Slam dunk:
ESPN scores best game
Other shorts: Fox hangs up on 'Idol'-AT&T conspiracy claims
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
May 28, 2009
Slam dunk: ESPN scores best-ever NBA game
TLC has “Jon and Kate;” ESPN has Kobe and Carmelo. Game four of the NBA’s Western Conference finals between Kobe Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers and Carmelo Anthony’s Denver Nuggets became the most-watched basketball game in cable history Monday night. It also just barely topped Monday’s season premiere of “Jon and Kate Plus 8” to become the most-watched show on ad-supported cable this year with 9.88 million total viewers, 80,000 more than “Plus” drew on TLC. The game bettered the series’ opening contest, which averaged 8.1 million total viewers and was ESPN’s previous best game ever. It also surpassed the 8.97 million who tuned in for TNT’s game three of the Eastern Conference finals last week, the previous No. 1 basketball game in cable history. This series has helped boost ESPN’s postseason average 16 percent ahead of last year through 17 games, with the network averaging 4.43 million total viewers.
Fox hangs up on ‘Idol’-AT&T conspiracy claims
Adam Lambert conspiracy theorists were busy peddling new theories online yesterday, but Fox insists that the results of last week’s “American Idol” finale were accurate. The network issued a statement confirming the legitimacy of last week’s results in response to the revelation yesterday that employees of AT&T, the only carrier to provide text-message voting for “Idol,” had supplied phones to attendees of several parties in Arkansas, home to finalist and surprise winner Kris Allen. Immediately speculation began online as to whether the employees’ actions could have helped sway the vote. Fox’s statement said in part, “We have an independent third-party monitoring procedure in place to ensure the integrity of the voting process. In no way did any individuals unfairly influence the outcome of the competition.” Lambert had been the favorite going into the final, and Fox never said what Allen’s margin of victory was, though it said 100 million votes were cast. But while AT&T admitted to a bit of over-enthusiasm on the part of employees getting behind a hometown hero, the company said it had no impact on the outcome. “Going forward, we will make sure our employees understand our [‘Idol’] sponsorship celebrates the competition, not individual contestants,” it pledged in a statement.
Now on Vatican Radio, commercial breaks
The Vatican already has a Facebook page and an iPhone application. Now the Pope’s home base is exploring a somewhat older form of media: advertising. Vatican Radio is adding advertisements for the first time in its eight-decade history, its management said this week. The hope is that the commercials will offset the $29.8 million annual operating fees for the broadcasting service, which employs roughly 200 journalists around the globe. Vatican Radio was careful to term this move an experiment, and it insists that commercials will be placed tastefully and won’t overshadow accompanying programming. Vatican Radio has secured an ad agency to vet all potential advertisers to ensure they are morally sound. The first advertiser will be ENEL, an Italian electric company, which will broadcast ads from July to late August in five languages.
Globe turnaround: Is union contract in danger?
Two Boston Globe unions approved changes to their contracts with the New York Times Co. this week, but the company is still waiting on the okay from the paper’s biggest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild. And that approval suddenly looks less certain. The Globe reports that members of the BNG have begun circulating a petition urging publisher P. Steven Ainsley to reduce the pay cut from the 8.7 percent specified in the pending new contract to 5 percent. Otherwise, the employees warn, the new contract could be rejected when it comes to a vote, which would presumably trigger another threat from the Times Co. to close the paper. The petitioners argue that their paycut should be no greater than the 5 percent being imposed on nonunion managers and other employees at the flagship paper. The Times Co. says the Globe will lose $85 million this year, prompting last month’s threat of closure unless the unions agreed to new contracts.
Nielsen: 2.7 percent unprepared for digital TV
Just over two weeks away from the June 12 transition to digital TV, 3.1 million homes are still not ready. An additional 200,000 U.S. homes have become prepared for the transition since mid-May, according to Nielsen, but 2.7 percent of U.S. households still need to get ready for the switch. African-American and Hispanic households have improved their preparedness, but still lag behind the national average; 5.4 percent of black households are still unready, as are 4.7 percent of Hispanic households. Of the 56 metered markets Nielsen examined, only one, Providence-New Bedford, appears completely ready for the switch. On the opposite end, Albuquerque-Santa Fe is the least-ready market with 8.4 percent of households still not prepared.
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