Thirty percent
of Americans still aren't wired
Other shorts: Adult Swim lets viewers choose the pilots
By Louisa Ada Seltzer
Feb 17, 2010
NTIA: Thirty percent of Americans still aren't wired
We may think of ourselves as a wired nation, where everyone and his grandfather has a Facebook account, but that's not exactly true. A full 30 percent of U.S. residents do not use the internet, and 35 percent do not have internet access at home, according to a study commissioned by the National Telecommunications & Information Administration based on Census Bureau data. Broadband usage has grown for sure since the last Census data, up from 51 percent of households three years ago to 64 percent today. Thirty-eight percent of those without it said that they do not feel they need broadband, while 26 percent said it is too expensive. Minorities, less-educated people, poor people, rural residents and seniors were the groups least likely to have internet access, and President Barack Obama has targeted them for broadband expansion in the coming years.
Adult Swim lets viewers choose the pilots
Here’s a chance for Adult Swim viewers to try being the network’s programming director. On Monday Adult Swim launched the “Big Uber Network Sampling” promotion, in which viewers vote for their favorite show among eight new pilots. This week and next viewers will vote for their favorite of two pilots at www.AdultSwim.com/buns. The first competition is between “Cheyenne Cinnamon” and “Snake N’ Bacon;” later this week will feature “Southies” versus “Duckworth;” and next week they can choose between “Yappy Broads” versus “Neon Knome” and “Soul Quest Overdrive” versus “Totally4Teens.” The winner of each first-round matchup will make it to the four-pilot final round, which begins March 1. The pilot that gets the most votes in that round will air on Adult Swim during the week of March 22. The promotion is sponsored by Burger King and is meant to echo the fast-food chain’s “Have it Your Way” tagline. A separate promotion running later this spring will give a winner the chance to decide on an entire block of programming to air sometime in July.
Study: A third visited Super Bowl advertisers' sites
One of the notable Super Bowl advertising trends this year was directing viewers to an advertiser's web site to view an extended version of the commercial, an approach used by Boost Mobile, GoDaddy and HomeAway, among others. It's probably little wonder, then, that nearly a third of Super Bowl viewers visited at least one web site of an advertiser between the end of the game and midnight on Super Bowl Sunday. That's according to Integrated Media Measurement Inc., which found that 31.4 percent of respondents logged on to an advertiser's site during the window. GoDaddy got the majority of the traffic, not surprisingly since it directed people to its site to see "uncensored" versions of its racy ads with race car driver Danica Patrick. Monster.com (8.6 percent of postgame traffic) and Dockers (5.7 percent) were the other top beneficiaries. Just over 70 percent of viewers also used Google after the game. Though Google was a Super Bowl advertiser, IMMI assumed most people were going to the site to perform a search and weren't driven there by its ad.
Palin to 'Family Guy:' That was a low blow
You won’t see “Family Guy” creator Seth MacFarlane and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin hanging out at the next News Corp. company picnic. Palin, who now works for Fox News Channel as a contributor, has taken to Facebook to complain about a joke on Fox’s “Family Guy” that she says mocked her son Trig, who has Down syndrome. In the episode, Chris goes on a date with a girl with Down syndrome and asks what her parents do. She responds, “My dad's an accountant, and my mom is the former governor of Alaska.” On her Facebook page, Palin said the episode felt like a kick in the gut, and then allowed her daughter Bristol Palin to write what she thought. In part, Bristol wrote, “If the writers of a particularly pathetic cartoon show thought they were being clever in mocking my brother and my family yesterday, they failed. All they proved is that they’re heartless jerks.” MacFarlane later told the Los Angeles Times in a statement, “From its inception, ‘Family Guy’ has used biting satire as the foundation of its humor. The show is an ‘equal-opportunity offender.’”
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