Rupe: New
WSJ section launches in April
Other shorts: Married people dating site's Oscar ad nixed
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Mar 3, 2010
Rupe: WSJ's new section launches in April
News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch rarely minces words, and he may have ignited a war of them yesterday, when he finally confirmed what has long been rumored: The Wall Street Journal is launching a New York edition. Speaking to the Real Estate Board of New York luncheon, Murdoch took a shot at the New York Times when explaining the need for the new section: "A certain other New York daily has essentially stopped covering the city the way it once did." Expect a response from the Times in the form of an article or a press release or perhaps just a well-placed jibe at the Journal, which to this point had never publicly acknowledged the soon-to-launch section. It will debut in April and, Murdoch said, focus on state and city politics, real estate, business, culture and sports. This is just the latest push toward broadening the focus of the Journal in the two years since News Corp. purchased the paper, including more focus on the arts and sports. The new section will appear six days per week and run between eight and 16 pages, according to an article in today's Journal.
ABC nixes married people dating site's Oscar ad
A TV ad during the Oscars spoofing the James Cameron hit “Avatar” sounds like a funny idea, but ABC isn’t laughing, perhaps because the company that filmed it admittedly caters to married people looking to have affairs with other married people. The network has rejected an “Avatar” parody ad for this weekend’s ceremony submitted by AshleyMadison.com. The site’s chief executive officer, Noel Biderman, claims the decision is hypocritical, considering several of this year’s nominated films deal with infidelity. He tells Media Life, “This year’s Oscars has so many films broaching the topic of infidelity – from ‘A Serious Man’ to ‘Up In the Air’ – hosted by the ‘Desperate Housewives’ network, in a year when David Letterman, John Edwards and Tiger Woods brought infidelity front and center. What better time, then, to advertise the world’s largest infidelity service?” Biderman says the ad is now running on other networks like CNN and MSNBC. Still, AshleyMadison.com, which launched in 2002 and now claims to have over 5 million members, is getting its fair share of exposure even without the Oscar ad. The site is sponsoring a beauty contest being held by radio shock jock Howard Stern featuring at least four alleged mistresses of Tiger Woods. “Everybody is beyond curious about these women, and I thought it would be fun,” Biderman says.
Comedy Central pulls plug on Hulu partnership
Come March 10, fans of biting satire will have to march over to Comedy Central's web site to catch its late-night offerings instead of heading to Hulu. An agreement between the web video site and the Viacom channel to carry "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" will run out March 9, and Comedy Central will not be renewing, despite apparent satisfaction on both sides with the shows' 21-month run. They are among the most popular downloads on Hulu, the joint venture between NBC Universal, News Corp. and Walt Disney that offers TV shows for free viewing, in return for watching some ads. A Hulu blog post yesterday broke the news of "Daily" and "Colbert's" exit. The two were added in June 2008, after Viacom had already gotten into a very public spat with YouTube over unauthorized posts of the shows, which led the latter to file a lawsuit. "Daily" and "Colbert" remain available on Comedy Central's site, and it's unclear if the two could return to the site in the future. It's also unclear what prompted the network to end the agreement, which gave Comedy Central a cut of the ad revenue from the shows, though perhaps the network wants to test other ways to deliver the show. During December, the most recent month available, Hulu users watched more than 1 billion videos, according to digital measuring service comScore.
Updated numbers: Leno beats his '09 average
In his return to "The Tonight Show" Monday night, Jay Leno proved even more popular than when he left. Initial metered-market data indicated that Leno scored a big win over his rivals. Nielsen fast nationals out later yesterday found that Leno’s first night back averaged a 1.6 rating among viewers 18-49, up 45 percent from the 1.1 rating Conan O’Brien averaged this season and also up 14 percent from the 1.4 Leno himself averaged last season. “Tonight” also averaged 6.6 million total viewers on Monday night, up 144 percent from the 2.7 million O’Brien averaged and 27 percent from Leno’s 5.2 million viewer average last season. Of course “Tonight’s” Monday ratings were likely inflated due to the curiosity surrounding Leno’s return, heavy promotion by NBC during the Olympics and some high-profile guests. On Monday Leno interviewed actor Jamie Foxx and Olympic gold medalist Lindsey Vonn. Meanwhile, CBS’s competing “Late Show with David Letterman” did not seem to be hurt much by Leno's return. He averaged a 1.1 18-49 rating and 3.8 million total viewers on Monday, compared to a season average of 1.0 among 18-49s and 4.2 million total viewers. ABC’s “Nightline” was second on both measures on Monday night with a 1.3 18-49 rating and 4.1 million total viewers, also in line with its season averages.
|
|
|
