Google marries AdSense network to YouTube clips
YouTube’s user-generated videos have already inspired several television commercials. Now YouTube owner Google hopes to hook up advertisers with already-airing videos to help engage consumers. Starting today, AdSense web sites will be able to embed YouTube clips relevant to their product. A shoe site might link to a video about shoes, for example, though the site would not necessarily get to choose which clip. Google will share the resulting ad revenue with the creators of the clips as well as the web sites using them, although the adaptation of the new tool is expected to be limited at first. According to The New York Times, Ford Models and Extreme Elements are early participants.
Sunday overnights: NBC charges ahead of ABC
With ABC seeing declines from its winning opening-Sunday average, NBC grabbed a rather easy victory Sunday night among adults 18-49. Meanwhile, the CW’s new drama “Life is Wild” opened to rather limp numbers.
NBC finished a strong first with a 5.6 adults 18-49 rating and 15 share, according to Nielsen overnights. ABC was second at 4.4/12, down 12 percent from last week’s rating, followed by Fox at 2.9/8, CBS at 2.6/7, and the CW at 0.4/1.
CBS and NBC tied for first at 7 p.m. at 2.9, CBS with football overrun and the start of “60 Minutes,” NBC with “Football Night in America.” ABC was third with a 2.6 for the season premiere of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” followed by Fox at 1.9 for repeats of “King of the Hill” and “The Simpsons,” Univision at 0.7 for “Nuestra Belleza Mexico 2007” and the CW with a 0.3 for “CW Now” (0.4) and “Online Nation” (0.3).
At 8 p.m., NBC took sole possession of No. 1 with a 6.0 for the end of “America” and the start of the Chicago Bears-Green Bay Packers game, followed by a 4.1 for ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” a 3.2 for Fox’s “Simpsons” (3.6) and “Hill” (2.9), a 2.0 for CBS’s “Minutes,” a 0.8 for Univision’s “Belleza” and a 0.4 for CW’s “Wild,” the lowest debut for any new scripted series this year.
At 9 p.m., NBC kept the lead with a 6.8 for football, followed closely by a 6.6 for ABC’s “Desperate Housewives,” down 11 percent from last week’s 7.4. Fox was third with a 3.5 for “Family Guy” (4.0) and “American Dad” (3.0), followed by CBS at 2.9 for “Cold Case,” Univision at 0.9 for “Buscando a Timbiriche: La Nueva Band” and CW at 0.5 for a rerun of “America’s Next Top Model.”
At 10, NBC led again with a 6.8, followed by a 4.5 for ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters,” 12 percent off last week’s 5.1. CBS was third with a 2.5 for “Shark” and Univision fourth with a 0.9 for “Buscando.”
Among households, NBC led with an 8.4/14, followed by ABC at 7.8/13, CBS at 7.6/12, Fox at 3.7/6, Univision at 1.2/2 and CW at 0.9/2.
Starch promising advertisers better data on print ads
Advertisers are increasingly focused on such things as return on investment and measuring effectiveness when it comes to their print ads. As such Starch, a company that does just that, is overhauling its measurement methods to enable advertisers to gain more information on how their print ads have actually influenced consumers, according to The New York Times. The new offering, called the eStarch Ad Readership service, aims to uncover such things as whether those who read an ad changed their attitude toward that brand or recommended the product to a friend. The move by advertisers to measure the effectiveness of their print advertising has come partly as a result of the internet, which has sold itself as being a highly measurable medium.
Programming notes: 'Dr. Phil' getting syndie spinoff
Dr. Phil McGraw got plenty of airtime on “Oprah” in advance of launching his own syndicated show, and CBS Television Distribution will use a similar strategy ahead of debuting another new syndicated talk show. The studio is targeting a “Dr. Phil” spinoff for next fall called “The Doctors,” in which a panel of doctors will discuss various health issues. The show’s doctors haven’t been named, but they figure to appear on “Dr. Phil” quite a bit this season before going on their own next year. Meanwhile, in other programming news, NBC Universal has plans for a syndicated version of its game show “Deal or No Deal” for next fall, keeping host Howie Mandel. The syndicated version of the show is said to be faster-paced than its primetime counterpart, and the top prize will be $250,000 as opposed to $1 million. And ABC Family has ordered a third season of “Kyle XY,” the show about a mysterious teen without a belly button. The second season of the show has averaged 333,000 viewers 18-34, up 8 percent versus 308,000 during season one.
Circus act? Yet another British phone-in bugaboo.
The premium-rate phone-in scandal that has embroiled the BBC and other British broadcasters now includes one that criticized such programs as sleazy and grubby earlier this year. BSkyB admitted yesterday in a statement that some votes were not counted for weekend voting on “Cirque de Celebrité,” leading the reality show to invite booted former soccer star Dean Holdsworth back a day after he’d been evicted. The show, which chronicles celebrities attempting to do circus tricks, will refund viewers who voted in the disputed results and will match the refunds with a charity donation. The mistake comes after BSkyB chief James Murdoch sounded off last month over rival broadcasters’ phone-in scandal woes. “We knew we could make a lot of money out of [premium-rate phone-ins[, but these kinds of programmes are very easy to abuse. They just seem unfair,” he told the magazine Television.
