times. "They had seen 'American Dad' and 'The Cleveland Show' and 'Family Guy,' right?" wonders TV Squad. Fox still plans to go forward with the "Guy" special.

NBC Universal begins Olympic countdown
The Winter Olympics are coming, and NBC Universal is doing all it can to make sure you know it. On Wednesday, Nov. 4, 100 days before the Feb. 12 Opening Ceremony in Vancouver, NBCU will kick off “Countdown to Vancouver,” which will include more than 1,200 hours of original programming across its family of TV networks and web sites. That morning “Today” will focus on Olympic athletes, and that evening at 8 p.m. a one-minute Winter Olympics promotional spot will air across all NBCU’s TV networks. Olympic athletes will also appear on “The Jay Leno Show,” “The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien” and “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” during the 100 days. A good portion of the 1,200 hours of programming will come via the “Countdown to Vancouver” show, a one-hour show airing on Universal Sports every night at 8. NBC Sports, Universal Sports and UniversalSports.com will also feature plenty of coverage of Winter Olympic sports coverage in the days leading up to the Games, and NBCOlympics.com will receive a makeover that will allow visitors to follow athletes and NBC Sports personalities through tweets and blogs.

At Forbes, ad decline prompts even more layoffs
The rough times continue for business magazines as Forbes Media yesterday said it will slash up to 40 jobs in the coming days, the third round of layoffs at the publisher. Steve Forbes, the company chairman, announced the move in a memo sent to staff yesterday and quickly leaked to media outlets. The cuts will come from editorial and business, and were prompted by the decline in ad revenue this year, with ad pages in the magazine slipping 30.8 percent during the first three quarters, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. In the memo, Forbes writes, "We — and the entire media world — have been hit hard by both the severe recession and the seismic shifts wrought by the web." Already this year some 100 Forbes employees have been dismissed. But Forbes is hardly the only business magazine suffering. Fortune said last week that it will reduce its 2010 publishing schedule by about a third, and BusinessWeek was recently sold to Bloomberg after years of losing money for McGraw Hill. Ad pages at both have fallen about 35 percent this year. Meanwhile, earlier this year, Condé Nast shut down Portfolio, its 2007 entrant into the business magazine arena, citing the poor economy.

Nielsen: Kids getting couch potato-ier
“Go play outside” are words that kids apparently aren’t hearing much these days. Children are watching more TV now than they have in years. During the fourth quarter of last year, kids 2-5 spent an average of 32 hours in front of a TV screen each week, according to Nielsen. That includes 25 hours and 51 minutes watching live TV, an eight-year high. The remaining time was spent using a DVR or VCR, watching DVDs and playing video games. Kids 6-11 spent a bit less time in front of TV screens during that period, about 28 hours, because they’re more likely to be in school for longer hours. On average, kids 2-5 spent about twice as much time watching DVDs as kids 6-11 (4 hours, 33 minutes versus 2 hours, 28 minutes), while the older set spent about twice as much time playing video games (2 hours, 23 minutes versus 1 hour, 12 minutes).



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